WASHINGTON— President Trump’s Department of Transportation today formally proposed gutting CAFE mile-per-gallon standards, which save billions of gallons of gas and save consumers billions at the pump. The agency signaled its intent to finalize the actions by year’s end.

Trump’s action is illegal because the CAFE law requires that the standards be set at the “maximum feasible” level, yet the new weak rule ignores not just the feasibility of clean technology but the existence of millions of efficient cars on the road.

“In one stroke Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs and global warming,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “The cure for pollution and high gas costs is strong fuel economy standards, not killing them as a favor to the president’s Big Oil, Big Auto and OPEC golf buddies. Trump’s action will feed America’s destructive use of oil, while hamstringing us in the green tech race against Chinese and other foreign carmakers. The auto industry will use this rule to drive itself back into a familiar ditch, failing to compete.”

The CAFE rule Trump is eviscerating would have saved 64 billion gallons of gas and delivered $35 billion in savings to consumers over the lifetimes of the vehicles covered. To do this, it would have required automakers to add gas-saving technology to make new cars average 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031.

The standards would also have slashed pollution that harms American kids, created jobs and helped check the flow of billions of dollars to OPEC and other countries.

Gutting the clean car standards will allow automakers to make vehicles that guzzle more gas and pollute more. It will force consumers to pay up to $35 billion more at the pump.

“We’ve seen this movie before when President George W. Bush’s weak standards allowed Detroit to ignore technology and churn out gas-guzzling clunkers. The result was bankruptcy for two of the Big Three and an $80 billion bailout paid for by taxpayers,” said Becker. “It’s sad that Trump invited the Big Three big wigs to tell them they needn’t make gas-saving cars while China is telling its carmakers to take advantage of the lack of U.S. competition and accelerate their efforts to grab the world’s burgeoning clean car market.”

CAFE standards are important because the United States is the world’s biggest oil guzzler, consuming 20 million barrels (840 million gallons) per day — 20% of the world’s oil use. Transportation is the biggest consumer of that oil, making strong auto standards the most effective way to cut pollution and oil use.