by Jean Chemnick and Mike Lee at Politico
The Biden administration on Wednesday issued one of its most ambitious climate rules, a push that could cause electric cars to make up the majority of U.S. auto sales eight years from now.
The final version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Cars rule is the strictest federal climate regulation ever issued for passenger cars and trucks — even though it offers manufacturers a slightly slower phase-in of pollution limits than the EPA had first proposed last spring.
The agency estimated a year ago that the rule could lead to two-thirds of new cars and passenger trucks being electric in 2032. Wednesday’s version says automakers could build a mix of vehicles to comply with the rule, including fully battery-powered vehicles, plug-in hybrids that run on electricity and gasoline, and more efficient conventional engines.
President Joe Biden said the rule fulfills his promise to cut the nation’s carbon pollution in half by the end of the decade while promoting American workers. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs,” Biden said in a statement.
“And we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”
The regulation offers a test of Biden’s ability to drive…