Consumer group tells EPA to let California enact 'clean car' program

By Keith Laing - 09/19/12 03:03 PM ET

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to allow California to implement a fuel efficiency program for cars that backers say will bring "zero-emission" electric vehicles to the state.

The EPA is holding a hearing on Wednesday to consider allowing California to enact the program, which goes even further than recently announced fuel efficiency standards by the Obama administration.

The California program will include the administration's emission requirements for traditional cars, but it will also require automakers to increase the percentage of low-emission and zero-emission cars they produce by as much as 15 percent by 2025.

CFA Director of Public Affairs Jack Gillis said it was important for the entire country that California's full clean-car program be allowed to proceed.

"California’s ability to set these strong standards is vitally important to the advancement of the auto industry and for meeting consumer demand for cleaner, more efficient cars in states across the nation," he said in testimony submitted to the EPA.

"In practice, tailpipe emissions standards encourage both the development of cars that go farther on a gallon of gas and alternatively-fueled vehicles," Gillis continued. "The result is cleaner, more efficient cars that help reduce America’s vulnerability to oil and gasoline price shocks."

The Obama administration's fuel efficiency standards begin with model year 2017 automobiles. California has had rules in place for cars produced from 2009 to 2016.

The federal requirement will mandate that cars get 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.