Twelve AGs Filed Comments Urging EPA to Adopt Meaningful Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Airplanes

OCTOBER 19, 2020

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra led a coalition of 12 attorneys general in filing comments sharply criticizing a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish hollow greenhouse gas emissions standards for airplanes that would result in no actual emissions reductions. In their comments, the attorneys general warned that the proposal “is an empty exercise that substitutes feeble, already-obsolete standards for the critically needed regulation Congress intended.” The standards proposed by the EPA mirror a set of standards developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 2016, which “were set to such a low stringency level that all aircraft currently in development or in production would already comply.” The proposal carries significant climate implications: U.S. aircraft are responsible for more than one-quarter of global aviation emissions, and emissions from aircraft covered by the EPA’s proposal are “projected to grow by 43 percent over the next two decades.” The AGs emphasized that the proposed standards would “merely slow down the massive increase in aviation sector emissions projected through 2040,” and would do nothing to “‘bend the curve’ down toward carbon-neutrality, which is necessary to stave off the worst effects of climate change.”