California sues Trump’s EPA to see data that informed fuel economy rollback

Enlarge / Cars sit in rush hour traffic on the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda pass in this aerial photograph taken over Los Angeles, Calif., on Friday, July 10, 2015. (credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The state of California sued the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Friday, demanding to see the data and research that was used to inform the Trump administration’s latest attempt to roll back future fuel economy standards.

Specifically, the Golden State asked to see all “documents concerning vehicle-fleet composition, new car sales, vehicle safety, battery technology, and other information that NHTSA and EPA used in proposing to roll back vehicle emission and fuel economy standards.”

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in September 2018 to both the EPA and the NHTSA. In its recent complaint, CARB says that NHTSA responded to the FOIA with incomplete information and with inadequate justifications for why it held back what it did. The EPA failed to reply at all, California’s complaint says (PDF).