Tesla has invaded by other major automakers who want to ask the Environmental Protection Agency not to roll back current vehicle emission standards and want to ease the rules. The company’s demand came the same week that President Donald Trump, who spent $300 million to help Tesla CEO Elon Musk, said to the UN General Assembly, believes that climate change is a “fraud” and “fraud.”
Tesla also asked the EPA not to abandon the 2009 legal standard known as danger detection. Tesla said the findings were “based on robust facts and scientific records,” according to a letter to its agency.
The EPA has been seeking comment on these proposed attacks on environmental rules since August. Agency manager Lee Zeldin said at the time that the rollback would drive “daggers at the heart of climate change religion.”
Tesla’s nominal mission is to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” However, the company is financially benefiting from stricter environmental regulations. If other car manufacturers don’t meet their fleet’s emissions targets, they pay hundreds of millions of dollars to companies like Tesla and buy “credits” to make up for the difference. (These credits come from California programs, which are technically Republican targets.) Tesla is seeking standards to maintain, but the company told the EPA that it can “discuss the mechanisms to streamline them” to keep them.
