#ICYMI: Attorney General Becerra Criticizes Trump’s Proposed Plan Weakening Clean Car Standards

Attorney General Becerra speaks out in advance of upcoming hearing on Proposed Rollbacks of Clean Car Standards

This morning, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, participated in a call with reporters regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s plan to weaken Clean Car Standards. The call was coordinated by The Better World Group.

Remarks below:

“I want to say thank you to Governor Malloy and to my good friend, Attorney General Brian Frosh from Maryland, for the work that they have continued to do. We’re not going to stop. For us, it’s very important. To The Better World Group, thank you also for helping coordinate this phone call as we talk about preserving and enhancing our Clean Car Standards for the nation.

For most of us, this is an issue about leaning forward, not backsliding. This is about 21st-century innovation and technology, not about trying to do business the way we did it in the last century, the old way.

Not everyone in America has the luxury of living in a bubble – even an oval bubble – when it comes to how we treat our communities and our environment. For most people, devastating hurricanes like Florence or wildfires and mudslides as we’ve experienced in California, the flooding and the drought; those things ruin lives, they’ve ruined businesses, and they’ve ruined communities. For 99 percent of Americans, making our neighborhoods, our communities, our economy, cleaner and safer is a must. Because for them, it’s not just a luxury to be able to go out there and make the most of life. They have to get out there and work hard for everything they do.

So that’s why we are pushing forward to protect these national standards when it comes to how we treat those vehicles on the road. Because in California, we know after suffering the worst pollution in more than 20 years…we must continue to move forward. In California, we know that you don’t become the economic engine for the country, and now the fifth-largest economy in the world, by just spectating. We go out there and clean where we can – the environment, our neighborhoods. So we use the 21st-century technology that’s available to us, and that’s why we become the number-one state when it comes to clean energy and innovation.

For us, it’s not a choice, it’s a requirement. It’s a necessity that we move forward. We don’t want to turn back the clock. We also know it’s made good business sense to move forward with cleaner air. It has helped our economy. We have made our vehicles more efficient. We’re selling more of them than ever before. For anyone to say that you have to turn back the clock in order to make progress, I would say to them that they have to get out of that bubble.

I, too, am looking forward to those hearings. I will be in Fresno on Monday, speaking at 10 AM about the compelling need for the Clean Car Standards to continue on a national basis, and for California to continue to maintain its leadership role in making sure that we don’t backslide. And so we’re looking forward to this fight because we think we have a winning strategy, and the evidence is on our side.”