Trump plan on vehicles’ fuel efficiency to cost Ohioans more

Rob Kelter
| Guest opinion

The Trump administration claims that its plan to roll back fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks in model years 2027-2031 will save Americans about $1,000 on each new vehicle. That brings to mind an old adage: penny wise and pound foolish. This short-sighted change will cost customers far more than they’d ever “save” at the dealership.

First, customers will simply pay more for gas. When cars get fewer miles per gallon (MPG), each gallon takes you a shorter distance. You stop at the pump more often, and you pay more out of pocket. Second, when the entire country uses more gasoline, the basic laws of supply and demand kick in – higher demand means higher prices at the pump for everyone.

We’ve seen plenty of big numbers thrown around in this debate, but let’s look at something relatable for many Americans. If you own a pickup truck or SUV, let’s assume a fuel economy of 25 mpg. With gas averaging $3.12 per gallon, and a typical 15-gallon tank, it costs you $46.80 to fill up and you get 375 miles on that tank. But if your vehicle gets 40 mpg instead, you could drive 600 miles on that same $46.80.

Now let’s look at a full year of driving. For 20,000 miles annually:

At 25 mpg, you buy 800 gallons of gas.
At 40 mpg, you buy 500 gallons.
That’s 300 gallons saved every year — roughly $936 annually at today’s prices.
Over the 12 plus years many Americans keep a vehicle, that’s $11,200 back in your pocket.

And keep in mind the national average price per gallon in 2024 wasn’t $3.12. It was closer to $3.50. If you live in a rural area or just have a long daily commute – say, 50 miles a day – fuel efficiency isn’t an abstract policy question. It’s hundreds of dollars a year in real savings.

And that’s just the individual cost. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s rollback of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards also drives up prices nationally. The more gasoline the U.S. consumes, the higher the long-term price. When demand surges, prices rise. When efficiency improves and demand falls, prices drop.

Lowering the national standard from a projected 50 mpg to 35 mpg in 2030 means Americans will use an additional 64 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050. Those 64 billion gallons fuel higher profits for the oil industry, and higher prices for the rest of us.

Perhaps most revealing, many carmakers weren’t asking for this dramatic rollback. The major push came from the oil and gas industry, which is the big winner because this will significantly slow down the end of oil in transportation.

The narrative that efficiency standards make cars unaffordable — pushed for decades — has never been true. When CAFE standards first went into effect in 1975, automakers warned they’d be put out of business. Instead, cars improved, customers saved money, and automakers adjusted. They have consistently overestimated the cost of efficiency improvements, and they continue to do so.

Americans deserve policies that keep everyday costs down, not policies that make them worse. Fuel efficiency has benefited consumers for decades. Rolling it back is not just penny wise and pound foolish. It’s just plain foolish.

Rob Kelter is a senior attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center, an environmental legal advocacy organization in Chicago with an office in Columbus.

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