Energy Dept’s own numbers say today’s rollback would raise fuel costs by 76c/gal

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced plans to roll back the scientific finding that climate change harms humans, with the intent to also rollback regulations that make cars more efficient. But this will also raise your fuel costs by $.76/gallon, according to the very same people who made today’s announcement.

In an expected-but-still-idiotic move, the Chief Saboteur of the EPA Lee Zeldin announced today that he wants to delete the EPA’s “Endangerment Finding”, the scientific basis for EPA’s regulation of harmful pollution.

The purpose behind this rollback, which so far is only proposed and not finalized (and has already met significant opposition from scientific and health organizations), is so that Zeldin can justify rolling back Biden’s money-saving emissions rules that stand to save over a trillion dollars in fuel and health costs. Zeldin’s move would make cars less efficient, thus increasing the costs to fuel them.

If that rollback sounds like a bad idea, it’s because it is. But Zeldin has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the oil industry, and the reality TV host who placed him into the position he’s in asked for a billion-dollar bribe from oil execs to end the same rules, so they’re duty bound to the fossil fuel companies to harm Americans as long as it helps oil industry profits.

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Zeldin’s announcement of the move today was, expectedly, full of lies (of the sort his employees have had to call him out for). One of those lies is that this move will somehow save you money, despite increasing your fuel usage, and thus increasing your fuel costs (and increasing the price of fuel due to higher demand).

It seems obvious that reducing efficiency will increase costs, but Zeldin is hoping that those who were listening to him will join him in opposite world and ignore everything about how economics works.

Interestingly, though, Zeldin was joined by Chris Wright, a fox… I mean, former oil CEO… who is now heading the henhouse… I mean, Department of Energy.

And this is interesting because Chris Wright’s own government department released its 2025 Annual Energy Outlook in April, and that outlook shows how a repeal of the EPA standards, sought by Zeldin, would increase gasoline prices by 76 cents a gallon in the long term.

The difference is shown clearly in a graph on the Energy Information Administration’s website, which you can also see below. The EIA is part of the DOE.

In this graph, “Reference case” refers to the case where laws and regulations active in December 2024 – namely, Biden’s emissions and fuel economy rules, and California’s similar emissions rules – continue to be implemented into the future. “Alternative Transportation” confusingly refers to a world where those Biden and CARB rules are not in place (despite that the rules would advance the use of less fossil fuels in transport, which is often referred to as “alternative transportation”).

The graph, signed off on by Chris Wright who was on stage today for this announcement, clearly shows that there would be a sharp decline in gasoline prices in a world where those emissions rules remain in place, right around the time they start being implemented (2027). Meanwhile, it shows a sharp rise in gas prices if those emissions rules are eliminated, which is what he and Zeldin announced their intent to do today.

So, by Chris Wright’s own admission, he wants to raise your fuel costs by 76 cents a gallon. Hope you’re ready for the price hike (that is, another one), you’re welcome America.

This is not the first move by the Trump administration to increase your costs in order to satiate their oil donors. In previous news, Sean Duffy, the reality TV contestant posing as head of the Department of Transportation (yes, really, his transportation expertise comes from his appearance on MTV’s Road Rules), announced his intent to raise your fuel costs by $23 billion by rolling back efficiency rules.

But it doesn’t just stop at them, it’s also republicans in Congress who are doing their best to raise your costs. They passed a bill that, among other things (like ballooning the federal deficit, raising your home energy costs by $400 annually, and sending 2 million US jobs to China), makes CAFE rules unenforceable, thus allowing automakers to offer less efficient vehicles that are more costly to fuel.

Today’s rollback is not yet finalized, and will go to a public comment period in the coming months. The plan has already received opposition from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Protection Network, Environmental Defense Fund, and America is All In (a group of mayors, governors and former officials of the EPA and Dept. of Health and Human Services), among others.

And then, even if Zeldin implements the unpopular and bad plan anyway, we’re sure there will be plenty of legal action, causing more waste of everyone’s time and money while we continue to choke on pollution and the oil donors continue to profit, as was the republican party’s goal in the first place.

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