WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Friday formally unveiled standards that would dramatically increase U.S. fuel economy standards for cars and trucks by 2025.
The plan, which is the result of months of negotiations between the Obama administration and auto makers, would require motor company fleets to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
"This agreement on fuel standards represents the single most important step we've ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Obama said at an event announcing the new standards.
Flanked by top auto maker executives, Obama said the new rules would lower the country's oil use by 2.2 million barrels a day over next 15 years and save U.S. consumers almost $2 trillion in fuel costs.
In addition to lowering oil use, the standards are also expected to cut more than 6 billion metric tons of carbon pollution during the life of the program -- more than the entire amount of carbon the United States emitted in 2010 -- the White House said.
The compromise reached with auto makers is slightly less than the administration's original proposal for corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards.
But it is a major step up from current standards that require auto makers to achieve 35.5 mpg by 2016.
Earlier, the administration had proposed increasing the CAFE target to 56.2 mpg between 2017 and 2025, but that plan ran into opposition from the industry and some lawmakers.
(Additional reporting by Malathi Nayak and Emily Stephenson in Washington and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Alden Bentley)
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