US: EPA proposes airplane emission standards that airlines already meet

The Trump administration Wednesday made public the federal government’s first proposal to control planet-warming pollution from airplanes, but the draft regulation would not push the airlines beyond emissions limits they have set for themselves. President Trump is still pressing forward on his three-and-a-half-year rollback of environmental standards, and the proposed airline rule would stave off an impending lawsuit by putting the federal government in compliance with a legal requirement that it regulate airplane greenhouse emissions. “This is the third time in the past two years that this administration has taken major action to regulate greenhouse gases in a way that is legally defensible, reduces CO2 and protects American jobs,” said Andrew Wheeler, the head of the EPA on Wednesday. Wheeler said he was referring to a 2019 regulation on greenhouse emissions from power plants and an April rule governing emissions from vehicle tailpipes. Both of those rules replaced far more stringent climate change standards developed by the Obama administration, and in both cases the new rules allow for more planet-warming emissions than their predecessors. The airline rules would be similar; critics say the substance of the proposal does little more than codify a set of standards largely created by the aviation industry itself, and is unlikely to diminish the industry’s contribution to global warming.<br/>