A single fix reverses the case for rolling back vehicle emissions standards

Two administrations, the Biden administration and the second Trump administration, reached opposite conclusions about whether vehicle emissions standards should be rolled back. These conclusions came from different assumptions, including whether avoiding air pollution has value to society and the degree to which car buyers value future fuel savings from getting a more efficient vehicle. Both assumptions matter, and disagreement over either accounts for hundreds of billions of dollars in the government's cost-benefit math on vehicle emissions standards—math that, in this year's rollback, also assumes gas prices are lower than what drivers are actually paying at the pump.