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WHY ARE SOME AUTOMAKERS SUING FOR MORE CARBON POLLUTION? Dear General Motors, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Hyundai, Kia, and Mitsubishi: 1 https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019 2 https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/press_release/unsaferule/ 3 https://www.bluegreenalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tech@Risk_Report2019_vFINAL.pdf 4 https://www.lung.org/about-us/media/press-releases/new-poll-shows-overwhelming.html; https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/press_release/fueleconomysurvey2019/ 5 https://www.ceres.org/news-center/press-releases/200-investors-call-us-companies-align-climate-lobbying-paris-agreement 6 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/30/trump-gm-toyota-and-chrysler-holding-us-hostage-to-a-dying-planet.html Paid For By Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucsusa.org Mrs. Mary T. Barra Chairman and CEO General Motors Company Mr. James Lentz CEO Toyota Motor North America Mr. Michael Manley CEO Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. Mr. José Luis Valls President and CEO Nissan North America Mr. Thomas J. Doll President and CEO Subaru of America Mr. Masahiro Moro Chairman and CEO Mazda North American Operations Mr. José Muñoz President and CEO Hyundai North America Mr. SeungKyu (Sean) Yoon President and CEO Kia Motors North America Mr. Fred Diaz President and CEO Mitsubishi Motors North America Gina McCarthy President and CEO, Natural Resources Defense Council Fred Krupp President, Environmental Defense Fund Gene Karpinski President, League of Conservation Voters Michael Brune Executive Director, Sierra Club Ken Kimmell President, Union of Concerned Scientists Your companies’ products together are responsible for a major share of climate pollution from transportation, now America‘s largest source of climate pollution. Yet unlike other leading companies in the automotive sector and across other sectors, your companies are attacking crucial clean cars standards that are helping address climate change, the most serious and urgent challenge facing humanity. Your companies are threatening urgent climate progress by litigating in support of the Trump administration’s unprecedented and unlawful attack on long-standing state authority to address climate pollution, an effort that would increase pollution and put millions of people at risk if it succeeds. On behalf of our millions of members and supporters, many of whom are car and truck customers, we call on you to immediately withdraw from litigation against existing clean car standards, support state clean car leadership, and call for the adoption of rigorous, climate- protective clean car standards that are imperative to address the climate crisis. The world’s scientists are urgently warning all of us that “deeper and faster” pollution reductions are now required to guard against the worst impacts of climate change. 1 Curbing pollution from the transportation sector is particularly crucial, as this sector is now America’s largest source of carbon pollution. State leadership has a long and vital history of spurring the development and deployment of clean car solutions, such as smog-fighting catalytic converters, that have resulted in enormous health benefits for Americans across the country. The Trump administration’s efforts to both block state clean car standards and roll back national clean car standards would threaten public health with dirtier air and dramatically set back our efforts to tackle climate pollution from passenger cars and trucks, resulting in billions of tons of additional pollution, costing Americans hundreds of billions in lost fuel savings 2 , and preventing the creation or cause the elimination of between 89,000 and 202,000 American jobs. 3 Your companies are out of step with many other business leaders and the vast majority of Americans. Surveys by the American Lung Association and Consumer Reports underscore that the majority of Americans support strong clean car standards. 4 Leading companies are seizing this momentum by innovating to address climate pollution, delivering new mobility solutions, expanding job opportunities, providing cleaner air, and fostering economic prosperity. Major investors have recently underscored that companies must align their policy lobbying with climate targets, 5 and have specifically called out your companies for exposing yourselves to increased economic and climate risk by supporting the Trump administration’s attack on clean car standards. 6 We call on you to act on climate by investing in innovation instead of litigation and standing with the majority of Americans who want strong clean car standards and cleaner air.
