Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Automakers’ Emissions Pact With California. Update: DOJ ends investigation

[K1052]

The Justice Department has opened an antitrust inquiry into the four major automakers that struck a deal with California this yearto reduce automobile emissions, according to people familiar with the matter, escalating a standoff between President Trump, California and the auto industry over one of his most significant rollbacks of climate regulations.

The Trump administration is moving to drastically roll back Obama-era rules designed to reduce car emissions that contribute to global warming, an effort major automakers have publicly opposed. The administration is also considering a plan to revoke California’s legal authority to enforce stricter greenhouse gas emissions rules within its state borders, putting the two sides on a collision course.

Legal experts and people close to the Trump administration said the investigation was meant as a show of force for companies that have displeased the president.

“The antitrust statutes give the government quite a lot of power to threaten companies with anticollusion charges, and they’re going to go ahead and use it,” said Myron Ebell, who heads the energy program at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded research organization, and who led the administration’s transition at the E.P.A. “It’s really the threat that matters. In many cases, it’s a shot across the bow to get the attention of corporations.”

Richard Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, said he saw the case as an unprecedented effort to use the Justice Department to intimidate or punish companies that had angered the president.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/...7YhRKu8D83d2QKv4V_8Zy-Mct7KTtGxocudq7_wo8GyU4


Aside from being an incredible abuse of power if he gets them to junk the pact then CA will likely impose more rigorous standards without automaker input and the Trump admin is almost certain to lose its case against CA in court not to mention the likelihood that the Federal rule changes that will be announced will be tossed also.

Don't upset the Trumpy or he'll sic the DOJ on you...

Update: DOJ drops laughable investigation

Justice Department notifies four automakers it has dropped antitrust investigation

The Justice Department notified four major automakers that it has closed an antitrust investigation involving the companies, launched after they rejected the Trump administration's relaxed air pollution and mileage regulations, a department official told CNN.

The Department of Justice opened the antitrust investigation last year into BMW, Ford, Honda and Volkswagen and after they agreed to meet the tougher standards set by the California Air Resources Board rather than the administration's rules, which would roll back standards put in place under former President Barack Obama.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/politics/justice-department-drops-antitrust-investigation/index.html

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Really don't understand the justification behind an antitrust suit on this one, not like they start raking in additional profits if they 'collude' on a higher emissions standard.

I swear some people are happy just watching extinction level events take place. Reminds me of FO3, watching Megaton explode from Tenpenny Tower.

 

[K1052]

Really don't understand the justification behind an antitrust suit on this one, not like they start raking in additional profits if they 'collude' on a higher emissions standard.

I swear some people are happy just watching extinction level events take place. Reminds me of FO3, watching Megaton explode from Tenpenny Tower.

Also negotiating rules with a regulator (CARB in this case) isn't collusion. The EPA does the same thing.

The intent is to scuttle the deal by making the automakers afraid. Even if this succeeds CA will just impose a unilateral standard without automaker input or consent, potentially a more stringent one. Lol at the automakers who thought they could get Trump to just modestly relax their standards and he's upended their entire investment strategy and put them under antitrust investigation. What a colossal fuckup.

 

[nakedfrog]

Really don't understand the justification behind an antitrust suit on this one, not like they start raking in additional profits if they 'collude' on a higher emissions standard.

I swear some people are happy just watching extinction level events take place. Reminds me of FO3, watching Megaton explode from Tenpenny Tower.

Petty vindictiveness... like so much else about this administration.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Lol at the automakers who thought they could get Trump to just modestly relax their standards and he's upended their entire investment strategy and put them under antitrust investigation. What a colossal fuckup.

Wait, I thought this whole kerfuffle was the Trump admin slapping down CA for creating more stringent rules, and thus the car mfgs agreeing to work on the rules together regardless, then THIS being a slapdown of that behavior for some absurd 'antitrust' reasons, am I misreading this?

 

[K1052]

Wait, I thought this whole kerfuffle was the Trump admin slapping down CA for creating more stringent rules, and thus the car mfgs agreeing to work on the rules together regardless, then THIS being a slapdown of that behavior for some absurd 'antitrust' reasons, am I misreading this?

Trump elected.
Automakers ask Trump for modestly looser efficiency standards.
Trump tells EPA to throw out efficiency standards.
Automakers freak out.
California says fuck you no, if you want to sell in CARB states you need to work with us.
EPA says no. Automakers seeing little alternative say alright lets talk.
California says here is our own deal with automakers.
Trump becomes VERY angry since he can't really stop it and it's embarassing.
Trump threatens automakers with a bullshit antitrust action to scare them away.

Likely outcome is CA imposing a standard unilaterally without automaker input witch they will have to comply with.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Trump elected.
Automakers ask Trump for modestly looser efficiency standards.
Trump tells EPA to throw out efficiency standards.
Automakers freak out.
California says fuck you no, if you want to sell in CARB states you need to work with us.
EPA says no. Automakers seeing little alternative say alright lets talk.
California says here is our own deal with automakers.
Trump becomes VERY angry since he can't really stop it and it's embarassing.
Trump threatens automakers with a bullshit antitrust action to scare them away.

Likely outcome is CA imposing a standard unilaterally without automaker input witch they will have to comply with.

Fuck, sounds like a win in my book.

Can't imagine how we got to the point of global extinction events with this kind of level-headedness.

 

[Thump553]

Thirteen other states mandate following the CA emissions standards. It seems yet again Trump is spoiling to create discord. The 2020 elections can't come soon enough.

Two things I will never understand-the OJ acquittal and the Trump election. Each seem to be the result of a FU decision by jurors/sizable portion of the voters.

 

[thilanliyan]

OMG people will end up with more fuel efficient cars and there will be less pollution!!! The humanity!!

Seriously, the short sightedness and rampant corruption of this admin is just sad.

 

[K1052]

OMG people will end up with more fuel efficient cars and there will be less pollution!!! The humanity!!

Seriously, the short sightedness and rampant corruption of this admin is just sad.

This is one of those things that always polls like 90% that Americans want less polluting and more efficient vehicles.

I mean if there was a presidency that tried to array itself more comprehensively against the policy wishes of the electorate I could not name it.

 

[Jaskalas]

Dear Republicans. You PRETEND to care about State's rights. California is a State. They have rights. Will you defend those rights?

 

[JSt0rm]

Dear Republicans. You PRETEND to care about State's rights. California is a State. They have rights. Will you defend those rights?

Fuck no. States rights is code for making abortion illegal and to put a gun in every hand.

 

[K1052]

The administration's apparent contention is that they'll be able to rescind CA's already granted Clean Air Act waiver for the model years impacted and scotch their entire legislatively granted authority. This is maybe a half step up in promise from the arguments "sovereign citizens" try in order not to pay taxes and likely to be just as fruitful.

Even if, by some miracle, the waiver was successfully repealed and CA's entire authority under the Clean Air Act negated Industry hates this outcome because they'll all be around after Trump is out of office. There would be nothing to stop a D president from issuing CA a waiver again and let CARB really bring down the hammer on the automakers. Any subsequent CARB regime is likely to be far less friendly to industry.

 

[UNCjigga]

If you think about it, this is exactly what the government from ‘Atlas Shrugged’ would do to embrace mediocrity and punish those innovators working towards higher efficiency...but I’m sure the resident libertariantards still love Trump.

 

[sdifox]

Umm whut? Did they fire all the attorneys in Justice Dept?

 

[SMOGZINN]

Also negotiating rules with a regulator (CARB in this case) isn't collusion. The EPA does the same thing.

I was about to say the same thing. This is as much collusion as them following the EPA standards. This is not even good intimidation, for it to work as intimidation it would have to not be obviously ridiculous.

Umm whut? Did they fire all the attorneys in Justice Dept?

Only those that foolishly thought they were working for the people and not Trump.
The current DOJ is Trumps personal law firm.

 

[fskimospy]

Remember when conservatives were in hysterics over a fake story of Obama going after conservative groups with the IRS?

Hmm.

 

[trenchfoot]

I was about to say the same thing. This is as much collusion as them following the EPA standards. This is not even good intimidation, for it to work as intimidation it would have to not be obviously ridiculous.



Only those that foolishly thought they were working for the people and not Trump.
The current DOJ is Trumps personal law firm.

Just like how he had things in the private sector where he'd use his wealth and his lawyers to intimidate and get his way.

Not a single thing has changed with this guy when he got put up at the White House except for the fact that he has control of the gov't to please himself and expand his wealth in ways he never thought possible.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Remember when conservatives were in hysterics over a fake story of Obama going after conservative groups with the IRS?

Hmm.

No shit. They used it as an excuse to cut the IRS's budget to the bone. The agency is incapable of doing some of the basic functions of it's mandate because of it, and that is how they want it.

 

[Jhhnn]

Trump elected.
Automakers ask Trump for modestly looser efficiency standards.
Trump tells EPA to throw out efficiency standards.
Automakers freak out.
California says fuck you no, if you want to sell in CARB states you need to work with us.
EPA says no. Automakers seeing little alternative say alright lets talk.
California says here is our own deal with automakers.
Trump becomes VERY angry since he can't really stop it and it's embarassing.
Trump threatens automakers with a bullshit antitrust action to scare them away.

Likely outcome is CA imposing a standard unilaterally without automaker input witch they will have to comply with.

Not to mention that Big Oil paid a lot of people a lot of money to convince the Trump admin. They don't want to sell less gas in 2025 but rather more.

 

[sdifox]

I was about to say the same thing. This is as much collusion as them following the EPA standards. This is not even good intimidation, for it to work as intimidation it would have to not be obviously ridiculous.



Only those that foolishly thought they were working for the people and not Trump.
The current DOJ is Trumps personal law firm.

What I meant was how can they complain about someone setting tougher standard than federal emission standards? State right lol.

 

[K1052]

Not to mention that Big Oil paid a lot of people a lot of money to convince the Trump admin. They don't want to sell less gas in 2025 but rather more.

This is correct, the oil industry lobbied him also to undo the standards. They also lobbied him to permit dozens of refineries waivers to stop ethanol blending and collapsed demand for ethanol which now threatens to wipe out much of the industry and lots of corn farmers lol.

 

[TheVrolok]

Still waiting for some insight from our resident "conservatives."

 

[Jhhnn]

This is correct, the oil industry lobbied him also to undo the standards. They also lobbied him to permit dozens of refineries waivers to stop ethanol blending and collapsed demand for ethanol which now threatens to wipe out much of the industry and lots of corn farmers lol.

I'm pretty sure Hillary wouldn't have set up American farmers for the fucking they're taking with Trump. I dunno how it will play out, but I figure the Chinese can just run out the clock on Trump, if they want. If things keep going the way they have been for farmers they'll practically be in open revolt by the election.

Which doesn't have a lot to do with the topic other than to show us where Trump's loyalties & priorities lie. He's all about Big Oil. Ask MBS if you don't believe me.

 

[brycejones]

Still waiting for some insight from our resident "conservatives."

They haven’t been provided the talking points yet.