Washington, Jan 14, 2017: US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarth on Friday announced that the current stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for model years 2022-2025 cars and light trucks are appropriate and do not need to be changed.

"A wide variety of effective technologies" are available to reduce GHG emissions from cars and light trucks and that automakers are well positioned to meet the standards through model year 2025 "at lower costs than predicted", Xinhua quoted an EPA statement as saying.

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"My decision today rests on the technical record created by over eight years of research, hundreds of published reports including an independent review by the National Academy of Sciences, hundreds of stakeholder meetings and multiple opportunities for the public and the industry to provide input," McCarthy was quoted as saying.

"At every step in the process the analysis has shown that the greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks remain affordable and effective through 2025 and will save American drivers billions of dollars at the pump while protecting our health and the environment."

According to the EPA, the standards are projected to result in average fleet-wide consumer fuel economy sticker values of 36 miles per gallon (15 km per litre) by model year 2025, 10 miles per gallon (four km per litre) higher than the current fleet average.

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Overall, full implementation of the standards will cut about six billion tons of GHG emissions over the lifetimes of the vehicles sold in model years 2012-2025, the EPA said.

Cars and light trucks are the largest source of GHG emissions in the US transportation sector. (IANS)