President Donald Trump on Monday took action to give Americans more freedom to fix their cars’ emission systems.
Trump signed a presidential memorandum to the Environmental Protection Agency while flanked by the agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin.
“I think it’s very important; going to lower the price of your car, and it’s going to lower the price of fixing your car. It has to do with affordability, it has to do with a lot of things,” Trump said.
Zeldin emphasized that the Trump administration is not seeking to crack down on Americans working on their own cars, as “past administrations have” under a green agenda.
“Additionally… President Trump has been concerned about aftermarket parts, cheap knockoff aftermarket parts coming into the United States, harming small businesses, harming Americans. This presidential memo puts an end to it,” Zeldin said.
“Also, the only third-party certification for these aftermarket parts is CARB [California Air Resources Board] in California, a process that’s backlogged and faulty. So, we’re going to break that monopoly, and no longer will CARB be the only third-party certifier for these aftermarket parts,” he added.
Trump has previously cited one case in which a man, Troy Lake, was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act for what authorities said was disabling emissions monitoring systems on commercial trucks.
The president pardoned Lake in November after Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) sent him a letter in September advocating for a pardon.
“It came to my attention because I noticed they were arresting people for fixing their car. They were arresting people for fixing that’s not even believable,” Trump said Monday. “Anyway, so, it’s right to fix, and I think… it’s really common sense.”
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