By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – Friday’s announcement by President Joe Biden was a reverse of Donald Trump’s decision to roll back U.S. regulations aimed to improve gas mileage and reduce tailpipe pollution.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will announce that they will raise fuel efficiency requirements by 8% and 10% for the 2024-2025 models years, respectively. This is slightly less aggressive than what the agency proposed in August.

For new vehicles that are sold between 2030 and 2022, the new regulations will likely reduce consumers’ fuel costs by $192billion. Administration is keen to argue that the new regulations will spur automakers to build more efficient vehicles and save customers money in a period of high gas prices.

Automakers will have to comply with these rules, and will spend billions on more efficient vehicles.

Trump has lowered fuel economy standards set by Barack Obama in March 2020 to allow for 1.5% annual efficiency increases through 2026. Obama required an increase of 5% annually.

December saw the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finalize its vehicle emissions standards that were identical to NHTSA. According to the EPA, its regulations will reduce CO2 emissions by 3.1 billion tonnes through 2050. Large automakers backed Wednesday’s revisions of the EPA in response to challenges posed by some states.

According to the EPA, the fleetwide average real-world fuel consumption would be about 40 MPG in 2026, compared to 32 mpg for Trump’s rules. Real-world numbers are roughly the same for NHTSA.

NHTSA said Sunday it has reinstated the sharply increased penalties for automakers that fail to comply with fuel efficiency regulations for vehicles manufactured in 2019 or beyond. It was a major victory for Tesla (NASDAQ) and could mean that other automakers, like Chrysler-parent Stellantis are facing hundreds of million of dollars in fines.