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Turns Out Fuel Efficiency Rules Made Jobs Too

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A lot of automakers have complained that the government’s increasingly strict fuel-efficiency and emissions regulations would kill jobs—most pointed of all was now former Ford CEO Mark Fields’ assertion that the rules, as they currently stand, would cost the US 1 million jobs.


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However, according to a new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, clean energy technology and increasing fuel efficiency regulations support many American jobs where, across 48 states, 288,000 workers labor in manufacturing and engineering companies to build fuel-efficient cars and trucks.

The greatest numbers of these clean manufacturing jobs were in the Midwest, where the trio of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan are each home to more than 75 facilities, employing around 25,000 people.

In Michigan, it’s a lot more, with 224 locations employing 69,593 people.


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Now, before anyone jumps to any conclusions that we need to get those standards ratified the way they were before dirty ol’ Trump and Scott Pruitt had at ‘em in order to protect that over quarter of a million jobs, let’s point out one thing: current emissions regulations are already set. They aren’t going anywhere. The only ones under threat are those for 2022-2025. So, odds are pretty good that these jobs aren’t in danger, and it looks to me like there will be more hires before there would be layoffs.

Now, then. What this data does tell us is that, opposite to what anti-regulation rhetoric may imply, emissions rules aren’t job-killers. These quarter-million jobs are made possible by automakers being forced to create more fuel-efficient vehicles, and should those requirements stick around, more jobs will probably be created.

News Source: Green Car Reports