National Highway Traffic Safety Administration January 14, 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On October 2, 2020, NHTSA received a petition for rulemaking from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation regarding when to apply an increase to the civil penalty rate applicable to automobile manufacturers that fail to meet applicable corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards and are unable to offset such a deficit with compliance credits. After carefully considering the issues raised, NHTSA has granted the petition and promulgates an interim final rule providing that the increase will go into effect beginning in model year 2022 in accordance with NHTSA's December 2016 rule on the same issue, except if the August 31, 2020 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Case No. 19-2395 is vacated. This interim final rule amends the relevant regulatory text accordingly and requests comment. This document also responds to a petition for reconsideration of NHTSA's July 2019 rule from the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.