A fuel efficiency rollback

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News, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

President Donald Trump plans to announce weaker fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks at a White House event today. The move will likely reverse a Biden-era rule requiring automakers to reach an average of 50 miles per gallon for new vehicles by 2031. Plus, as part of our lunar economy series, we hear how one company is recycling space debris into more useful products for the space industry.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Would you risk your life going to the moon? Would you risk your business? I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. First, multiple published reports say President Trump today will announce weaker fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. This would reverse a Biden-era requirement that fleets get to 50 miles per gallon within about five years.
0:22.7	Marketplace's Henry Ep reports.
0:24.2	This federal rule takes into account each automaker's entire fleet of vehicles.
0:29.7	If the average fuel efficiency across all their cars and trucks don't reach the standard, they get fined.
0:36.0	But over the summer, the Republican-controlled Congress
0:38.4	made a crucial change. They zeroed out the fines. So carmakers that fall short don't have to
0:44.1	pay anything. The Trump administration appears ready to lower the fuel efficiency standard anyway.
0:49.7	That's become something of a tradition in the last few decades. When Republicans are in the
0:54.1	White House, they lower fuel efficiency requirements. When Republicans are in the White House,
0:54.6	they lower fuel efficiency requirements. When Democrats are in, they raise them.
0:59.1	Trump has eliminated other federal policies this year that had pushed carmakers to build
1:03.4	more electric vehicles, including consumer tax credits and a rule that allowed California to set
1:09.2	its own higher fuel efficiency standard.
1:12.0	I'm Henry App for Marketplace. There is an isotope called Helium 3 that could cool new quantum computers. It's rare on Earth, plentiful on the moon at a market price of $20 million a kilo.
1:46.3	It might make economic sense to harvest the stuff from up there. This week on the Marketplace
1:51.4	Morning Report, multiple views on an emerging moon economy, how it might work and whether it's
1:56.8	even a good idea. Today, one of the companies that's working on both recycling space refuse into useful stuff and making units that could help power the lunar economy.
2:07.1	It's called cis lunar, and its co-founder and CEO, Gary Kalman, joins us. Good morning.
2:12.5	Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.
2:14.2	You know, you hear about building railroads on the moon, maybe to pick up stuff that gets
2:19.3	mined on the moon.
2:21.3	Your company is doing some thinking about, well, once you mind it, what useful things might it
	...

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