WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released the following statement after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the agency would roll back fuel economy targets for cars that were set to go into effect between now and 2025:

“Scott Pruitt is conducting a shameless assault on public health, our climate, and American consumers to make his friends in industry happy. And let’s be clear the price Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump are willing to pay for that industry support. They’re taking money out of Americans’ pockets. These fuel economy standards would have saved consumers hundreds of billions of dollars at the pump. They’re ok with more childhood asthma, since these standards would have cut down on air pollutants that contribute to thousands of asthma attacks per year. And they’re willing to see more severe droughts, floods, wildfires, devastating hurricanes and the other effects of the climate chaos being driven by carbon pollution, of which transportation is now the top source in the U.S.

“The only way it makes sense to scrap these fuel standards is if you are determined to do the fossil fuel industry’s bidding, no matter the expense to the rest of America. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Scott Pruitt’s tenure at the EPA has been all about.”