The Claim

Eliminated the costly Biden-era Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, saving Americans $109 billion over the next five years.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two things: (1) the Biden-era CAFE standards have been eliminated, and (2) this elimination saves Americans $109 billion over the five years following the claim date (approximately 2026-2030).

What is being implied but not asserted?

That Americans are financially better off as a result. That $109 billion in savings flows to consumers. That eliminating fuel economy standards is a net economic benefit rather than a one-sided accounting exercise. That the action was complete and final rather than pending.

What is conspicuously absent?

The other side of the ledger. The $109 billion figure represents projected manufacturer compliance cost savings — costs that were never certain to be passed to consumers — but omits the countervailing burden: NHTSA’s own Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis projects that consumers will pay up to $185 billion in additional fuel costs through 2050 as a result of the rollback. The word “eliminated” is also a significant overstatement: as of the claim date (January 20, 2026), the CAFE rollback was still a proposed rule (NPRM) with a public comment period that closed the same day the “365 wins” list was published. No final rule had been issued.

Padding Analysis: Restatement of Item 102

This item directly overlaps with item #102 (“Reversed onerous Biden-era fuel economy standards that would have added nearly $1,000 to the cost of the average new vehicle, delivering billions in savings for consumers”), which analyzed the same CAFE rollback announced December 3, 2025. The action, the policy, and the underlying source materials are identical. Item 335 substitutes an aggregate five-year dollar figure ($109 billion) for the per-vehicle figure ($1,000) used in item 102, but both figures derive from the same White House fact sheet and NHTSA PRIA. The new framing creates a more impressive-sounding number — $109 billion total rather than $1,000 per car — while compounding the same underlying misleading construction.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The Biden CAFE standards have not been “eliminated” — as of January 20, 2026, the Trump administration’s replacement standards were still a proposed rule. The SAFE Vehicles Rule III NPRM was published in the Federal Register on December 5, 2025. The public comment period ran through January 20, 2026 — the same day the “365 wins” page was published. A notice of proposed rulemaking is a statement of regulatory intent, not a completed action. The Biden standards remained the legally operative standards as of the claim date. ¹

The $109 billion figure originates from the White House fact sheet and DOT press release for the SAFE Vehicles Rule III announcement, but the underlying methodology is not publicly decomposed. The White House stated: “President Trump’s actions will save American families $109 billion in total over the next five years.” The DOT press release described it as projected savings over five years. The figure is not drawn from an independent analysis — it originates from the administration’s own promotional materials for the rollback. The NHTSA PRIA, which is the source document, reports automaker compliance cost savings of $35 billion through 2031 and upfront vehicle cost reductions averaging $900-$930 per vehicle, but does not present a round $109 billion five-year figure in its summary. The $109 billion likely aggregates projected upfront vehicle cost reductions across all new vehicle sales over five model years. ²

NHTSA’s own PRIA, the analytical basis for the rollback, projects up to $185 billion in additional consumer fuel costs through 2050 — more than offsetting any upfront cost reduction. The PRIA estimates increased fuel consumption of approximately 100 billion gallons through 2050 as a result of lower fuel economy requirements. Independent analysis by NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity found consumers will pay more in lifetime fuel costs than they save in technology costs beginning in model year 2027 in every scenario modeled in the PRIA. Per MY2031 vehicle, NHTSA’s own analysis implies consumers lose approximately $600 more in lifetime fuel spending than they save in upfront vehicle costs. ³

The “savings” in the $109 billion claim are overwhelmingly manufacturer cost avoidance, not consumer cash in hand. NHTSA’s PRIA estimates automaker compliance cost savings of $35 billion through 2031. The $900-$930 per-vehicle upfront reduction assumes manufacturers pass 100% of technology cost savings through to vehicle prices — but automakers explicitly stated the rollback would “boost earnings” and “help offset the cost of tariffs,” not reduce prices. GM noted the rollback would “boost earnings.” Ford CEO Jim Farley praised “aligning fuel economy standards with market realities.” These statements describe profit retention, not consumer price cuts. ⁴

Strong Inferences

The aggregate $109 billion figure applies the same misleading one-sided accounting as the per-vehicle figure in item 102, at a scale that obscures the omission. An aggregate savings figure sounds more definitive than a per-vehicle estimate and obscures the methodology more effectively. But the underlying problem is identical: the claimed “savings” count only reduced technology costs while ignoring increased lifetime fuel expenditures. If the $109 billion represents projected upfront cost reductions across five model years of new vehicle sales (approximately 7-8 million units per year at $900-$1,000 each), the correct comparison is the same five years’ worth of increased fuel costs those same vehicles will generate over their lifetimes — a number that dwarfs $109 billion. ⁵

The CAFE enforcement mechanism was already destroyed before this claim was made, making the $109 billion projection doubly hypothetical. Congress eliminated all CAFE civil penalties in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Section 40006), enacted July 4, 2025, setting the maximum civil penalty to $0.00. The Biden standards were already effectively unenforceable through fines as of July 2025. Any savings from reducing the nominal standard are therefore savings relative to a requirement that was already toothless. ⁶

What the Evidence Shows

The word “eliminated” is doing significant work in this claim and it is wrong on two levels. First, as of January 20, 2026, the Trump administration had not eliminated or replaced the Biden CAFE standards — it had published a proposed rule to do so, with the comment period closing that very day. Second, CAFE standards as an enforcement mechanism had already been rendered toothless by Congress in July 2025, when civil penalties were zeroed out. There was nothing left to “eliminate” in any meaningful enforcement sense.

The $109 billion figure is drawn directly from the administration’s own promotional materials, not from the NHTSA PRIA itself, and the methodology is not publicly decomposed. It most plausibly represents an aggregation of the per-vehicle upfront cost reduction ($900-$930) multiplied across five model years of new vehicle sales — roughly 35-40 million vehicles at $900-$1,000 each. That calculation yields a number in the neighborhood of $30-40 billion, not $109 billion, which suggests the figure also incorporates automaker compliance cost avoidance ($35 billion through 2031) and possibly other PRIA line items in a way that conflates manufacturer savings with consumer savings.

Whatever the arithmetic, the structural problem is unchanged from item 102: the claimed savings represent one side of a two-sided ledger. NHTSA’s own analysis projects that the rollback will cost consumers up to $185 billion in additional fuel spending through 2050. Those fuel costs are not theoretical future projections — they are the direct, quantified consequence of the policy change that the $109 billion is supposed to represent as a “saving.” A complete accounting of the same PRIA data shows consumers as net losers, not net beneficiaries, beginning with model year 2027.

The Bottom Line

“Eliminated” is false — the rule was proposed, not finalized, as of the claim date. “$109 billion in savings” is a one-sided accounting figure that the administration derived from its own fact sheet, not from independent analysis, and which counts manufacturer compliance cost avoidance as consumer savings while omitting the $185 billion in additional fuel costs the same analysis projects consumers will pay. This is a more impressively-scaled version of the same misleading construction analyzed in item 102: present the cost side of a cost-benefit standard as a pure burden, discard the benefit side, and call the resulting arithmetic a win. NHTSA’s own analytical basis for the rollback — the document that generated this figure — demonstrates the opposite of what the claim asserts.

Footnotes

1. Federal Register 90 FR 87410 (2025-12-05), NPRM for SAFE Vehicles Rule III; comment period through January 20, 2026. ↩

2. White House Fact Sheet, “President Donald J. Trump Announces the Reset of CAFE Standards” (2025-12-03); DOT Press Release, “Freedom Means Affordable Cars” (2025-12-03); NHTSA PRIA (2025-12). ↩

3. NHTSA Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis: SAFE Vehicles Rule III (2025-12); Jason Schwartz, NYU Institute for Policy Integrity, via Reuters analysis (2025-12-08). ↩

4. DOT “What They Are Saying” release (2025-12-03); Reuters analysis (2025-12-08): GM statement on boosting earnings; Ford CEO Jim Farley statement. ↩

5. NHTSA PRIA (2025-12) — automaker compliance savings $35 billion through 2031; per-vehicle upfront reduction $900-$930; increased consumer fuel costs up to $185 billion through 2050. ↩

6. Sidley Austin, “Congress Eliminates CAFE Penalties” (2025-07-08); One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Section 40006 (2025-07-04). ↩