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On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce tough new tailpipe emission standards designed to effectively force the auto industry to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars. It’s an ambitious — and risky — move by the Biden administration to cement its climate goals by boosting the sale of electric vehicles while also ushering in the end of the era of the internal combustion engine (ICE).
But it won’t be as easy as banning the sale of gas-powered cars or mandating that companies only sell vehicles with electric powertrains. Rather, the new EPA rules would set an emissions limit on the total number of new cars each automaker sells in a year. That limit would essentially ensure that two...
