WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity placed a full-page ad in The New York Times today warning that President Biden will put the planet in peril if he yields to automakers by setting the weak, loophole-riddled emission rules the administration has reportedly chosen.

Citing this summer’s deadly heatwaves, devastating drought and unprecedented flooding, the ad pressures Biden to urgently and dramatically cut tailpipe pollution, the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’re at the climate cliff and the stakes are too high to aim low,” says the ad from the Center’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. It features an image of a truck backed up on the edge of a steep precipice. The headline reads, “President Biden can set strong clean car standards that protect the climate . . . or he can hit reverse.”

“Automakers are lobbying for loophole-riddled standards far weaker than those they agreed to with President Obama nine years ago,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center’s campaign. “President Biden must instead require carmakers to produce cars and trucks that, at the very least, meet those standards. Truly strong EPA action to curb auto pollution is crucial to protecting our climate.”

The ad urges Biden to immediately set standards at least as strong as those the automakers agreed to with President Obama in 2012. That was the biggest single step any nation took to cut global warming pollution. President Trump rolled them back.

The administration is reportedly poised to expand nationwide a far weaker deal five automakers convinced California to adopt in 2019. The state agreed to give the companies loopholes that allow them to keep making polluting cars, SUVs and light trucks well into the future.

To drive real progress, the ad calls on Biden to direct the Environmental Protection Agency to write new rules that:

• Phase out sales of gas-powered cars and trucks in favor of electric vehicles by 2030;
• Require automakers to reduce heat-trapping pollution by 7% each year until then;
• Close loopholes that allow manufacturers to escape real improvements;
• Promote equity and good electric-vehicle jobs.

Today’s ad comes on the heels of an online video created by the Center, as well as a Center op-ed in The New York Times. Both called on President Biden to set strong emissions standards.

“The automakers are stuck in reverse. Only strong rules will ensure that we shift from gas guzzlers to clean electric vehicles with sufficient speed and in ample numbers to protect the climate,” said Becker. “President Biden must act boldly as if the world depends on him, because it does.”