(credit: Arthur Caranta)

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed leaving in place fuel economy standards that would gradually increase the average miles per gallon requirements for cars to 54.5mpg by 2025. The Wall Street Journal notes that that translates to about 40mpg during real-world driving.

The fuel economy standards were set by the Obama administration in 2012 with the approval of automakers. The agency promised to reevaluate the standards at a later date, at least by 2018. The date of that reevaluation was flexible, and with the EPA’s proposal this week, a final decision could come down by December 30 after the public comment period has passed. That would make it harder for a Trump administration to dismantle the standards.

The agency denied to The Detroit Free Press that it was trying to block future challenges to the rule, and in a statement on the EPA website, Administrator Gina McCarthy wrote that the decision was based on an extensive technical report released earlier this year, which determined that automakers could meet the standards by 2025 given new technologies available to them. McCarthy added that the analysis showed that, given today’s prices, it will be less costly for automakers to meet those fuel economy standards by 2025 than the EPA estimated in 2012.