In the winter of 1973, Americans queued for hours at gas stations as the Arab oil embargo turned cheap driving into a rationed privilege and helped push Congress to create federal fuel-economy rules in 1975. Those Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards were designed to cut oil use by forcing automakers’ fleets to use less gasoline.

Half a century later, another Republican president stood in front of auto executives to talk about gasoline—but this time to make it easier to burn more of it . On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced he would scrap Joe Biden’s fuel-economy rules, slashing the 2031 target for new cars and light trucks from roughly 50 miles per gallon to about 34 to 34.5 mpg. He called the Biden CAFE rules “ridiculously burdensome” and “horrible,” flanked by CEOs from

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