By Timothy Gardner and David Ljunggren
WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) - The United States will finalize on Thursday its first U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rules on automobiles and boost car efficiency standards, moves Canada will jointly impose on its industry.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation have since last year said they will require that automakers' fleets of cars and trucks get on average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The current limit is 25 miles per gallon.
Canada's government will also implement the rules on Thursday, a Canadian source with knowledge of the matter said. The North American auto industry is highly interlinked.
Separate announcements will be made in the United States and Canada at around noon EDT (1600 GMT).
The vehicle emissions standards, which will be phased in starting with the 2012 model year, will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 900 million metric tons, according to the EPA.
The U.S. move is part of President Barack Obama's goal to cut emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet by about 17 percent by 2020, under 2005 levels. While Obama is pushing Congress to pass a long-delayed climate bill, he has also set in motion steps for the EPA to begin regulating the emissions.
Obama said on Wednesday he expects the U.S. rule will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of vehicles built during the 2012 to 2016 model years, equivalent to taking 58 million cars off the road for a year.
"Tomorrow, after decades in which we have done little to increase auto efficiency, those new standards will be finalized, which will reduce our dependence on oil while helping folks spend a little less at the pump," Obama said.
In many ways Canada's strategy on emissions hinges on U.S. policy. Ottawa has not revealed details of how it plans to force companies to cut emissions and set up a cap and trade system on polluters, saying it will wait until the United States settles upon its own plan.
Automakers support the separate vehicle regulations because it would create the first national standard for controlling car and truck emissions, superseding state plans that would have created a patchwork of regulations.
Many new vehicles, especially hybrid cars, already meet or exceed the planned standards.
The EPA says the regulations mean cars and trucks will cost an average of $1,300 more in 2016 compared to now. That said, a driver would save about $2,800 over the life of a vehicle through fuel costs.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; editing by Jim Marshall)
