An almost $15 billion settlement was partially approved a few weeks ago by a federal court over Volkswagen AG’s emissions-cheating scandal, which involved the company installing defeat devices in more than 500,000 vehicles.
But the terms extend beyond the scope of Volkswagen and the federal agencies involved in the case, and appear to be unconstitutional.
The Obama administration has essentially found a workaround for extracting $1.2 billion from the automaker to go toward a zero-emissions vehicle technology slush fund (officially called the National ZEV Investment Plan), to be managed by the EPA. Congress has repeatedly voted to reject the fund.
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