This week, California and federal regulators gave themselves a fall deadline in their collaboration to create national fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for model year 2017-2025 cars and light trucks.  The agencies say they will propose the new standards by September 1, 2011.

The September deadline is something of a setback for California, which had planned to release state standards in March.

Last October, the federal EPA and Department of Transportation announced plans to work with California Air Resources Board (CARB) to create the standards, under direction from the Obama Administration.   This builds on the agencies’ work setting the  new federal fuel standard, based on California’s, for model years 2012 through 2016.

According to a statement from CARB, a unified state/national standard will “provide manufacturers with with the regulatory certainty needed to invest today in the kind of new technologies that will provide consumers a full range of efficient clean vehicle choices.”

Tiffancy Hsu of the Los Angeles Times has more.