By David Doniger
Just a short time ago, the nation's biggest automakers -- including General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler -- had Washington tied up in knots and California bent around the axle. But last week President Obama put the nation on a new path towards cleaner, more efficient cars.
-- The president directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take a fresh look at giving California the green light for its landmark global warming pollution standards - standards already adopted by 13 other states. The Bush administration had blocked California last year by denying a normally-routine Clean Air Act waiver.
-- President Obama also told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) to set new federal fuel economy standards. The Bush administration had proposed weak standards last year, but left them for its successor to finish. All signs are that the new president now will strengthen them.
-- And very soon, the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, is expected to make the long-delayed official pronouncement that CO2 and other heat-trapping pollutants are bad for our climate, our health, and our environment - called an "endangerment" determination. Two years ago, in a historic case called Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ordered the Bush administration to face up to the science, but EPA did nothing. Obama's EPA will then follow up with federal standards for global warming emissions from cars (as well as power plants and other industries).
The new administration understands that higher pollution and mileage standards will help curb global warming, cut our dangerous dependence on oil, save consumers billions at the pump, and help the domestic auto industry recover.
As I said in a recent New York Times story: "If carmakers are going to survive in a world of volatile oil prices and global warming, they have to be making more efficient vehicles. When the economy comes back and people start buying cars again, they're going to expect that gas prices are going to go up, and they're not going to want the gas hogs that they used to want. Consumers' tastes have changed in terms of what's cool."
Some outside the auto industry still cry doom and gloom. In the same article one pundit claimed the California standards "would basically kill the industry."
But Dave McCurdy, head of the industry's Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, struck a more moderate note:
"The Alliance supports a nationwide program that bridges state and federal concerns and moves all stakeholders forward, and we are ready to work with the Administration on developing a national approach. . . . Automakers seek a federal-state solution that provides us with compliance clarity and one national standard."
The automakers seem to have realized that they cannot wish California and the Clean Air Act away and go back to the days when NHTSA was on the industry's leash. But there may be a way to provide the higher standards we need and also meet the auto industry's desire for planning certainty and practical uniformity. What we need is a formula that:
1. Maintains California's historical leadership. California needs to continue to play the pioneering role it has had for more than 40 years, setting emission standards that pull forward new technologies.
2. Takes California's progress nationwide. We also need federal greenhouse gas and mileage standards that apply all across the country and deliver emission reductions at least equal to California's standards.
Will the auto industry agree to these goals? If so, we should be able to find a pathway forward that works for everyone.
POST YOUR COMMENTS BELOW
Nice concept introduced by US government. It helps to their environment , US government was careful about their nature.
http://www.globalcardeal.com /
I agree ! I think, every countries government should take such type of action. If they was think about betterment of environment .
Used cars
This might be difficult to administer, but maybe we should have a tax on gasoline that decreases as oil prices rise, and increases as oil prices lower. The idea is to keep gas prices between $2.50 and $3.00 per gallon, so that car manufacturers will be able to rely on consumers to care about fuel efficiency.
but who are you, fsilber, to dictate how much people will pay for a gallon of gasoline?
Do you think that's a little presumptuous? I do. If you don't want to buy gasoline, don't buy it, if you want a fuel efficient automobile, get one, and keep your "maybe we should have's" to yourself.
The article presumed that the automobile manufactures _must_ make more fuel-efficient cars, and my comments were based on that (however questionable) presumption.
I don't think it's any less reasonable to dictate a conservation-motivating gas price than to dictate an automobile fuel economy standard, though from a libertarian point of view both propositions could be challenged.
The Ford Model A car got 200-25 MPG.The cars in the 1950's generally got 20-25 MPG.And today's cars get about the same if you take weight into account.This is by design. The car manufacturers are paid to keep mileage down by the Federal Government in concert with the oil companies. The numerous inventors of 100+ MPG carburators were deliberately foiled by the oil companies adding varnish-like coating compounds with no other purpose but to prevent a catalytic reaction taking place in these "super carburators".All of these designs no longer work because of the polluted fuel we are forced to purchase. As the Illuminati member Henry Kissinger once said:"He who controls energy, controls the world."
and other "heat-trapping pollutants," grain that feeds turkeys couldn't grow.
The only thing that automakers MUST do is stay afloat - so they can make products that the market will accept.
That is, of course, unless the US wants a 1970's style of Soviet econmomy - and the automakers make the Laidas that the Politboro wants them to make.
So, until the time you become the Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party USA, may I suggest you tome down your imperatives for free enterprise operating in the USA.
Okay?