Improving efficiency, reducing emissions
The tough new emissions and mileage standards announced by the White House on Tuesday are a major step forward for automakers and the planet.
The new standards will significantly reduce the release of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from cars at a time when addressing global warming has become more important than ever.
They’ll save 1.8 billion barrels of oil when fully phased in. They give automakers a long-sought single national fuel efficiency standard.
And all it took to achieve them was the end of the Bush administration, the near-death experiences of the Big Three U.S. automakers and a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
But you’d never know that from the triumphant Rose Garden ceremony, attended by leaders of 10 international car companies, environmentalists and the governors of Michigan and California. “The fact is,” President Barack Obama told his guests, “everybody wins.”
Well, maybe not everybody.
Not former General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner. Back in 2007, when Congress was debating an energy bill, Mr. Wagoner groused that proposals to increase fuel efficiency standards 27 percent by 2020 “don’t look achievable.”
That sort of recalcitrance and unwillingness to change is one reason Mr. Wagoner wasn’t on hand for the Rose Garden ceremony on Tuesday. He lost his job in March; having helped drive GM into a ditch, he nonetheless was unwilling to accept the need for sweeping changes in the way automakers do business.
He would have hated the new standards, anyway. They raise fuel efficiency standards 40 percent, not the 27 percent Mr. Wagoner thought was unreasonable.
Auto executives have had to adapt to a new reality. Not long ago, they dictated policy to Congress. Their objections helped scuttle mileage standards in a 2005 energy bill and got them seriously watered down in a 2007 law.
But with Chrysler in bankruptcy and GM seemingly headed in the same direction, and with both companies receiving billions in federal assistance, Detroit’s Big Three acquiesced this time.
Truth is, they didn’t have much choice.
Initially, at least, consumers will pay more for new cars. Efficiency requirements contained in the 2007 energy bill add about $700 to the price of new cars. The agreement announced this week will add another $600 to that, bringing the total to about $1,300.
But over the life of those new cars, owners will save an estimated $2,800 in fuel costs, more than making up for the higher initial outlay.
Oil consumption will drop by the equivalent of what America now imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria combined.
More important, the new agreement links efficiency and emissions standards for the first time. That’s possible because of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that federal regulators could — indeed, have an obligation to — regulate greenhouse gases the same as other pollutants.
Vehicles are an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. No serious effort to address global warming is possible without cutting emissions from cars and trucks.
The first bill introduced by Democrat Barack Obama in 2005, when he was the freshman senator from Illinois, would have increased automotive mileage standards.
As a candidate, and again as president, Mr. Obama promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.
Of course, former President George W. Bush promised the same thing, though for most of his eight years in office he was working against those goals.
As important as the agreement announced this week may be, much more work remains. Congress will soon begin hearings on an ambitious plan to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions to stave off the worst effects of global warming.
Like the new mileage and emissions standards, carbon caps will require some trade-offs and higher costs. Those who say such goals are not achievable would do well to remember what
It’s a particularly bad time to be obese in America. Imagine what it will be like to stuff yourself into and pry yourself out of these puny modules, after a ride down roads in disrepair on bicycle tires that are hard as rocks.
“Those who say such goals are not achievable would do well to remember what”
Not the rest of the “editorial” makes any logical sense, but what got cut off?
The middle class tax cut continues. Now, add $1300 to the cost of a new car.
Here are a few more losers: the shareholders of GM who get wiped out. Bondholders of Chrysler who get crammed down. States which will get fewer tax dollars from fewer gallons of gas sold. Tax Payers who will have to make up the difference.
First, the SCOTUS did not rule there is “global warming”. They ruled only that there is pollution. Even I knew that.
You can solve the pollution problem caused by vehicles by simply taking them off the road. That eliminates the need for vehicles and the vehicle manufacturers. Don’t like that idea, huh? Why not? Are you too lazy to walk, ride a bicycle, jog, use a skate board, etc?
This is all a exercise in futility. Read the crappy stats that the want us to believe. They are ridiculous. Why don’t they publish how they arrived at their fallacious stats? They know better. People that understand 5th grade arithmetic could destroy every one of them.
If the PD will get their statistical studies, and publish them, I will destroy every one of them right here in front of god and everybody who reads the PD.
Remember these are the same wackos who put MTBE in gasoline to “purify the air”, and that failed. It did “poison” the ground water in 32 states however.
In summary, they have a VAST plan, without doing ANY rational thinking.
Si Vis,
Here’s the missing end of the sentence
“Those who say such goals are not achievable would do well to remember what…
…matters is the earnestness with which we hold our loopy ideas, not the needless and woefully underestimated costs, loss of jobs and societal destruction that follow.
My wife’s and my daily drivers both get better than 99% of the cars put out by the Big 2 1/2 and they are now 6yrs old! The wife’s station wagon with auto trans gets 37/45 city/hwy and my sedan with 5sp gets 50/58 city/hwy. Neither is a hybrid and they both run cleaner than most vehicles on the road today. The writing has been on the walls for over 15yrs and the Big 2 ½ have not bothered to read it! You don’t have to drive an econobox to get good fuel mileage! You do have to reconsider what you want out of a vehicle. The wife and I wanted to save money on our yearly fuel cost and we chose to drive fuel efficient diesels. Since the Big 2 ½ could not get their heads out of their collective backsides, we had to look elsewhere. What we found to fit our needs was the VW TDI. They are not noisy, smelly, slow or smoky unlike the diesels of GM past! When will the Big 2 ½ wake up and start offering a small (2 to 3 ltr) diesel as an optional engine choice across their vehicle line up? My guess is not until they are forced into it! They do offer them in their vehicle line ups in Europe and with today’s particulate filters they can be even cleaner than today’s standards!
Good news! China supports the Obama administration’s plans:
http://tinyurl.com/China-says-rich-nations-must
This does not go far enough. As a matter of national interest we need to get off foreign oil. This part of the country is forecast to experience another drought due to global warming, greenhouse gas, and deforestation. China is willing to introduce an electric powered car that can be plugged into a 110 outlet and travel over two hundred miles on a single charge. Most commuters travel much less than two hundred miles a day. Rent a cars are available for that long road trip. This being said are we willing to jump out of the frying pan into the fire by getting involved with a foreign producer that just so happens to support Communist groups in this hemisphere. Remember these are the same folks that we fought in Korea and Vietnam. Why can’t we mass produce an affordable hybrid that can replace fossil fuel with electric power and give us more than two hundred miles a day. These stop gap measures the President is upholding are too little to late for my money.
This is what you call the Democrats plan to save social security. Government statics have proven that deaths increase every time 100 lbs is taken off a car. The goverment is going to make us drive these little tin cans so we’ll all be dead and unable to collect our social security. And you thought Bush’s plan stunk.
Also, why is Obama allowing the Middle East to build nuclear facilities and all we get is windmills? Why are progressives trying to take us back to the stone age?
It is obvious that American auto makers are unable to achieve this goal. Let’s shut down those companies and let other countries take over the market. That is what I hear our President saying, at least. This guy is incredibly stupid. You have an industry that is crippled and about to collapse, and he thinks the solution is to introduce more cost and re-engineering? Brilliant move there Mr. Kenya.