by Jim Tankersley and Richard Simon
The Obama administration plans to announce on Tuesday that it will set national restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, in what environmentalists are hailing as a major step to curb global warming and spur development of more fuel-efficient cars.
The national policy will mimic, with slight modifications, a California policy that state officials fought the Bush administration for years to implement, two sources with knowledge of the agreement said.
California officials have signed on to the policy, one of the sources said. So have major U.S. automakers.
Combining regulatory powers across the administration, the policy will toughen existing federal mileage standards with a harmonized standard that automakers and environmentalists have long sought - and which administration officials have said for months they were working to set.
"This is the biggest single step to curbing global warming," said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, an environmental group. "It's a major step forward in cutting auto emissions, and California blazed the trail."
The California rules don't strictly limit mileage. But, by setting caps on carbon emissions, they would effectively require vehicles to achieve as much as 42 miles per gallon by 2020, according to some estimates.
One of the sources with knowledge of the national policy said it would emulate the California emissions-reduction targets, but modify how quickly those targets would need to be met.
The national policy announcement will not affect California's request to set its own emissions standards, which is currently pending before the Environmental Protection Agency, the source said.
Comments
CA is a financial disaster area. They are broke and looking for the rest of us to bail them out.
So lets follow their lead - great idea!
Heaven help us.
Posted by: Kathy | May 18, 2009 2:04 PM
It's probably to late, for the most part we're already toast. Unfettered cowboy capitalism will sell everything there is to pilfer from this planet in descending order of abundance until there is nothing left - the end.
Posted by: Teresa Kathy | May 18, 2009 2:39 PM
Mr. Tankersley seeks out comment from only one side--the side of his greenie buddies.
For the other side, Henry Payne at NRO:
"This onerous standard, which accelerates the already draconian 35-mpg-by-2020 goal adopted just two years ago (estimated cost: $85 billion), comes at time when Detroit automakers are hemorrhaging red ink. A recent Global Insight study found that California’s mandate would increase power-train costs by $1,000 for small cars and $5,000 for larger vehicles.
But with GM and Chrysler wards of the state, any protest is likely to be muted. “The Obama administration fired (GM CEO) Wagoner,” Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra told Planet Gore April 6. “Is (new CEO) Henderson going to resist? I don’t think so.”
Currently only three cars — all of them hybrids — get 35 mpg or better : The Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic, and the Ford Fusion. That means that automakers must increase the fuel mileage of the entire auto fleet by 40 percent in one product cycle, a task that auto engineers say is impossible without European-sized gas taxes increasing gas prices to over $6-a-gallon and forcing Americans into small cars."
Obama socks it to taxpayers again--in an action that will have no discernable effect, let alone a beneficial effect, on the temperature.
Posted by: Bruce | May 18, 2009 3:35 PM
Obama socks it to taxpayers again--in an action that will have no discernable effect, let alone a beneficial effect, on the temperature.
Posted by: Bruce | May 18, 2009 3:35 PM
**************
How do you know, Brucie?
As usual, you're quoting mumbo jumbo work from "scientists" who have been paid off by the Big Oil companies and the Republicon party who, thanks to Bush-Cheney, just got done going on an eight year pillaging spree paid for with tax payer money.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/republican-incoherence-on_b_199058.html
Posted by: Dissent is Patriotic | May 18, 2009 5:10 PM
I am still waiting for one of the global warming freaks to show how human activity is causing the global warming on the planet Mars! Until they do, then the obvious and logical conclusion is that any global warming that is occurring on the planet Earth is also a natural and NOT a man made occurrence.
Posted by: Brent | May 18, 2009 7:08 PM
And as BO curbs the greenhouse gases so he curbs economic growth.
Posted by: Terry | May 18, 2009 7:44 PM
If the planet is to be saved from the effects of global warming, more must be done than is yet planned to limit carbon emissions, and in a shorter period of time. People have been far too slow to recognize the dangers, and still many refuse to take them seriously. Such evasions put in jeopardy the future of planet earth. At most, we have ten to fifteen years to establish a balance before the damage is irreparable.
Posted by: SHARE | May 19, 2009 7:21 AM
Another Obama move to hike car prices. And drive down domestic auto sales. In a recession.
Just what the public needs.....
Posted by: Bruce | May 19, 2009 9:59 AM
A $1,300 per car price hike. On top of at least $23 billion in taxpayer's money to prop up the auto companies.
Thank you, President Obama.
Posted by: Bruce | May 19, 2009 10:20 AM