Support for Tougher Fuel Economy Standard Is Growing in Congress
By Greg Johnson March 25, 2009
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Monday asked President Obama to toughen proposed auto fuel-efficiency standards beyond those the Bush administration proposed in last year's corporate fuel economy (CAFE) rule.
More than 80 Democratic and Republican House members signed a letter to Obama that asks the new administration to incorporate "realistic assumptions" into its math as it reviews the Bush administration fuel-efficiency plan.
The letter written by Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass) and Todd Russell Platts (R, Pa.) says that the Bush CAFE proposal was "based on a systemic overestimation of the costs of implementing fuel efficient technologies and a systemic underestimation of its benefits."
The letter criticizes the Bush administration's optimistic belief that gasoline prices would average just $2.42 per gallon in 2016 and would only rise to $2.51 in 2030. It also questions the Bush administration's willingness to accept at face value the automobile industry's estimates of the cost of developing new fuel efficiency technology.
We've said it before, but it bears repeating: CAFE is a necessary evil in that it forces automakers to improve fuel-efficiency. But car companies can pay relatively modest fines and ignore the standards. We'd rather see Uncle Sam using market forces, in the form of fuel taxes or fuel economy-based registration fees, to encourage consumers to demand fuel-efficient models.
That strategy would more quickly get the nation to where it wants to go when it comes to fuel economy and cleaner tailpipe emissions.
But Washington hates the idea of new taxes and fees and instead seems to be setting the stage for tougher CAFE numbers -- which we'll pay for anyhow, in the form of higher prices for CAFE-compliant vehicles.
Obama began the push in one of his first environmental decisions upon taking office, when he directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider the Bush administration's rejection of California's bid to set its own greenhouse gas emission standards.
Those rules, if allowed to go forward, would require new cars and trucks sold in California and 13 other states that follow California's emissions laws, to attain the equivalent of 42 mpg average fuel economy. (Greenhouse gases are created by burning carbon-based fuels, so increasing fuel economy decreases GHG emissions.)
Not long after that, now-Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood used his Senate confirmation hearing to advise Obama that he wouldn't "have to push very hard" for Congressional approval of CAFE standards that go beyond the 35 mpg level that Congress approved in 2007.
Bush's proposed rule calls for automakers to raise fuel economy averages by 25 percent by 2015. That would push automakers halfway to the 35 mpg the previous Congress said it wants to see by 2020.
Obama subsequently ordered LaHood to finalize the 2011 fuel-efficiency standard by April 1. But he also made it clear that there's room for tougher CAFE numbers down the line if the science supports them, the technology can be created and the courts don't intervene.
The congressional letter-writers also took aim at the Bush administration's attempt to use the proposed CAFE rule to stop California from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
E&E News, a subscription-only energy and environmental newsletter, reports that the representatives were upset by a line that was "buried on page 378 of the 415-page (CAFE) document: 'Any state regulation regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles is expressly pre-empted.'"
Ths states that use California's rules, E&E notes, claim that language "contradicts rights granted to California under the Clean Air Act and violates Massachusetts v. EPA, a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that separates fuel standards from greenhouse gas regulations."
Greg Johnson, Contributor
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