Bush, Blowing Global Warming Decision, Opens Door for Obama

In a little-noticed decision, the Bush administration this week slammed the environmental door -- walking away from what could have been its most far-reaching measure to cool a warming climate while heating up a frozen economy.

With the same stroke, President Bush handed the Obama administration a major opportunity to establish its own environmental credentials, even as it wrestles with an economic bailout made all the more pressing by Friday's frightening 7.2% unemployment report.

As a result, the new president can use sound policy to set the Detroit Three on a globally competitive track, and fight global warming while also starting to right the economy.

How did Bush blow it this time? He punted on the key decision to set new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The proposal his Transportation Department spent a year preparing would have increased the average efficiency of US cars, SUVs and other light trucks from 25 mpg to 31.8 by 2015.

This would begin to cut the nation's oil addiction and global warming pollution, save consumers billions of dollars at the pump, and tell sputtering automakers what the government -- and consumers -- expect and demand of them. It would have been the first significant change in the standards since President Gerald R. Ford signed them into law in 1975.

It's not as if the Bushies didn't understand the benefits of action.

The administration's 523-page draft said that over their three decades, CAFE standards "saved consumers money by reducing fuel needs, strengthened energy security by reducing dependence on foreign oil, conserved petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and helped to protect the environment by reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important of the man-made greenhouse gases."

Oh, and it was oilman Bush who sternly declared in his 2006 State of the Union address that we are "addicted to oil."

But enough about the Bush administration. They're toast. Now comes President Obama.

Candidate Obama made clear in his speech to the Detroit Economic Club in 2007 that he gets it:

The United States' dependence on oil puts the nation at security risk, he said. It also jeopardizes the planet.

"The fossil fuels we burn are setting off a chain of dangerous weather patterns that could condemn future generations to global catastrophe."

Because Detroit refuses "to make the transition to fuel-efficient production," he committed himself to "require automakers to meet higher fuel standards and produce more fuel-efficient cars..."

So now it's Obama's responsibility to act.

He was specific: Raise fuel economy standards by 4%, which would be approximately one mile per gallon, each year.

And Detroit can do even better. Car makers have cost-effective technology -- better engines, transmissions and improved aerodynamics -- to deliver, on average, 35 miles per gallon by 2015 and 42.5 mpg by 2020. What a contrast with the 31.8 mpg standard that Bush wouldn't even issue.

While he's at it, a President Obama can reverse Bush's refusal to allow California and 13 other states to implement their laws slashing cars' global warming pollution. When the Bush EPA blocked the states from acting a year ago, Obama said: "If the courts do not overturn this decision, I will after I am elected president."

With these actions, Obama can send two early signals of his commitment -- and of his adherence to a new course to fight global warming.

The change he can deliver will bring cleaner cars that save gas and money and cut pollution. By forcing automakers to make cars we want to buy, he can also save Detroit.

Dan Becker is director of the Safe Climate Campaign James Gerstenzang covered the environment for the Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[LITNUP]

Any response from the inventor of the Internet, Al Gore , and how surfing the net causes global warming?

[Beachrunner]

The reality is, we're headed for an ice age:

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-earth_ice_age-0

[canuckmoose]

Thank you for this, Dan and James.
All seem to agree on the need for energy self-sufficiency.
Yet very few of us drive our vehicles at economic speeds.

Conservation is the the most readily available response.
While awaiting technological and political developments,
it is in our immediate power to assume a modicum of
responsibility toward self-sufficiency.

This we can do by driving posted speed limits and lobbying
for better enforcement and lower limits. Each of us, political
proclivity or views on global warming notwithstanding, can
reduce our impact on the planet while saving money and
contributing to the nation's energy self-sufficiency.

Meanwhile, the mystery remains as to why this simple yet
effective solution receives so little promotion or attention.

[trock]

Human caused Global Warming is real and continuing to put greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cause our planet to continue to warm for decades until as much as 6 degrees celcius this century. It will alter Human existance on this planet.
A better name would be Human Machine and land use caused Global Warming. Humans aren't causing the warming, it's our machines and land use. all we have to change is our machines for about 0.6 to 2.0 percent of GNP. Doable if only for the politics.

the motor vehicle power systems of the future.

First. Prius like elec. battery/gasoline engine. Saves about 30 percent energy just putting in an electric motor.
Second. Plug-in elec.battery/gasoline engine. (or diesel engine) Getting the electricity from the electrical grid is more efficient than getting elec. from a gasoline engine.
Third. Plug-in elec. battery/gasoline (or diesel) engine where the engine only is used to charge up batteries or power the vehicle. The engine will only be off or running at it's most efficient. It could be a 30 horsepower motor, but would always be at full power when the engine is on. much more efficient than trying to start up from idle.

[Leatherhelmet]

Global warming is a scam. The earth is cooling, not warming.

However, moving toward cleaner burning, renewable energy makes good sense from an energy independence standpoint and to keep real pollution (as opposed to fake CO2 pollution) down. However, several points must be kept in mind. First, we are not europe. We don't live in cities piled on top of each other. We use vehicles to travel distances and the American lifestyle needs to preserved as much as possible. The liberal ideas of $7 per gallon fuel needs to be thrown out and we need need cheap energy so families and businesses can prosper. Forcing the cars to have high mpgs is ridiculous without knowing what technology is going to power them, what that will cost, and what the environmental effects and safety effects will be is ridiculous. Even worse, is wasting money trying to make cars conform to the junk science standard of being carbon-neutral. However, national goals of redesigning our energy to be cheap, renewable and clean are awesome goals to have.

[MGhamma]

The earth is NOT cooling.

[Overtone]

Revolutionary energy technology can help to restore auto manufacturing!.

Unconventional energy conversion systems will become available that may prove to be tapping a never previously commercialized, renewable, abundant source of energy. They are inherently cost-competitive and can make practical cars, trucks and buses that need no engines, banks of batteries, or any variety of fuel or battery recharge.

One Proof-of-Concept prototype was said to be analogous to the early work on the transistor, which eventually led to a Nobel Prize and the creation of Silicon Valley.

A generator we are developing is expected to provide sufficient power to demonstrate replacement of the plug needed by a plug-in hybrid car. This will be a harbinger of automobiles that need no conventional fuel. A prototype new energy conversion system is anticipated to replace an automobile engine within three years. That goal might be achieved much more rapidly if development involves four teams of engineers and technicians working on a 24/7 basis. The prototype will open a path to mass production of an entirely new variety of automotive power plant.

Electric vehicles powered by these generators will breathe new life into auto manufacturing. Who will not want to own an electric car, with unlimited range, that never requires fuel or recharge? Car companies will see demand in excess of production capacity. A beacon of hope can be found here for the entire world economy.

See: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/partner/story?id=54361&cid=7763