Obama opens the door for states to cut emissions
Yesterday, President Obama granted California and 13 other states a waiver to set strict vehicle emissions standards on their own. The administration is actually going to let states move forward and pass emission standards that might be even tougher than federal standards. Finally! Something resembling sense on environmental issues is coming from the administration in my country.
President Obama moved forward two strokes for the environment as he had the Environmental Protection Agency review a California application to regulate greenhouse gases and told the Department of Transportation to begin implementing fuel efficiency standards passed last year but never implemented by the Bush administration. In 2007, the Bush administration blocked California lawmakers from requiring automobile manufacturers to reduce tailpipe emissions by 30 percent by 2016. President Obama’s directive clears the way for California, Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington DC, Vermont and Washington to adopt stricter standards than the federal government requires under the Clean Air Act. Other states, including Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Utah, are considering adopting the program as well. Together this would represent over half of the U.S. car market. The California Air Resources Board estimates the new rules would cut global warming pollution from automobiles by 18 percent by 2020 and 27 percent by 2030.
Pretty impressive numbers and the directive gives me hope that President Obama is interested in taking immediate action on global warming and where possible letting states move ahead before the federal government has time to do so on their own.
So, what next? This really is a great start, now we need President Obama to fulfill some of his campaign promises like putting a million plug-in electric vehicles on the road. And then we need to him show that he is serious about the science by raising gas mileage standards to 50 miles per gallon by 2028 and committing to cutting greenhouse emissions in the U.S. by at least 20-23 percent from current levels by 2020—the level scientists are saying is needed to prevent the worst effects of global warming.
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Comments
Yep, muscle car fans are screwed, and the car-hating alarmists are ready to make the Corvette, Camaro, Challenger, Viper and Mustang be sacrificed at the altar and doom us to a life of boring econoboxes, and I'm not liking this one bit.
What about the millions of people who own and enjoy muscle cars from the '60s, '70s, '80s, and on up? Do you want those valuable pieces of automobilia crushed in the name of climate change, global warming or whatever it's being called? What about people like me who are eying a muscle car of their own? I don't want to be told I can't get one by government fiat.
Give me a friggin' break, don't ruin it for the people who like to have fun while driving.
Posted by: ferrarimanf355 | January 28, 2009 3:27 AM
Do not have to crush, just pay the price of the pollution You cause with Your gas-guzzler.
Or don't crush them, plant some flowers into the trunk - could decorate Your garden instead of killing our future.
Posted by: Bob | January 28, 2009 1:04 PM
You may be saying that now, but what in a few years? Will you all be coming after the millions of people that own, drive and enjoy muscle cars? Where does it end? When everyone's driving soulless hybrids?
Posted by: ferrarimanf355 | January 29, 2009 4:49 AM
We have gotten ourselves into the mess we're in by telling ourselves that individual choices don't make a difference. But if everyone is thinking that and enough of us make choices that have negative results to the climate, then we have planetary crisis.
Somewhere along the way we've got to wake up and realize that what we do has impact. It's not only immoral to act as though it doesn't matter, it's insane!
Posted by: Michael Huff | February 27, 2009 6:22 PM