Maybe in his heart, he’s still a Texas oil man.
We were disappointed in the vague, half-hearted policy statement President Bush issued Monday on making new cars and trucks more fuel efficient. There was reason to hope for something bolder. With gasoline at $3.50 a gallon, concern over climate change growing and tyrants holding more cards in the global oil market, the political winds have shifted in favor of action.
Big steps are warranted, and possible, yet President Bush opted for a slow shuffle.
He directed four federal departments to begin a plodding process to establish higher mileage standards in new cars and trucks. He gave them no specific news goals, simply reiterating a previous one: reduce projected domestic oil use by 20 percent within 10 years.
Given the progress already underway in the development of alternative fuels and battery-powered cars, progress that’s gaining speed practically by the day, that’s aiming too low.
It’s harder than ever to figure out the adminstration’s resistance. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of environmental groups and large businesses – including General Motors and three oil companies – is pressing the federal government to quickly require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Congress is considering several bills to make alternative fuels more viable, including an amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) that would require automakers to make 80 percent of their vehicles capable of running on fuels other than pure gasoline or diesel by 2015.
A recent, landmark Supreme Court ruling clarified that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and essentially said it must. Monday’s response? The EPA will jointly explore options with the departments of Transportation, Energy and Agriculture, inching toward policy recommendations that would take effect at the end of 2008 – just as Bush is about to leave office.
David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council told The New York Times that directing EPA to work with the other agencies before proposing anything means “they can only walk as fast as the slowest one of them.”
Congress needs to speed up, too. A Senate bill that would establish an average fuel efficiency target of 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and small trucks by model year 2019 is underwhelming, given the growing popularity and viability of hybrids and flex-fuel vehicles. We can do a lot better than 35 mpg in the next 12 years.
The cost of using petroleum fuels is high – at the pump, in the atmosphere and geopolitically. Our national commitment to using less of it isn’t reflecting that.
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