I see your point, but this was the provision backed by the enviromental groups as far as I remember.
Our sights are likely set too low, but this was a stinging "defeat" for the status quo, I think.
The fact that we cannot simply declare these absurd SUVs and Monster Trucks to be illegal and required to be phased out of the "fleet" in 5 years is depressing. As the world runs out of oil and frys the planet, Hummers, Expeditions and Monster Trucks of all varieties continue to abound---for no fucking rational "reason" at all.
Sorry, future generations and all other species on Earth, the conservative "free market" lobby poisoned the brains of 80% of the country and nothing meaningful could really be accomplished after that....
Posted by euzoius at December 1, 2007 09:14 AMYeah, 55 would have been better, however, I must disagree. We have raised fuel standards since the early '80's. When we did so then, it happened rather quickly. I wouldn't actually expect it to take until 2020.
Posted by Masslib at December 1, 2007 09:22 AMthe japanese will be there way before anyone!
Posted by parallax at December 1, 2007 09:38 AMActually, the compromise legislation states that the auto companies must have the average mileage of their whole fleet of vehicles - cars, SUV's and trucks - meet at least 35 mpg. In reality this means that their cars will have to be achieving a lot more than 35 mpg if they were to meet this whole fleet standard!
But, I do agree that the timeline could have been addressed more, for instance, to include a graduated standard over the 12 years.
Posted by islandpartisan at December 1, 2007 10:15 AMworth noting that this was simply a sop to Dingell, who has been the bought-and-paid-for lapdog to the auto industry for decades. He would have prevented any bill his masters didn't like from making it out of the House.
Truth is, auto companies are going to be overtaken by events. Management in Detroit thinks it's bad now? hah. this is just prelude. They're gonna be making huge changes any time now, because gas is gonna get so expensive they won't have any other choice.
35mpg by 2020? total hooey. Things will be very very different by then. All of Detroit could belong to Toyota by then. for instance.
Posted by LL at December 1, 2007 11:20 AMWhenever you ask the government to regulate something you should not be surprised to see politics intrude. First, somebody is going to end up paying. That will invite a dedicated opposition. Second, the expertise needed to regulate an industry often has to come from the industry itself. That is unless you want political science majors or lawyers doing the regulating. As we have seen with the exclusion of SUV's, regulations have made things worse.
What is the science behind a 35 mpg or 55 mpg target. Do these targets reach a specific goal of fuel consumption or pollution levels? Or are they numbers plucked out of the air because they are easily remembered?
Posted by skeptic at December 1, 2007 11:55 AMI see they believed Al Gore's man made global warming alarm, and it's with sadness to report they have a case of frostbite.
"A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.
"Ann said losing toes and going forward at all costs was never part of the journey," said Ann Atwood, who helped organize the expedition."
I'm so glad they didn't endanger their health any further.
"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said.
Duh!
Posted by peter at December 1, 2007 12:05 PMMost likely plucked out of the air, skeptic.
We are not addressing what needs to be done by obtaining a comprehensive plan for necessary CO2 reductions and how to achieve them from scientists and engineers, we just have lame-brain pols choosing numbers of out hats.
These are indeed better "numbers" (if it were 1995).
Posted by euzoius at December 1, 2007 12:08 PMskeptic - we probably ought to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by something like 90% by 2030 - 2040. this legislation would be a joke if it wasn't such a serious issue.
there is no time to waste - we need maximum effort yesterday.
Posted by selise at December 1, 2007 12:16 PMI tend to agree with the sentiment that Ford and GM could easily be overwhelmed in the next five years, if gas prices stay above $3 a gallon they have no shown no management for manufacturing skills to stay competitive in the market.
Already Ford is essentially a light truck company. The present engineering needs screams for efficiency, and those two companies may very well not be able to make it.
Posted by paradox at December 1, 2007 01:07 PMpants pissing peter would have solved the Titanic problem with only a bucket, it was only a minor scratch from the iceberg you know
Posted by gay veteran at December 1, 2007 01:38 PMNo your gayness, I would have gone straight at the berg. Sure the bow would have been crushed, people hurt, some killed, but the ship would have survived.
Rep. Dingell will have his pound of flesh if CAFE is the only piece of energy legislation. Don't count on anything going forward until he is pleased.
Posted by peter at December 1, 2007 02:16 PM"don't count on anything unless Dingell is pleased"
Only authoritarian, force-loving trash thinks that a single person runs the show in a democracy. But then we know how you always love the heady whiff of fascism, peter.
Posted by euzoius at December 1, 2007 03:15 PMWhen you're a 'cardinal' in Congress, especially a Democratic cardinal like Rep. Dingell is, if he's not pleased, forget it folks. He wants EVERYBODY to feel the pain of increased CAFE standards in the way of a comprehensive energy package. Single out CAFE and he sit on it.
Posted by peter at December 1, 2007 08:13 PMThe gas queues of the seventies – when gas was even available, its price had shot past a shocking $1/gallon! – caused America to smarten up very quickly. The hitherto laughed-at Japanese automakers proceeded to clean Detroit's clock as EVERYBODY went to smaller and more efficient vehicles.
The writing on the wall couldn't have been clearer – our lives were literally hostage to a dwindling and ever-precarious resource. If you had told me then that thirty years later America would be driving the biggest fucking guzzlers ever, I would have said you gotta be nuts. Yeah, people are short-sighted, but NO country could possibly go down such a road of pure suicidal folly. Even without freakin global warming.
Sadly, we keep wildly exceeding my expectations.
The political crap is parlor games at this point. We're all going to be living in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, sooner rather than later. It's not even gonna really be that nice for Chimpy in Paraguay and Dick in Dubai. Mother Nature and political fossil-fuel despotism have warned us again and again, yet we seem to grow only more heedless.
Maybe we do need Chimpy's wars and $20/gal gas and the New Depression to reawaken us to fundamental facts of how we live and its true costs.
Posted by Sharkbabe at December 2, 2007 08:37 AMThe great irony is that we will for all intents and purposes run out of oil only 15 years or so after passing the CO2 tipping point and irrevocably destroying our miraculous 11,000 year old climate, the only climate human civilization has ever known.
We humans (especially the conservative Repub strain) deserve whatever happens to us, unfortunately the rest of the earth's species don't deserve their coming doom.
Posted by euzoius at December 2, 2007 04:51 PM