Following last month’s Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must take steps to reduce emissions, President Bush ordered federal agencies to develop regulations to reduce gasoline consumption by motor vehicles.
He conveniently set a target date at the end of his term for the EPA to detail regulations.
He called on the EPA and the Departments of Transportation, Agriculture and Energy to work together to write the rules.
The president said the new rules will address a goal he set in this year’s State of the Union address to reduce gasoline usage by 20 percent over the next 10 years.
Senator Bingaman commented, “This is an Executive Order on interagency relationships. While good relations among agencies are important to the regulatory process, it’s also important to recognize that reducing gasoline consumption requires more than good interagency dynamics.
“The absence of any standards in today’s announcement is a reason why Americans will be looking to Congress for stronger leadership on energy policy. Indeed, solid bipartisan majorities in two Senate committees recently reported bills to create specific, meaningful new standards for biofuels and vehicle fuel economy. I look forward to the full Senate’s consideration of these bills.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists said Congress must lock specific, mandatory goals in place.
“Given that the Supreme Court had to force the Bush administration to regulate greenhouse gases, Congress is going to have to enact guaranteed fuel economy improvements and low carbon fuel standards.”
They said Congress should lock in a 4 percent per year fuel economy improvement to guarantee progress for at least the next decade.
They also said the EPA must grant California and 11 other states a waiver to regulate global warming pollution from cars and trucks. Now that the administration has accepted the Supreme Court’s decision on global warming pollution there is no excuse to hold up state efforts to cut pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Achieving the president’s goal of improving vehicle efficiency would require the fleet of cars and light trucks to reach 34 miles per gallon by 2017 and should guarantee that the 4 percent per year efficiency improvement continues beyond that date.
The goal of cutting global warming pollution from car and light truck fuels could be met through a significant ramp up of cellulosic ethanol to 17 billion to 20 billion gallons by 2017 in addition to as much as 15 billion to 18 billion gallons of today’s conventional biofuels. Efforts to expand biofuels and other low-carbon fuels must include safeguards against unintended consequences to public health and the environment.
Not all alternative fuels are created equal. If alternative fuels are made from coal instead of renewable resources, the president will not meet his goal of stopping the projected growth in carbon dioxide emissions from cars, light trucks and SUVs by 2017. Making gasoline or diesel from coal would nearly double the amount of global warming pollution produced from gasoline today.
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