California fuel efficiency standards going national

February 24, 3:59 AMEnergy ExaminerJohn Guerrerio

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Suburban sprawl and low fuel efficiency in cars is a formula for disaster.

While the people living through the sixties in America experienced significant changes regarding civil rights, here at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century Americans are about to begin a significant period of change of their own.  The way we harvest resources, as well as go about producing and consuming energy has become the focus of the collective global society searching for a way to meet the energy needs of the growing future generations.  The movement toward an energy conscious society began with individuals, but it has moved into both the business and political arenas recently and is poised to be legislated into law.

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U.S. gasoline consumption figures indicate that Americans like to drive; we are addicted to oil.  Our suburbs have been drawn out in such a fashion that we have to drive to work and to the store and to soccer practice, the doctors, the movies, etc…  As citizens, we do not want to see our basic right to drive whatever size car we want however far we choose; but recently the U.S. has fallen under international and domestic pressure to begin curbing its greenhouse gases in an effort mitigate the effects of global warming and to strive toward energy independence.  Businesses have begun to see the merits of streamlining their manufacturing processes and selling greener products to the public.

The Washington Post recently reported that the Obama Administration “is considering establishing national rules for regulating greenhouse gas emissions for automobiles” as one of the first steps of this campaign.  It seems like California’s efforts to sidestep the EPA over the course of the past two years and set up their own state standards regulating emissions is going national.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 was a greenhouse gas, and States had the right to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.  When the EPA failed to enforce the Supreme Court ruling, California sued over their right to establish their own standards separate from national rules.  Of course, they were denied; but that denial was recently overturned, and the EPA is actively working on instituting national emission standards.

Car manufacturers went on to produce more gas-guzzling SUVs (thank you very much!) until they went staggered on the brink of bankruptcy this past fall.  That is when a sequence of events began to be put into motion that has brought us to this moment: Business and government are about to begin a partnership to usher in a new era of global energy consciousness on a much larger scale than the one that happened in the 1970s.  The auto industry’s recent “near-death experience appears to have softened resistance to government fuel-economy standards”.  GM recently stated that they plan to comply with or exceed tougher fuel-economy standards.  Even at Ford Motor Co, “a renewed commitment to build more fuel-efficient and battery-powered cars and hybrids has become central to the high-stakes turnaround plan”.

The concept of regulating emissions through fuel-economy standards, while it saves fuel, is not necessarily the panacea that advocates claim it to be.  Far superior to higher fuel efficiencies is a carbon cap-and-trade market system, which Obama aides keep hinting is in the works of Congress.  The claim made by President Obama’s Administration is that a cap-and-trade market will generate new revenue for the federal government.  Critics claim cap-and-trade is just a fancy name for higher taxes and prices on commodities but does not address pollution, but simply auctions it off to the highest bidder.

Regardless, the momentum seems to be building toward a government and business partnership where a new system of capitalism develops.  The fact that the free market system needed to be bailed out right at the heart of a period of growing consciousness involving the environment and energy has catapulted green issues and clean energy to the forefront of legislative processes and negotiating agendas.  We are truly living in an age of significant change in America.  How it turns out is anyone’s guess; but when the intention is to create a better world for future generations, the result usually surprises people in its scope and conclusiveness.

It seems like the first thirty days of Obama’s Administration have begun to change America from the track that Bush/Cheney had the country on for eight years and move us in a dramatic new direction.  There are undoubtedly going to be some people who are upset with this new direction; this, however, is not apparently stopping the momentum that is seemingly building in Congress and throughout boardrooms across the country.  It simply makes sense to raise fuel efficiency standards and nationalize emission regulations. America is leaning toward a cap-and-trade policy, and this is the catalyst that businesses are responding to.  The companies that fare the best over the course of the next decade are the ones making preparations right now based upon statements coming out of the Obama White House.  Ford, GM, IBM, Intel, GE, BP, the list goes on and on of companies that are looking at their energy consumption and beginning to design strategies that streamline manufacturing and consumption.  This truly is a pivotal point in human history.