Free Republic

Carol Browner, former Clinton administration EPA head and current Obama White House climate czar, instructed auto industry execs "to put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations she orchestrated regarding a deal to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, is demanding a congressional investigation of Browner's conduct in the CAFE talks, saying in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, that Browner "intended to leave little or no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards." Federal law requires officials to preserve documents concerning significant policy decisions, so instructing participants in...

House Republicans Darrell Issa and James Sensenbrenner are calling for an investigation of whether Obama climate czar Carol Browner’s secrecy in developing Obama’s CAFE standards and EPA’s CO2 endangerment finding was a “deliberate and willful violation” of the Presidential Records Act. According to the letter, ~~~ … Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), revealed to the New York Times that the White House held a series of secret meetings with select special interests as they were crafting the new CAFE standards. Nichols was a key player in these negotiations because of California’s determined efforts to...

The Obama administration’s proposed mileage standards that will be announced today may kill more Americans at a faster rate than the Iraq War, his signature issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama’s standards will require automakers to meet a 35 miles-per-gallon standard by 2016, four years earlier than the same standard imposed by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007. The only way for carmakers to meet these standard is to make smaller, lighter -- and deadlier cars. The National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards with about 2,000 deaths per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration...

At the end of his Rose Garden explanation yesterday of the new U.S. fuel-efficiency standards, President Obama remarked on the good that can be accomplished when we are "working together." The President may be getting ahead of himself. Watching the unlikely coalition arrayed behind him as Mr. Obama committed the U.S. to an astonishing passenger-car mileage average of 39 miles per gallon by 2016, it looks truer to say we are merely standing together in this adventure, for better or worse. Mr. Obama's fleet-mileage partners yesterday included the two auto companies that have fallen into his arms, Chrysler and GM,...

With his latest installment of ever-higher fuel mileage requirements for the auto industry, Barack Obama embraces a momentary, crisis-spawned expansion of the art of the possible, unleavened by any art of the rationally desirable. Detroit is dependent on Washington loans for survival. The industry's lobbyists and its congressional allies have collapsed in a heap, offering no resistance. So why not go for broke? If you're alone in front of the shrimp buffet, why not eat all the shrimp -- even if it makes you barf later? Defenders of the Obama administration's Chrysler bankruptcy finagle misguidedly argue that, if not for...

Beats the hell out of "Bush lied, people died," if you ask me. Plus it has the added bonus of actually being accurate. The following idea is as sound as the glorified riding-lawnmowers to which we will be bound. President Barack Obama is proposing on Tuesday the highest auto fuel efficiency standards ever attempted in the United States... If the proposal is enacted, by 2016 the fleet average requirement would be 35.5 miles per gallon, said the official, who declined to be named. Currently the CAFE standard is 27.5 mpg for cars and 24 mpg for light trucks. We've already...

The new fuel economy rules announced by the government are more than a challenge; they could end our era of cheap transportation. If they can be met, and that is questionable without some cheating on the rulemaking, cars will be small and expensive--or larger and very expensive. The word coming from Washington is that a 35.5 mile average per gallon requirement will be set for vehicles by 2016, meaning something like 43 miles per gallon for cars and 26 miles per gallon for trucks. Rules are easy to make. Companies like General Motors ( GM - news - people )...

Maybe it’s my inner rebellious child, but it bugs me to be told what I want. And if there’s anyone I don’t want telling me that, it’s some do-gooder from the government. So when Carol Browner made the morning show rounds today, claiming that Pres. Obama’s new, higher MPG standards are “giving Americans the cars they want,” it really got under my skin. Oh, and then of course there’s the little thing about what she said being . . . demonstrably false. View video here.

In a galaxy all too present, all too friggin’ near… President b. Hussein: My dear friends. Today, the United States of America turns a new page in the fight against Anthropogenic Global Warming. We stand on the precipice of either moving forward toward curbing fictional deadly greenhouse gases, the mere mention of which lines the pockets of great patriots such as Al Gore and George Soros and myself with triple-laundered twenties and fifties, or plummeting into great impending planetary doom (which would lead anyone in his right mind who takes 10 minutes to do some research to conclude: Hmm…those AGW...

President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.

Contact: Press Office, 703-650-5550; www.JohnMcCain.com ARLINGTON, Va., June 23 /Standard Newswire/ -- U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery at a town hall meeting in Fresno, CA, today at 10:00 a.m. PDT (1:00 p.m. EDT): Thank you all very much. I appreciate the kind introduction from Jim Woolsey, and the warm welcome to Fresno State. I'm here to listen about energy issues as well as to talk. So let me just offer a few ideas before we begin our discussion. All across this state and nation, people are hurting because the price of gasoline...

Mitt Romney's surprisingly decisive victory in Michigan kept him in the race for the Republican nomination, but he wasn't the only one Tuesday night to make a comeback. The contest also revived the fortunes of another GOP politician whose message, many said, just wasn't right for the times. The other comeback kid was the late Ronald Reagan, with his message of opposition to big-government meddling. With his back to the wall after two stinging defeats, Romney ignored the advice of pollsters and pundits and campaigned on the Reagan-era theme that government is the problem. He even went after government policies...

If you're like me, the bluster and grandstanding associated with big congressional actions make you want to roll up the windows, crank up the radio, and tune out the whole circus. But the mammoth energy bill finally passed by Congress and signed by President Bush is something consumers should pay attention to. Among other things, the new law will directly affect the kinds of cars on the market in a few years--and what buyers pay for them. Some of the big changes that automakers and consumers will both have to contend with: Surprisingly tough gas mileage standards. The requirement to...

If you own a sports utility vehicle, you live in sin. At least that's what the Rev. Jim Ball and his group, the Evangelical Environmental Network, would have you believe. And they've set out to make sure people become aware of this little-known sin through some controversial ads, which ask, "What Would Jesus Drive?" Are they on to something? After all, 52 percent of the new vehicles purchased in America these days are SUVs. Under current federal laws, a passenger car must get 27.5 miles for the gallon, but an SUV needs to get only 20.7 miles a gallon. Transportation...

Waste of Energy by Gregg Easterbrook Post date 04.18.02 Last month the conservatives in the Senate triumphantly screwed the liberals, voting to block higher fuel-economy standards for SUVs. Today the liberals in the Senate have triumphantly screwed the conservatives right back, voting to block oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. How festive. In so doing, conservatives and liberals together will have screwed the country. We will have the worse of both worlds: continued headlong petroleum waste coupled with continued dependence on Persian Gulf oil. It's hard to decide which is worse: the way in which ideological preconceptions, rather...

<p>On Wednesday, the Senate voted down a proposal by Sens. John Kerry and John McCain to raise mileage standards on automobiles. The outcome came as no surprise, but what does it mean?</p> <p>Was it yet another victory for special interests at the expense of the national interest? No, it was much worse than that.</p>

A Failure of Energy mericans should be outraged at the Senate's vote on Wednesday to compromise important national security and environmental concerns in order to please the auto industry and its unions. That is precisely what took place when 62 senators, as part of the ongoing debate on new energy legislation, rejected a long-overdue effort to increase fuel efficiency standards by 50 percent over 13 years. Doing so promised ultimately to save 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, more than is currently imported from the Middle East.The average mileage for vehicles sold in America has dropped to 24 miles...