Posted on 05/19/2009 11:30:25 AM PDT by reaganaut1
President Obama announced tough new nationwide rules for automobile emissions and mileage standards on Tuesday, embracing standards that California has sought to enact for years over the objections of the auto industry and the Bush administration.
“For the first time in history, we have set in motion a national policy aimed at both increasing gas mileage and decreasing greenhouse gas pollution for all new trucks and cars sold in the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from Washington, flanked by officials from Michigan and California.
The rules, which will begin to take effect in 2012, will put in place a federal standard for fuel efficiency that is as tough as the California program, while imposing the first-ever limits on climate-altering gases from cars and trucks.
The effect will be a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016 than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon.
Environmental advocates and industry officials welcomed the new program, an accord that Mr. Obama said “would have been considered impossible” in the past.
But they welcomed it for different reasons. Environmentalists called it a long-overdue tightening of emissions and fuel economy standards after decades of government delay and industry opposition. Auto industry officials said it would provide the single national efficiency standard they have long desired, a reasonable timetable to meet it and the certainty they need to proceed with product development plans.
Yet the industry position represents an abrupt about-face after years of battling tougher mileage standards in the courts and in Congress, reflecting the change in the political climate and the automakers’ shaky financial condition.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You haven’t been paying attention.
The EPA ruled on carbon emissions and greenhouse gases as a mortal threat.
Hence the authority to do so by administrative diktat.
How will the masses afford them?
Everyone who buys that BS, as a carbon dioxide spewing creature, should immediately kill themselves.
Prediction: by 2016, enough palms will have been greased in the Senate and Congress that these rules will be so full of waivers and special exceptions that the cars and trucks being sold will have exactly the same efficiency as today’s vehicles. Corruption of elected Democrats has become such a non-issue in the media that the only thing federal regulation does is make our lawmakers wealthy; it’s rampant and unchecked.
0bama will buy a new car for everyone who makes under a certain financial threashold, and is of a certain skin color.
Get ready to see car lots full of deathtraps with lawnmower engines, that nobody want...
Yikes.....thousands more will die on the highway.
Dead fools for hope and change.
Just like we’ve removed indoor pollution, primarily tobacco, we can do the same for the atmosphere and the planet.
The children will benefit.
If these rules save the life of just one child, it will have been worth it.
With an exemption for muslims, of course who are breeding like rabbits on orders from allah.
We see Dumb Cars around here quite often, we fell honor bound to point & laugh. If you buy one of those, you should expect it. I was in the parking lot at a shopping center once & saw a crowd gathered around something, walking around it & laughing hysterically. Yes, it was one of those fabulous Smart Cars.
From the looks of it, a collision with a shopping cart is going to result in fatalities.
I still don’t understand how this is an executive issue instead of congressional billl.
However, this seems to provide a clue why Obama can just announce this instead of propose it in Congress.
“In January, Mr. Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. He also instructed the Transportation Department to draw up rules to complement a 2007 law requiring a 40 percent improvement in mileage for autos and light trucks by 2020. The Bush administration wrote no regulations to enforce the 2007 law.”
It appears it simply is writing regulations to go along with a 2007 law improving mileage.
Why do I have this overwhelming desire to go out and beat the cr@p out of an environmentalist?
After all, since we murder 1.5 million inconvenient children annually in the name of "choice", we have to make some ridiculous rules to try to save at least one of those who escape the abortion mill. That way, we can feel oh-so-righteous-and-good while going to hell in our handbasket.
Don’t you wish that Baraq and his offspring could be shuttled around Washington in Chevy Aveos instead of 12,000# fortresses?
and who will buy the cars of Government Motors?
YOU WILL sucka
/Baraq
To bad someone doesn’t call on Obama to issue an executive order demanding every branch of gov’t meet these standards.
I’m tired of edicts on us mere subjects while our “Leaders” continue on thier merry way. If I’m forced to travel in a tuna can then every Gov’t employee should also.
We have two parents, two long legged teen boys, and one teen girl in our family. I’m driving an old Lincoln right now, which I picked up off a used car lot, specifically because our whole family could fit in it, and it was easier on gas than my hubby’s Suburban. My hubby has a subcompact that he sometimes drives, as do my sons. They’re fine for small families, but when we’re all going somewhere together we automatically head for the Lincoln.
Otherwise we would need two cars for all the legs and elbows.
I noticed this gem in the news lines:’Mr. Obama said in remarks from Washington, flanked by officials from Michigan and California.” It is quaint that the 2 most fiscally irresponsible states in the Union would back this IGNORANT proposal.
And the existing cars will need new converters, I suppose, and emissions tests on a regular basis?
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