Obama drives up miles-per-gallon requirements

— -- The Obama administration announced Tuesday what amounts to a sweeping revision to auto-emission and fuel-economy standards, putting them in the same package for the first time.

The plan would require cars and trucks to average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, President Obama said at a ceremony with legislators, regulators, executives of 10 car companies and the United Auto Workers union. The plan would increase the standard and accelerate the requirement from 35 mpg in 2020 set by the 2007 Energy Act.

"The status quo is no longer acceptable," Obama said. "We have done little to increase fuel efficiency of America's cars and trucks for decades."

It also is expected to boost the average price of a new vehicle $600 on top of the $700 price boost already envisioned in the 2007 law, for a total of $1,300.

Obama agreed that "it costs money to build these vehicles." But he also stressed that "the cost of driving these vehicles will go down as drivers save money at the pump."

Over the life of the program, the USA would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil.

"While the United States makes up less than 5% of the world's population, we create roughly a quarter of the world's demand for oil. And this appetite comes at a tremendous price," Obama said.

The plan was leaked Monday night and Carol Browner, the White House energy and climate director, publicly confirmed the initiative in appearances on morning network news shows Tuesday, calling it a "truly historic" occasion and saying that such tougher environmental standards have been "long overdue."

The plan would effectively end a feud between automakers and states over emission standards — with the states getting tougher standards they want, but automakers getting the single national standard they've been seeking.

If a fragile compromise among often-warring factions — federal regulators, states and automakers — can last though the rulemaking process, the new regulations would be the first to blend emissions and fuel-economy standards, becoming perhaps the most dramatic suite of auto rules since the Clean Air Act of 1970. That law set auto-pollution standards for the first time and banned poisonous lead, which was used as a lubricant, from gasoline.