Obama to drive up miles-per-gallon requirements
— -- The Obama administration is set to announce Tuesday what will amount to a sweeping revision to auto-emission and fuel-economy standards, putting them in the same package for the first time.
It would require cars and trucks to average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, according to a senior administration official who refused to be named until the official briefing today. That would be up from 35 mpg in 2020 under the standard set by the 2007 Energy Act.
It also would 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.
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 also would effectively end a feud between automakers and states over emission standards — with the states getting tougher standards, but automakers getting the single national standard they've been seeking, and more time to make the changes.
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.
"The president has succeeded in bringing three regulatory bodies, 15 states, a dozen automakers and many environmental groups to the table," noted Dave McCurdy, CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing most major automakers. "Multiple issues" remain to be resolved, however, he said.
To streamline the rulemaking process, the two agencies mainly responsible — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation — would work jointly, almost unheard of, the administration official said.
The regulations would limit, for the first time, the amount of carbon dioxide vehicles could emit. The only way to cut that much CO2 is to burn less fuel. CO2 is vilified as a major greenhouse gas (ghg), blamed for global warming.
"Groundbreaking," said the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
"Unprecedented — the first time the federal government would require reductions in global-warming pollution," said Daniel Weiss, senior fellow at the not-for-profit Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Key: California has agreed to follow the new federal standards, instead of imposing its own, at least until 2016, the administration official said. That gives automakers the single, nationwide standard they long have sought. California, plus 13 other states and the District of Columbia, previously asked for a waiver allowing them to impose stricter ghg standards than the current federal ones.
As detailed by the administration official, the plan requires improvements in fuel economy — via reductions in ghg emissions — for all cars and light trucks, based on their size. By 2016, cars will have to average 39 miles per gallon and trucks, 30 mpg.
The mileage numbers you'll see on new vehicles will be significantly lower, however, because those are calculated differently.
If the regulations encourage automakers to build smaller cars — the administration official said they won't — highway safety could decline. Statistics show small cars are less safe in crashes.
And decades of sales numbers show American buyers prefer larger vehicles, moving down in large numbers only under the duress of high fuel prices or economic hard times.
If the regulations result in less-appealing vehicles, they will be "a very convoluted way" of trying to tailor buyer habits to environmental concerns, says Jack Nerad, market analyst for Kelley Blue Book, a car-shopping service.
Contributing: Sharon Silke Carty