ON MPG & THE LONG-AWAITED ENERGY BILL

If required EPA vehicle emissions controls currently being drawn up by the White House turn out to be anything approaching world standards, it might take vehicle mileage off the table in energy bill negotiations. The conference process could then focus on New Energy. It could happen: The White House wants less gas consumption -- what better way to get there than with gas-efficient cars? Unless you believe what Detroit says about it being economically impossible to produce such cars. But if it was impossible, how could the rest of the world be doing it?

White House urges Congress on energy bill
David Shepardson, September 21, 2007 (Detroit News)

WHO
Jim Connaughton, chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality

Is it expecting too much of Detroit to think they could bring U.S. fuel emissions standards to the level of the rest of the industrial world? (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Connaughton, speaking for President Bush, called on Congress to bring its energy legislation forward, specifically mentioning the President’s proposal to cut gasoline use 20% by 2017.

WHEN
President Bush’s proposal came in his January State-of-the-Union address. The House and Senate are currently negotiating on conflicting elements of energy bills passed in June and July.

WHERE
The dealing is hot and heavy in behind-the-scenes Washington, D.C.

WHY
- A major shift in negotiating positions may come from recent judicial findings allowing states to set their own vehicle emissions control standards and from a Supreme Court ruling in April requiring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate vehicle emissions.
- President Bush has 4 cabinet departments working on EPA standards, expected before the end of 2007.
- The Senate’s energy bill was built around Senator Feinstein’s new, more demanding Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFÉ) standard, requiring 35 mpg by 2020. The EPA standard may address that. The European Union’s emissions control standard (expressed as 120 gms/km) amounts to 43 mpg by 2012. Should the EPA standard approach the EU standard, there would be no need to fight over CAFÉ standards, leaving the White House and Congress free to haggle over renewables.

Here's how you cut back on gasoline use.

QUOTES
- Jim Connaughton, for the White House: "It is remarkable -- the President put forward the most aggressive proposal for replacing gasoline last January; he asked Congress to achieve that objective by the summer driving season. Well, school is back in, where's the legislation? We'd like to see legislation, but we're not going to wait for it. We're going to do it through regulation anyway."
- Connaughton, on the EPA standard and the EU standard: "It's our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be. So Europe should be setting its objectives, just as the United States sets its own objectives…"