Group sues Obama administration over weak MPG standards
When the next step in the road to 35 mpg by 2020 CAFE standards was announced recently, those in the know made it clear that the Obama administration's upcoming goal of 27.3 mpg by 2011 would not be hard for automakers to meet. In fact, the 2007 average was already 31.3, so the 2011 goal would not require any change in product lineup (more difficult changes are scheduled to come into effect down the line). The 2011 standards were so light, in fact, that the Center for Biological Diversity took the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Department of Transportation to court last week, saying that the Obama administration's standards "ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Center filed suit in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to push the 2011 standards to "the maximum feasible level, in light of current technology, economic impact, and the nation's need to conserve energy." Read the Center's press release after the jump.
[Source: Center for Biological Diversity, San Francisco Chronicle]
PRESS RELEASE:
Lawsuit Challenges Obama Fuel Economy Standards
National Gas-mileage Standard for Cars, Trucks, SUVs Weaker Than Bush Proposal, Fails to Account for Global Warming
SAN FRANCISCO- The Center for Biological Diversity today filed suit to strike down the Obama administration's corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for cars, trucks, and SUVs for model year 2011. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act requires miles-per-gallon standards be set at the "maximum feasible level," yet the Obama rule sets a significantly lower standard than proposed by the Bush administration in 2008, and is much lower than current standards in Europe, Japan, China, and other countries.
The lawsuit was filed against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Department of Transportation in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The Obama rule, issued last Friday, requires that passenger cars achieve only 30.2 mpg and that SUVs and pick-up trucks achieve only 24.1 mpg in 2011. Both these numbers are lower than Bush's proposal of 31.2 mpg for passenger cars and 25 mpg for SUVs and light trucks. It will result in millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions more than the Bush proposal.
"Reducing the proposed fuel economy standards is a step backwards from the clean energy future President Obama has promised," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity. "These low standards, which ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming."
The current European and Japanese standards are about 43.3 and 42.6 mpg, respectively. China's current standard is 35.8.
"The technology for better, smarter, safer vehicles exists today," said Siegel. "The U.S. auto industry is collapsing in large part because it has rejected new, more efficient technologies. These standards embrace instead of reversing this failed approach."
The transportation sector accounts for about a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and any rational plan to address the climate crisis must achieve dramatic fuel economy improvements. Despite the existing legal mandate from the Energy Policy and Conservation Act that the standards be set at the "maximum feasible level," the U.S. standards lag far below current standards in Europe, Japan, China, and other countries.
"The Obama standards keep the U.S. in last place when it comes to fuel economy," said Deborah Sivas, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford Law School, who is representing the Center in the case. "This lawsuit will force the administration to live up to its promise to lead the way in technological innovation and greenhouse gas reductions."
The new standards come in response to a federal appeals court decision won by the Center and others in 2007 striking down the Bush standards issued in 2006. The court ruled that the standards failed to adequately consider the vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions. As the Bush administration was formulating new standards, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act in December 2007, which mandates that the agency require the combined car and truck fleet reach a minimum of 35 mpg by 2020. In May 2008, the Bush administration issued a new proposal. While those standards were well below what are technically feasible and required by law, they were higher than the final decision issued by the Obama administration last week.
The standards finalized by the Obama administration for passenger cars are a full 1 mpg lower than the Bush proposal. The standards for the light truck category, which includes both SUVs and pick-up trucks, are 0.9 mpg lower than the Bush proposal and only .1 mpg higher than the 2006 standard, which was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as inadequate.
The Bush administration postponed finalizing the standards as Congress and the administration developed options for a bailout of U.S. automakers. President Obama issued a memorandum in January directing the Department of Transportation to revise the rule to incorporate relevant technological and scientific considerations. Today's regulations affect only model year 2011; later model years will be the subject of a future rulemaking.
"Obama promised change, but this is change in the wrong direction," said Siegel. "With all the bailout money spent, the U.S. government practically owns the U.S. auto industry, but unfortunately the bankrupt policies of auto industry lobbyists are still behind the wheel at the Department of Transportation."
Table 1: U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy for Model Year 2011
Table 1: U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy for Model Year 2011
|
|
2006 Bush Final Rule |
2008 Bush Proposed Rule |
2009 Obama Final Rule |
|
Passenger Cars |
n/a |
31.2 |
30.2 |
|
Light Trucks |
24 |
25.0 |
24.1 |
|
Combined Fleet |
n/a |
27.8 |
27.3 |
Figure 1: Fuel Economy by Country/Region. Source: Passenger Vehicle Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy Standards: A Global Update, ICCT (December, 2008); Bush proposal for 2011-2015 and the final Obama standard of 27.3 mpg has been added to the ICCT graphic.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Hike15 11:09AM (4/08/2009)
I think how America is handling the CAFE standards is ridiculous. It should be done like the Europeans, who go by pollution which is what matters more. Automakers should realize that people want more fuel efficient cars anyways and that they will sell. The Government shouldn't need to make all of them realize this.
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Doug A. 11:13AM (4/08/2009)
I agree on the polution part.
However Americans won't pay more for a car to get good MPG while our gas is under $4/gal. They may say otherwise, but the proof is in what they buy. Until gas is over $x/gal it's not going to be profitable to make high MPG cars that they LOSE MONEY ON each time they sell it.
notYou 11:45AM (4/08/2009)
The problem is that even the word "pollution" has been politicized.
For example, water vapor is the world's #1 greenhouse gas (like 85%+ of all constituent gases) and as a result, greenies now consider it to be pollution even though human production of it can't be practically measured vs. the natural evaporation of the ocean surfaces.
With rules like that, it's no wonder rational people and countries are dragging their heels.
why not the LS2LS7? 11:48AM (4/08/2009)
I don't agree Europe says pollution comes first. Europe lags behind CAFE on pollution regs. They have always done so. And they're often behind the US in general.
In Europe, CO2 (same as fuel efficiency) is the big thing right now. Which is why you see Bentley working on flex-fueled cars. They, if fueled by ethanol made without a lot of CO2 emissions during the creation, don't contribute to carbon build up.
A3rd.Zero 1:04PM (4/08/2009)
You say that but where is the proof? American's don't buy more fuel efficient cars, they buy trucks and Hummers, unless the gas prices go up, but when they come down guess what American's do?
Additionally I don't buy that graph one bit. China? Really? The place were the 2stroke engine is everywhere? Their standards may be higher, but they certainly don't adhere to them.
Also the united states has more Industrialized Agriculture than anywhere else on that graph. Go to Texas and try telling a cattle rancher that he doesn't need a 4x4 pickup. How the hell is he supposed to get to the upper 120 in a Prius?
G-Meister 2:31PM (4/08/2009)
LS- CAFE has NOTHING to do with emissions- that's the EPA. You are correct in so much that the NA emission standards have long been the tightest in the world.
A3rd- I think you're both saying the same thing.
Rich 2:32PM (4/08/2009)
000
tekd 2:01PM (4/09/2009)
@A3rd Zero
China took everyone's 2-cycle scooters and motorcycles and crushed them in most major cities. Like mentioned here: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/09/10/14-277-cycles-in-china-deemed-illegal-destroyed/
Some cities did it because of pollution and noise (if you've ever been to China you'd realize that nobody has money to actually even maintain their scooters so you get these ridiculously squeaking brakes and insanely loud exhaust sounds). And some did it because of the huge crime problem (basically, thugs ride scooters up next to people walking on sidewalks or riding bicycles and grab people's purses/bags then ride off, sometimes dragging people after them). But either way there's a lot fewer 2-stroke engines in China now than there were 3 years ago-things move fast there, so you might be thinking of China circa 2003 but 2003 is ancient history in a country growing like China.
A lot of the time people's scooters are actually contraband-in some cities you'll see people on scooters but they're actually illegal.
Anyways, pollution aside, China's MPG regulations also have to do with the practical fact that if you want to let more people own cars in a country with 1.5 billion people, you pretty much have to regulate MPG strictly or there wouldn't be enough oil in the world. China's car market is larger than the US car market now, if they didn't actually enforce these MPG limits I think gas would be $6 a gallon, lol.
elprogramer 11:13AM (4/08/2009)
Well, the Ninth Circuit is always a wild card, but this lawsuit is beyond ridiculous. The President is well within his established powers to set CAFE wherever he wishes and none of this has any bearing on the intended purpose of higher MPG regulations, which was to ween people off of foreign oil.
In fact, what I'm hoping, is that the court finds CAFE unconstitutional altogether.
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BoxerFanatic 11:54AM (4/08/2009)
Actually it is not within the President's powers. It is an abomination that the President gets elected, and evaluated as being a separate co-equal legislator. The executive branch is not intended to be a third house of congress, with one primary member and his support staff.
The President is the chief executive, not the chief legislator, and even the chief legislator of the house, the Speaker, and the President of the senate, nor the Senate Majority Leader, don't have carte blanche without a majority vote of the legislature.
That is the point of republican government, nobody has carte blanche, at least when they play by the rules. But the rules have been out the window for a long, long time.
It is arguable that regulating private enterprise for this reason is constitutional or not, but the precedent for huge government regulation of the private sector is an avalanche that has been rolling down hill for more than a century, at the least.
I see no enumerated power that says that the government can regulate this that and the other thing, because they feel like it. This isn't criminal law. People aren't committing fraud if they just happen not to be Super-Green.
If private groups, like the ones bringing the lawsuit, want greenie-mobiles, then they should advertise, and publicize lists of cars that do well, and advocate for people to buy them.
The long arm of the law has become a bludgeon for policy-minorities to leverage the government against other people's wishes. That is never what the federal government, or state government, or any just government should be doing.
That is the rule of a few people, wrapped in the law. Not the rule of law agreed upon by the people through the legislative process.
But it is so ingrained because it has been allowed for so long, that people don't care anymore, and have learned to live with their legal yokes, instead of refusing them, or throwing them off.
Zanardi1782 10:34AM (4/09/2009)
Thank you BoxerFanatic!
It boggles my mind how many people are unaware of the simple fact that our President - as the chief executive - cannot (and should not) enact any laws. Nor should his appointed executives. That is a power reserved to the legislative branch, as was clearly spelled out by the Founding Fathers.
Yes, there are check and balances (the President's veto power, for example) in between the branches, but excutives - by definition - cannot enact laws.
Ben 11:15AM (4/08/2009)
kind of funny how Bush's proposed standards were stricter than Obama's. and that was not a political statement, i just thought it was amusing.
that being said, CAFE standards are a joke and car makers have to do pretty much nothing to meet them.
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Frank 1:30PM (4/08/2009)
No, no. Don't say that. Bush is bad, bad I tell you. Nothing he did was good. Didn't you get the memo?
Josiah 3:10PM (4/08/2009)
Easy to raise MPG standards on auto makers when everything is going well financially with the country and people are buying Hummers to park in front of their McMansions.
Tang 11:15AM (4/08/2009)
What good is it going to do if they sue toe administration?
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harlanx6 11:57AM (4/08/2009)
We all want better cleaner cars. The competition for fuel economy in this ultra competitive industry will provide what the demand calls for. The suit is frivolous, and the plaintiffs should be fined.
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Itsuru 11:16AM (4/08/2009)
Why is it so hard for America to match the EU on this, I'm a little confused, it wouldn't be the biggest lifestyle shock ever.
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notYou 11:46AM (4/08/2009)
Itsuru: "Why is it so hard for America to match the EU on [mpg standards]"
Why is it so hard for Europe to match America on GDP? Worker productivity? Defense ([cough] NATO [cough] joke [cough])? UN spending? Peacekeeping activites? Charitable giving? World hunger relief? Aid to Africa? Counter-terrorism? etc., etc., etc.
Oh, but you whine for us to follow your brave "lead" on mpg? Nice to see Euros can finally circle the wagons and fight to the last man over something!
Bloke 11:59AM (4/08/2009)
Good grief man, stop being so intimidated. America is hardly the be-all-and-end-all. Different countries have different priorities. You talk of charitable giving to other countries, but helping your own people live a healthier life in order to be able to give to others in the first place is far more important.
ello 4:15PM (4/14/2009)
@notyou, the amount of money US spends on "defense" is much much higher than on anything else you mentioned, proportionally US except military spending is not any better than EU counterparts. Besides, I would rather have a free health care, better education system, and less than 50% of population on prozac than whatever US is doing right now... And with that worker productivity, as an example, what takes an average french factory worker 36 hours, it takes average US worker 40 hours, so please check your statistics and other scientific studies before posting some random ramblings... Reality is that USA is way behind in a lot of social developments but the way US education system is set up it makes Americans believe that USA is the greatest at everything which of course is far away from the truth...
Going back to original topic, reality is that US is addicted to oil and just like with most other addictions, it is extremely difficult to get off it. Reality is that if government would really want for us to be less dependent on terrorist founding nations, we would have done so long time ago, but there is too much money involved here...