25-year-old fuel efficiency law finally seeing enforcement in Ottawa, Canada

In a lot of places (Pennsylvania, for example, or California), there is a move towards passing new laws that affect tailpipe emissions or fleet standards. But why write new laws when there's already one on the books? This is the situation in Ottawa, Canada where old laws (specifically the 1981 Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act, along with pieces of other existing legislation including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act) were reintroduced last week as the Clean Air Act by a Conservative leader in the Stephen Harper government. The 1981 law doesn't set any mileage standards and was put on ice by Pierre Trudeau's government in favor of a mutual understanding. Auto manufacturers in Canada convinced government after government that they would follow U.S. standards voluntarily, but two weeks ago, Ottawa announced it intends to end the current voluntary agreement by 2010, according to the Hamilton Spectator.

[Source: Hamilton Spectator]