New York Times Editorial: Everybody Wins

New York Times Editorial: Everybody Wins
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/opinion/02fri2.html?th&emc=th


The new automobile fuel economy standards formally adopted by the Obama administration on Thursday will yield a trifecta of benefits: reduced dependence on foreign oil, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and consumer savings at the pump.

This was truly a moment to celebrate. But it was tempered by the fact that some in Congress are trying to undo the laws that made the new standards possible.

The standards will require automakers to build passenger cars, sport-utility vehicles and minivans that average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 — a 30 percent increase over today’s cars, and the biggest single jump in fuel economy since the original standards were adopted in the 1970s. Cars will cost more, but the government estimates that consumers will save an average of $3,000 in fuel over the life of a new vehicle.

The standards will also impose the first-ever limits on automobile greenhouse gas emissions, and are expected to reduce fleetwide emissions by 21 percent by 2030 compared with what the output would have been without the standards. Because emissions from passenger vehicles represent about one-fifth of America’s greenhouse gases, this is a step forward for the planet.

The automakers, who fought the rules until they went bust, have come to accept this as a step forward as well. A single national standard provides regulatory certainty, and they’ve got to get more efficient to survive.

Yet some in Congress seemed determined to roll back the laws that got us here. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, and several other senators have mounted a challenge to the federal government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — not just from automobiles but from other sources. The Supreme Court gave the Environmental Protection Agency that authority three years ago, and the new emissions standards would have been impossible without it.

There has also been talk in the Senate of eliminating California’s special authority under the Clean Air Act to set more aggressive motor vehicle standards than the federal limits. California used that authority to pass a law in 2002 setting greenhouse gas emissions limits for cars sold there. It was the first law of its kind in this country, and it provided the momentum and the foundation for the new nationwide standards.

What all of these opponents mean to do is to roll back history and the hard-won environmental protections it has produced. That would be a huge mistake.