CLEAN Energy Act of 2007 Passes Senate
by Eric Richard
You may have already seen this, but yesterday, the Senate passed the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007.
I haven’t yet had a chance to read through all of the details, but from most of what I have read the “good guys” won.
The New York Times described this as a “major defeat for car manufacturers” and the AP article said that “Republicans complained that the energy bill is tilted too much toward renewables and fuel efficiency and does nothing to boost domestic oil or natural gas production.”
If the auto manufacturers and Republicans are complaining that is was not enough about oil, sounds like a victory to me!
The key provision of the bill is that the CAFE standards be raised to 35 mpg by 2020 and, most importantly, this standard will include SUVs, unlike today’s standard.
I know there was some disappointment that one provision related to renewable energy tax breaks didn’t get through, but there has also been discussion of re-raising that vote in the future. It was a very close vote and six senators didn’t vote.
I am sure we will be seeing more on this in the days to come.
Of course, just passing the Senate is only 1/3 of the process. The bill still has to pass the House, the two versions need to get reconciled, and then the president needs to sign it. So, there is a long way to go.
But, after 20+ years of no change here, this is a great step forward.
on June 22nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I was listening to an NPR report the other day about how car makers are complaining that in order to meet these new CAFE standards they will have to make cars smaller, and less powerful, and that vehicles like the Ford F150’s still way-outsell the Prius. Basically, they were saying that the people want bigger, faster, more powerful, and this will hurt the car companies. Though I hate excuses like this one, it’s probably entirely true. In a way, we are asking for the car makers to suck it up and lose money while the people SLOWLY figure out that they are killing the planet, running out of oil, and that maybe what they do each day is impacts everything around them. People are just too busy making a life for themselves to be concerned about how it’s impacting everyone and everything around them.
on June 22nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Continuing… This is why we need a BIG carbon tax, and a BIG vehicle tax. The bottom line is the only thing that most people react to. Though I’m guessing that most people who read this blog do care and do react to things other than money…
on June 22nd, 2007 at 10:25 pm
I simply don’t buy the argument that we can’t raise CAFE standards because people want big trucks. According to two recent NY Times articles, cars are now outselling trucks in the US for the first time since 2002 and truck sales are only expected to decline more.
Even if I believed that people only want trucks, I still think there are technologies like regenerative braking and computer-controlled engine starters that could be added to trucks to up their fuel efficiencies without drastic changes.
on June 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I’d add a whole different take here too.
Frankly I don’t care what the market wants if what the market wants will result in immoral or harmful behavior.
For example, the market probably wants cheaper cars that can be produced by cheaper labor and bad working conditions and bad health care. But the government says, “No, even if the market wants this, we cannot provide this.”
If we purely followed the demands of the market, we’d find ourselves in a race to the bottom.
And I think that environmental impact is a perfect example of harm to the society that can come from the race to the bottom.
It is the job of the government and regulations to protect society from the market when the market is unable or unwilling to police itself.
Of course, in a global economy, this is where you get into “unequal playing fields” where one manufacturer can use lower standards than another.
What I like about this legislation is that this is a requirement of the end product, not the process of producing the product — all vendors are held to the same metric here, regardless of whether they are domestic or not.
on June 23rd, 2007 at 1:34 am
Actually, as described at
http://www.grinzo.com/energy/?p=149, the new Energy act appears to be *much* weaker than initially meets the eye. The amendment with the fuel efficiency standards (sponsored by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Oil)) says that
-the NHTSA can suspend the 35 mpg requirement if it isn’t “cost-effective.” Cost effective appears to mean whatever the NHTSA wants it to. (Incidentally, note that there is a school of thought that gov’t regulations are *never* cost-effective, since they interfere with the market.)
-If auto companies don’t meet the standards, they can borrow from projected mpg surpluses in future years.
But I doubt consumers will be buying many sub-50 mpg cars in 2020. There just isn’t enough oil left for them to do so.