California fuel efficiency standards going national

While the people living through the sixties in America experienced significant changes regarding civil rights, here at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century Americans are about to begin a significant period of change of their own.  The way we harvest resources, as well as go about producing and consuming energy has become the focus of the collective global society searching for a way to meet the energy needs of the growing future generations.  The movement toward an energy conscious society began with individuals, but it has moved into both the business and political arenas recently and is poised to be legislated into law.

U.S. gasoline consumption figures indicate that Americans like to drive; we are addicted to oil.  Our suburbs have been drawn out in such a fashion that we have to drive to work and to the store and to soccer practice, the doctors, the movies, etc…  As citizens, we do not want to see our basic right to drive whatever size car we want however far we choose; but recently the U.S. has fallen under international and domestic pressure to begin curbing its greenhouse gases in an effort mitigate the effects of global warming and to strive toward energy independence.  Businesses have begun to see the merits of streamlining their manufacturing processes and selling greener products to the public.

The Washington Post recently reported that the Obama Administration “is considering establishing national rules for regulating greenhouse gas emissions for automobiles” as one of the first steps of this campaign.  It seems like California’s efforts to sidestep the EPA over the course of the past two years and set up their own state standards regulating emissions is going national.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 was a greenhouse gas, and States had the right to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.  When the EPA failed to enforce the Supreme Court ruling, California sued over their right to establish their own standards separate from national rules.  Of course, they were denied; but that denial was recently overturned, and the EPA is actively working on instituting national emission standards.

Car manufacturers went on to produce...

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(John Guerrerio is 72JAG)

http://www.examiner.com/x-2903-Energy-Examiner
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