Obama’s green revolution: Starting with Automobiles
The United States needs to start pushing forward with greenhouse gas emissions policies not only for ourselves, but to prove to other nations that we are on board in combating climate change. Obama’s administration has planned to raise fuel mileage as well as tailpipe emissions standards by 2016. The new rules will begin to take effect in 2012. They will be the tough standards that California has been waiting for. The new strict tailpipe emissions put in place for new automobiles will be considered the first nationwide regulation on greenhouse gases. Also the proposal will raise new fuel efficiency standards to 35.5 miles per gallon for passenger vehicles and light trucks by 2016. This will be 40 percent cleaner than the current standards of today.
This will be a tremendous effort to meet these goals in 6 years because they are way ahead of the requirements under the 2007 energy bill. It is also an ambitious strategy due to the fact that the government is in a recession and funding will be extremely difficult. These efforts are the administrations first big steps towards countering climate change. This will also start to decrease the United States dependence on foreign oil. There are significant rewards for this new energy security. It can be said that the auto industry accounts for 17 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions in the US. This new plan is said to reduce US oil consumption by an amount that equals one year of imports from four of our major oil-supplying nations.
There will also be economic benefits to these new vehicles. Consumers will be able to gain back their extra initial costs through saving fuel costs within three years of time. When it comes to other market based incentives congress is also considering a cap and trade legislation to limit carbon emission. A trading system would be set up that would allow trading emissions allowances so that the private marketplace can use available fossil fuels most efficiently.
These efforts will also begin to create green jobs, a step to getting the economy back and rolling. Critics say that there won’t be room for economic growth, but we can’t have economic growth without trying to sustain our environments resources. There are many good economic incentives to this plan that will make the public much more responsive, and likely to want to cooperate. It is a small step towards a larger goal but the ball has to get rolling somewhere, and this is a good start.
I took a Global Environmental Issues last semester and Dr. Rich talked about this issue. He brought up an interesting point. The point at which a car is most environmentally unfriendly is during its production. A car being made uses more fossil fuels than it ever will during its driving life. Instead of buying a new 60 mpg car you would be better off continuing driving your SUV. I think that these new tail pipe emission standards are good but it think we should also look at ways to make the cars that we are driving now more fuel efficient. If the government can send a man to the moon I think they can figure out a way to make my Nissan more fuel efficient.
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