The State of Fuel Economy: Too Little, Too Late

The buzz is growing that President Bush will call for change in fuel economy regulations in his State of the Union address.

Bush must understand that calling for the authority to act is no longer acceptable–He has the power to toughen the standards himself right now. Bush needs to take a bold step to show he is serious. After all, he has been President for 6 years and we have heard the rhetoric in six SOTU’s.
The CAFE standard sits at 27.5 miles per gallon and has not been raised since 1990. Last year when Bush called for the authority to improve CAFE, Democrats in Congress shot back that the power to do so was already at his fingertips.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) framed the status of CAFE well:

Our problem in dealing with the Bush administration is that when they want to send troops to fight for oil, they do that whether they have the authority or not. When you ask them to reduce the need for oil, suddenly they’re concerned about authority.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 6:27 pmand is filed under Climate Progress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “The State of Fuel Economy: Too Little, Too Late”

  1. Climate Progress » Blog Archive » GM’s Schizophrenia: Europe vs America Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    […] is also the issue of politics. Certainly one thing to keep your eye on this Congress is the push on CAFE standards, which is causing some of the big guys to throw their weight around on Capitol […]

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