Environmental lobbyists scored a big victory on fuel economy rules. President Obama is expected to announce tomorrow that he will boost the nation’s average fuel economy for new models just north of 35 miles per gallon by 2016. That’s about four years earlier than the Bush Administration originally proposed and similar to new greenhouse gas rules that California wanted to put in place on its own.
Here’s where the green lobby showed some real savvy. They knew they couldn’t get the Bush Administration to pass tougher rules. But groups like the Sierra Club figured they could get California to bite. So in 2002, they got California Senator Fran Pavley to sponsor a bill that would put tougher rules in place to govern carbon dioxide emissions. California has long had its own rules to govern emissions and pollution. But carbon dioxide can’t be scrubbed or filtered like other pollutants. You can only cut emissions by burning less gasoline. So any rule restricting it is a de facto rule on fuel economy. The industry tied the California proposal up in court, hoping to keep the feds from granting California a waiver.
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