Government Fuel Efficient Standards
Big news today in the auto industry world. Though I’m sure this isn’t the first you’ve heard about it. Anyways, President Obama has laid out the new standards that must be followed for cars and light trucks starting in 2016. For cars, you must get on average 39 miles per gallon and light trucks get 30 mpg. The average price of a vehicle will go up by about $1300. This new proposal will force the automakers to meet these new fuel efficiency standards about 4 years before the Bush administration had originally said it needed to in 2007. Obama’s administration says that these new fuel efficiency standards “will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil and eliminate 900 million metric tons of greenhouse gases” according to an article on detnews.com. This is the equivalent of taking 177 million cars and trucks off the road. That’s a lot of good that will be done for the environment. Another piece to saving the earth is that President Obama has said that new cars must cut the carbon emissions by 30%. California already had these higher carbon emissions standards in place. They have been pushing for the rest of the country to get on board. There was a tremendous amount of support for Obama’s plans for the fuel and emissions standards. I heard on tv tonight someone ask if they think that 2016 is just a number and that these standards will constantly be pushed back. The news people said that didn’t think so, that the good support of these plans will help keep the project on target for 2016. I sure hope they are right. I think it’s a great idea, and we can all only hope that all the automakers follow through and sooner than later would be even better.