Obama will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider whether to grant California a waiver to regulate automobile tailpipe emissions linked to global warming, sources said, and he will order the Transportation Department to issue guidelines that will ensure that the nation's auto fleet reaches an average fuel efficiency of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, if not earlier.
No analysis, but I'd rather see a $1 a gallon federal gas tax. And this puzzles me:
"President Obama's actions will reduce our oil dependence by speeding the production of the gas-sipping cars of the future," [Daniel J. Weiss, who directs climate strategy at the Center for American Progress] said. "He understands that oil and gasoline prices will rise with our recovering economy, and more fuel-efficient cars will help families cope with higher prices. And other countries will want to buy our more-efficient vehicles."
So economic recovery is going to increase gas prices. Unless you've lost complete faith in basic economics (and by my reading of the popular press and recent comments on our posts, many of you have) tighter CAFE standards will increase the price of cars. And yet somehow, this will help families cope with higher prices?