Energy Bill? What Energy Bill?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 06.22.07
That '57 Plymouth they dug up in Tulsa will get close to 25 miles per gallon, not much less than the current average. Yet the "compromise" reached in the so-called energy bill that the automakers were running over themselves to stop specifies an average fleet mileage of 35 MPG in 2020. It doesn't take sixty-three years to figure out how to get a 10 MPG improvement. The Times put it nicely:
"The combination of breakthroughs and setbacks highlighted the blocking power of the entrenched industry groups, from oil companies and electric utilities to car manufacturers, that had blanketed Congress in recent days to defend their interests.No money for renewables, a requirement for 36 billion gallons of ethanol, no pressure on utilities to use renewables, no cutting of incentives to oil companies that might, horror of horrors, "lead to higher gas prices." Nothing but 12 years to reach a fuel efficiency standard that the market will demand a lot sooner.
In 2020 three dollar gas is going to be a very distant memory and 35 MPG better be too; what a waste of time. ::New York Times
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