Obama wants to set 2025 mpg standards for cars, light trucks

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/05/president-obama-wants-to-set-2025-mpg-standards-now/1

 

In an unusual move that would let the current administration control fuel economy standards even after one or two more occupants have cycled through the White House, President Obama ordered work to begin immediately on 2017-2025 fuel mileage standards for cars and light trucks. The executive effort would also limit Congress' role.

Obama wants first big-rig mpg rules in 2014. See below.

Key for carmakers, the federal process should head off California's effort to set its own mileage and emissions rules for after 2016. The current federal regs expire in 2011 and pre-empting California's "do its own thing" was got automaker's to back the 2012-16 rules the Obama folks set last year. Federal preemptive regulation "achieved success once before, so we are optimistic that we can do it again," Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, says.

Obama says he wants the new rules to put the U.S. on a path to cut vehicle fuel use and emissions in half by 2030 and encourage alternatives, such as more electrics. More details:

The current regulations dictate an industry-wide average of 35.5 miles per gallon. But that includes credits that car companies can accumulate for low-emission air conditioning and other clean-air technology. Our colleague Justin Hyde at the Detroit Free Press notes (as most others don't) that the actual fuel economy number is 32.7 mpg in 2016.

And, we point out, even that isn't the number you'll see on new-car window stickers. A car's final rating is adjusted by the EPA using a formula meant to better track real-world driving conditions. So when you hear "35.5 mpg" as the 2016 standard for city/highway combined mileage, think 28 or 29 mpg in window-sticker mileage.

Bet the auto industry is happy. thats gonna be a lot of new cars we gotta buy...

I'll be sure to consider this when buying a new car.

oh oh oh and this is just typical. Cars are emitting too many fumes, so lets use electric cars which don't emit anything. But duh, the electricity has to come from somewhere, and you're probably burning coal or something to get it. Except its going to take you more energy to burn the fuel, convert it to electricity, and restore it as electric potential energy in a car battery than it will if you just burn fuel IN the car.

Although I'm sure the watermellons have a lot of plans to subsidize wind and solar energy... natural gas and iron fertilization be damned!

Free oil prices!

The market will respond in kind.

Highly regulate a market and end up with shoddy goods.

bank run:

Free oil prices!

Look at how small the private sector is in oil. Most reserves are held by national oil companies.

National oil companies are wierd. They work different in different countries. In Saudi Arabia, they try to operate as profitably as possible, since the reserves are essentially privately owned (by the ruling class).

In Europe and Mexico, its a different story. They try to maximize recovery, not profits. This can be a huge difference. Profitable oil recovery may be 30-40%, which total possible (uneconomic) oil recovery might be 60-70% of movable oil. So its difficult to say what their impact on the world economy is. Maybe you get cheaper oil but everyone pays higher taxes to support it.

You might not even get cheaper oil because the opportunity cost of producing one field to depletion. If you have rigs and personnel busy on a dieing field when there are more fruitful options to be drilled, oil is not getting produced at the maximum overall rate.

You! a protectionist price fixer?

Honestly I believe if oil wasn't a tool for the global hegomoners, clearing prices based on quantity would likely be much higher. It may even lower? I suspect free clearing prices would force entrepreneurs to market a better alternative, without say the ethical problem of being forced to.

Price fixing is a nasty business. It creates distortions not only in fixed markets, I believe it reciprocates on surrounding markets. This is all with the premise that the state is more important than the individuals. So long as the power holders don't lose a grip is what protectionism serves. 

I say let us be dupes no longer, free prices!