NHTSA is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they have no say in this. It is an end around run by the administation.

Um no what it was and still is is congress making something and the agency involved has to do what congress said. Bush and the admin have nothing to do with this.

Pretty much it goes like this.

EPA wanted to block the ability for California to regulate GHG emissions.

So the EPA said that the Congress proposed Fuel Economy Standard was better than the California one.

Except that it actually wasn't.

So now the NHSTA is raising it slightly, just high enough such that it is higher than the California standard.

The next step of course will be the EPA coming out with a statement saying that the NHSTA proposed Fuel Economy Standard was better than the California one. And therefore California's request is denied.

___________

This of course won't be resolved until Bush is out of office.

But in general, it's a testament on how scared the GOP is of attaching a meaningful price to carbon.

If they do it for one sector, then they will do it for another, and another and another.

And general, as goes California, so goes the rest of the country in terms of environmental regulations.

_

So of course, they are trying to kill it.
And keep it at the Federal level, where it's far easier to stonewall or cripple.

hm, how come California isn't one of the signers?

"In addition to Pennsylvania and California, the letter was signed by
the governors of Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington."

Because it was.

Yeap.

"The latest assault on states' rights came in the fine print of a proposal this week by NHSTA to put into place tougher CAFE standards required by last year's energy act. On page 387 of that proposal, NHSTA slipped in the killer language: "any state regulation regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles is expressly pre-empted."

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/4/25/9573/08944

Gotta read that fine print, eh?

This is a political dirty tricks turf battle sneak attack by Bush to protect the fossil fuel industry; sound's like a Karl Rove kind of move. I thought Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, was running McCain's Lobbyist financed campaign; but, I guess he's still only a phone call away.

Except of course CO2 is not a pollutant and has no provable effect on earth's temperature. Why regulate it? So the carbon "offset" gold diggers can r*pe and pillage.

"Except of course CO2 is not a pollutant and has no provable effect on earth's temperature. Why regulate it? So the carbon "offset" gold diggers can r*pe and pillage."

looks like you got lost on your way to DailyTech or ClimateAudit or any of the other 200 or so right-wing, anti-AGW blogs where tripe like this goes down like mother's milk.

California should not be setting policy (essentially) for the country on global warming.. the science is not settled yet.

Nope. We're right where we belong. But we didn't realize the number of sober AGW sites has grown to 200 - a veritable revolution of consciousness!

Um yes, if you read the article:

“administration would directly usurp congressional authority and patently subvert the clear intent of Congress in important legislation related to energy use.”

Don't worry about atela. When unqualified people insist on something contrary to the overwhelming scientific consensus you bin them with the creationists and forget about them.

Hey Herm, Atela

Can you name me even one scientific organization, whole wide world, which says that manmade emissions aren't a primary cause of the warming we've been experiencing in the past few decades?
http://greyfalcon.net/whatwouldittake

_

Assuming you can't,
Doesn't that count as a pretty overwhelming agreement within the scientific community.

__________

(And please, don't embarrass yourself with replying "BUT OMG ICE AGE CONSENSUS IN THE 1970's".)
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-20-global-cooling_N.htm

Anyway why bother with these inefficient regulations CAFE adn others, the increase of gas price will go much faster that the cowardise of our politicians.

I do not see the high price of gasoline selling all that many more hybrids, but I do see it promoting cellulose bio fuels. There will be 3-5% of the vehicles sold every year being hybrid in a few years, but that still takes a long time to replace all the cars on the road. We can have PHEVs, but even in 10 years they might not be more than 5% of the cars out there.

The immediate gain will be through behavior and conservation. It always has been and this time is no different. Car pools, mass transit, combining trips, telecommuting and using the most fuel efficient vehicle for the job will pay off. Then we may see cellulose bio fuels and then technology like PHEVs. It is a short, medium and long term game plan that will pay off the best with the least disruption.

Um if you had been payin any attension at all you would notice this never had ANYTHING to do with bush and gang. Its a buricrat turfwar pure and simple.

They ONLY thing bush and gang gave a flying weasel about was that it handle the possibility that the tech failed and the car makers might need an out.. so they made SURE it didnt count on too much iffy tech.

The oil companies are FINE with higher milage cars they always have been because it means more MONEY for them as people drive more and are happier about gas prices the better the car.

As doe car makers... as long as they can sell and make money they dont realy give a dang what it is they sell AS LONG AS PEOPLE LIKE THIER MODELS. Car makers would make flaming dildo mobiles with hot pink racing stripes that ran on poo if they sold well and made money.

And as a side note as long as they can say they tried to fight a rule that winds up canning the uaw but lost.. and thus blame someone else for bankruptcy and getting out of dept fee and clear... they are PERKY. They just are too good at being bussuibess men to openly show it.

Politicaly its a big win for gop if the dems force massive costly econ nuking changes now as its the dems who will get blamed and the gop who will get credit for the econ upswing x years after.

wintermane:

"The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. It will not be visible in next year's global assessment from the world authority of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[Note: AR4]. To state that climate change will be "catastrophic" hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science. Is any amount of climate change catastrophic? Catastrophic for whom, for where, and by when? What index is being used to measure the catastrophe? The language of fear and terror operates as an ever-weakening vehicle for effective communication or inducement for behavioural change."

Michael Hadley, Director Tyndall Center for Climate Research

"Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, said temperatures in 2008 are likely to be cooler because of the effects of the La Nina in the central and eastern Pacific.

He said it was likely that the La Nina phenomenon would continue into the summer. If his forecast is right it would mean temperatures have not risen globally since 1998."

Hadley Center for Climate Prediction, UK
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York
Christy Group at the University of Alabama,
Remote Sensing Systems Inc., California

etc.

Bush has appointed his loyalists to NHTSA.
If you do not think that he can affect their agenda think again. His staff gets on the phone and suddenly they are involved in the process, which has nothing to do with National Highway Traffic Safety.

Hectoring the population to reduce thier lifestyles never works for long, if at all.

Conservation, unlike hectoring, does work at the margin. But it is not an always open ended strategy. There is a law of diminishing returns in Conservation, as in all things.

The easy things get done first, and then progressively harder and harder things, that are more and more costly, for less and less improvement, is the real way of the world.

We have been hectoring to little or no effect for 35 years at least.

We have been conserving too. That has had an effect that perhaps you don't notice. The people's subcompact car of the 40-70s got all of 16 mpg. The biggest Suburban SUV does marginally better than that today. And essentailly all other vehicles except one-off racing vehicles, do better than that Suburban. Conservation has come a long ways already, but the end is in sight for the ICE engine.

You will never Conserve your way out of this problem.

Substitution is the only way.

Mankind has solved all his supply crisis with Substitution, over the centuries.

We have already substituted our way out of the Oil HVAC use; We are now substituting our way out of chemical feedstock use; and we WILL substitute our way out of the Ground Transport use of Oil.

Electrons will free us from Oil. Electrons generated from non Oil sources; and hopefully non fossil sources. Unfortunately, developing an adequate subtitution technology takes longer for some uses than for others. Its no conspiracy either, despite the religious faith of newbies, in the workings of devils.

Developing an adequate oil substitute for the Ground Transport role has taken over 35 years and is not quite accomplished yet. But the solution is now visible, and the timeframe for the solution(s) to reach markets is but a few years at most. It really doesn't matter whether the Chevy Volt or the Oprius III is first. Wihtin eighteen months thereafter, there will be no manufacturer who does not offer an equivalent.

In addition as for all substitutes, there is a turnover time to replace existing installations but that is always true. We are stil slowly replacing the old OIl HVAC housing stock. but that wil still take years,and will be doing so long efter autos have fully converted from petroleum, as far as iseasonable to do so.

Conservartion may help during that transition, though. The tunrnover time of the auto fleets is just about a dozen years. But the 50% replacement mark is considerably less than six years. When electic substitutes reach the market, it will take less than decade to really bite into Oil Demand for the Ground Transport role. And Transpor is essentially the ONLY nmarket left, for petroleum.

How do I define catastrophe?

Anything that makes me litteraly poop my pants when I see it ib the news.

Abs yes I do expect it soon.

Wintermane
Keep in mind he's taking this quote out of context.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6115644.stm

Hadley was merely pointing out that we need to logically think about how we deal with Climate Change.

And Doh! it's Mike HULME at Tyndall Center, not Hadley! However, the "in-context" message is entirely the same. Pooping one's pants is entirely unnecessary; exaggeration has sunk the ship - not rising tides.