The press release by John D. Dingell in the link is very short on details.
Can anyone provide a link to the text of the agreement?

2020 is a long way off - will there be annual targets?

Does the agreement have a FFV loophole? A modest $200 sales tax rebate for new FFVs would be preferable to allowing E85 to change the mpg target.

Does the agreement include a feebate system like Canada introduced recently?
Federal tax rebates for BEVs, and for HEVs & PHEVs which exceed 50 mpge would be popular. A sales tax rebate of 1/2% per mpg over 50mpg would mean a 55 mpg HEV gets 2.5% sales tax rebate and an 80 mpge PHEV gets a 15% sales tax rebate. That would help a lot to reduce the price premium of a PHEV. The rebate could be phased down by raising the mpg threshold say 0.5 or 0.4 mpge each month.

Additional Federal Sales Tax on new gas guzzlers would help to reach targets and to fund the replacement of unsafe infrastructure. How about 1% for each mpg below the 35mpg target? A 34mpg new car would pay just 1% extra sales tax; a 15mpg SUV would pay 20% sales tax.

The same sales tax should be applied to advertising. So sales tax would add 20% to the cost of placing an advert for a 15 mpg SUV.

Let's not forget that ...we the people...have elected our chosen representatives and they are doing exactly what we want. That's democracy at work.

If we (the people) really want greener representation, we have to vote accordingly.

Unfortunately, the majority of us still prefer to keep on driving our 4 x 4, 3+ tonnes gas guzzlers, regarless of the imported oil consumed.

We have to change first...not our representatvies. We always deserve what we voted for.

Is the majority ready for a progressive carbon tax (3 to 5 cents/gallon/month for the next 120 months) to promote the purchase of more efficient vehicles?

What a waste... Too little too late. What's CAFE standards in the face of the inevitable demise of carbon-based biomass?

treehugger:

Per NY Times, the 35MPG applies to the whole fleet, including light trucks. Trucks and cars have separate targets, but the overall fleet average includes both. The implication seems to be that selling a boatload of >35MPG mini-cars or economy hybrids would give an automaker the right also to sell lower MPG light trucks, muscle cars, etc which staying compliant with the fleet cap.

The ethanol subsidy doesn't phase out until 2020, which is a bummer. Apparently that was the tradeoff made to let EPA regulate CO2 emissions, as per recent Supreme Court decision.

It will be interesting to see what the final bill looks like, and if our esteemed POTUS will sign it.

I agree with those who say that these standards are lagging behind fast moving changes in the real world. The US automakers need to get a clue if they want to stay in business. As much as Americans love their SUVs, who's going to be buying them with high and rising gas prices as far as the eye can see?

So, Kit.

Then you support John Edwards, who has promised to deny members of Congress participation in the federal employee health care plan until they ensure that all Americans have basic health care?

The failure of cafe is simply the inevitable result of tunnel visioned clueless freaks trying to engineer the RIGHT car for everyone.

If you want spccer moms and weekend road warriors to spend less time driving the sub.... oddly enough you have to actual THINK about ways to enable that to actualy worl.

1 Yiu must make room in the average garage for more then the suv and second car... otherwise thats all they will have.

2 You have to make that third car easier for them to have... lisensing taxes smog checks insurance rates loans...

2 You have to relize that with just 2 cars and 2 paychecks SOMEONE HAS TO DRIVE THE DO EVERYTHING CAR ALL THE TIME. The only fix is 3 rvrn 4 cars.

3 You have toi realize its not your choise itsd not a choice.. people are either getting suv because they realy need the room or passenger space or because they are well off and treating themselves and you can go to hell if you think you have any say in either.
Yes even those 1 child moms need an suv... for taking 6 other children to cthe waterpark every weekend in the summer and todisneyland every summer... Yiu dont and never will get a say in that.

4 Finaly you dont get any say in how many people voar or own horses or go to antique shows or oddly drive offroad like crazy loons over deadly trails because somehow nothing says closer to nature like plummeting 200 feet in a 4 ron mangles pile of exploding metal and plastic.

But you arnt goinmg to listen and you are going to shrink the room available for 3rd and 4th cars and make the suv so spendy they cant also afford the cummter car 3rd car and your just going to get in ypur own way and fail.. as always..

Why? Becauase your too far from normal to understand normal people.

But when it comes to cars peoples brains magicaly drift to stupid land.

The wikipedia bio of John D. Dingell sounds like an honourable and principled man doing his best for his country.

I reserve the right to criticize when the bill passes and becomes law. But it is a nice sentiment but of little utility in its present form.

Thankfully.

My estimable friend, Jack, has published for us the official achieved CAFÉ figures for the past few years in the USA. While the target by law is 27.5 mpg, the automakers must overachieve to insure that they meet the target, and they have done so. The US has already achieved a CAFÉ of slightly over 30 mpg with the domestics automakers surprisingly exceeding the imports by a slight margin. That was accomplished with almost no HEVs, and certainly no PHEVS, BEVs and FCEVs in the mix. All of which, except FCEVs, are having factories erected to build them in the millions, in the coming decade. Meeting 35 MPG CAFÉ should be a walk in the park, for all but trucks. There the conversion to clean T2B5 diesel technology will certainly help. But perhaps not enough.

Once again the self-appointed guardians of the environment are a day late and a dollar short, and misguided to boot.

The GENUINE energy bills were passed in 2001, 2003 and 2005, when you weren't even looking.

One was concerned with cajoling the nuclear plant builders to design a provably, even safer, generation of nuclear plants. The result is the GEN III+ passive designs of light water reactors, that are 2.5 magnitudes safer than the already safe plants running today.

One was concerned with reorganizing and reforming the laws for licensing and constructing new power plants. That made capital costs and time to completion predictable. That also pulled the teeth of the weapon of environmental stalling that principled critics of fission energy used so well. We employed these lawsuits to halt the construction of sloppy, unsafe versions of second generation Nukes in the 1970s and 1980s. Standardized designs by the revised law, can only be criticized while seeking approval for the standard design. Westinghouse PWR design has already achieved approval, and GE standardized designs are almost through this approval cycle, with other designs close behind. The only remaining basis for stalling lawsuits is site erection deficiencies, bu these were a tougher problem to prove. Finally the longest stalling took place when the plant was finished but was seeking a final authorization to operate. This class of stalling lawsuit was the most expensive for the utilities as a paid for plant was argued about as long as a new environmental or construction angle could be imagined.

Under the reformed laws, this step happens before substantial plant construction occurs, and before lots of money has been spent. The 32 odd plants in the pipeline, will get their combined construction and operating licenses before a spade of Earth is turned, in the next year or two. Three to five years later, the plant will enter operation, unlike the 1970s.

The result is a massive, and building, backlog of new nuclear power stations allowing us to retire the oldest and dirtiest coal power stations. Which, of course, will improve our air quality of real pollutants substantially. For those of you who insist on limiting the release of plant food, it will also eliminate the emission of substantial quantities of beneficial free plant fertilizer.

And the third energy law was the funding to re-invigorate and proceed with the international treaty to construct the $12 billion dollar ITER experiment. In effect, reversing the gross incompetence of the Clinton years. The Clinton Administration said it supported ITER, but was so incompetent, and inattentive, that it couldn't prevent its killing in the Congress.

The first International Thermonuclear Experiment, ITER, suffered the death of a thousand cuts as "green" lawmakers diverted funding for a myriad of "green" local earmarks. Lots of money was wasted on wind, wave, geothermal, and other miscellaneous nugatory experiments and demonstrations in a hundred LOCAL constituencies. When the USA withdrew, the first ITER collapsed as other nations followed suit.

But that has now been reversed. Now reinvigorated, and expanded, to include ALL the existing and coming world powers, the ITER is being funded jointly, and built in Cadarache France, with the technology developed available to all.

One is giving us a doubling of nuclear fission electric power, to power out coming electrified vehicles of the next decade.

Another law insures that this GEN III+ generation of Nukes, now being planned and built, will be the LAST generation of Nukes; and that clean inexhaustible Fusion power is now assuredly in our future, in the long term, post 2030.

In the meantime, these fission nukes will continue with the "beating of swords into plowshares" and burn up forever, as MOX fuel, more than the thousand nuclear warheads already consumed. This last generation will proceed on, to incinerate the treaty approved 7000 more nuclear warheads, already being dismantled. There is talk of expanding the treaty to encompass more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, as I fervently hope.

BTW...Where the hell is the Nobel Peace Prize selection committee in not awarding the prize for this actual accomplishment?

You are now free to return to SUV bashing...

Stan,

I support nuclear power but the way you've interpreted and presented your facts is disturbing to say the lest. I don't find any solution to be utopian but the way you push nuclear is very utopian in nature.

ITER for example could've been built in Southern Ontario but it was scutled by the provincial gov't. Candu reactors produce ample amounts of tritium and deutium is used to make the heavy water in them. The ITER project wanted large gov't grants for what is not a commercial project and may never be a commercial project. It was considered a massive hole. Will it work, who knows? And then we don't even know the costs either.

Also the energy plans of the last couple of years did not spur the developement of GEN III+ reactors. Some of these designs have been floating around for years. As for the building of plants - as long as the regulatory envirnoment exists that regards the air as something that can be polluted with impunity - coal will be cheaper than nuclear and no one who builds a coal plant is going to shut it down before its time (~30-40years) is up.

Your interpretation of environmentalists notwithstanding, your post seems like a rant.

This business is getting old. We have a leadership crisis. Throw the bums out!

Tom, you have a point there. I would prefer a hefty tax on motor fuels rather than rigid allocation and rationing, with perhaps programs to help the poor to adjust to less driving-intensive lifestyles.

Certainly a hefty tax on gasoline would give each of us a choice: Move closer to where one works so he or she doesn't have to drive as far, which in turn would allow use of a somewhat larger car. Or, buy a more fuel-economical car so one doesn't have to leave a familiar neighborhood if changing jobs requires driving further to get there.

A heavy tax on fossil fuel carbon would also encourage more use of carbon-neutral fuels, i.e. BioDiesel, or methane from cow manure, or for that matter using solar electricity instead of electricity generated by burning coal. Who knows ... we may even want to consider (whisper, whisper shhh shh) .. the N word ...

NUCLEAR!