Easterbrook predicts changes in US energy policies

Access to this article requires a userid/password login. priuschat/priuschat worked for me.

Frankly I find pollution credit trading a poor substitue for actually cleaning up ones act.

I really doubt we will see any postive environmental movement from the white house in the next 4 years.

 

I just hope that the "environmental" movement from the White House over the next four years is not too much of a rollback.

Just a plug: For the Tree Hugger Philantropists members of PriusChat, EarthJustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting enviromental laws and the environment. LINK HERE :mrgreen:

 

White House decisions (of lack of thereof) in automobile area at least will probably soon become irrelevant. Even if US didn't sign Kyoto protocol, other contries did so they will *have* to act and set higher emission standards. Now, citizens of those other countries buy cars. Will GM, Ford and Chrysler simply abandon non-US markets? I doubt that. If they do, Japanese car manufacturers will quickly fill the void. Prices will be higher for cars with lower emissions, but soon technology will become widespread and therefore cheap. It will arrive in US even if nobody will be asking for it since it will become simpler for Toyota or Nissan to manufacture cars with the same set of features than to create a separate version just for US market. In fact, they may recover car manufacturing cost elsewhere and offer in US more fuel efficient cars including hybrids at the same price as other cars.

Here is what is going on in Canada http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0.../c01-327248.htm

 

"The auto industry consistently has fought off attempts to raise fuel economy requirements in Congress since the late 1970s. In 2001 and 2002, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers from states with auto assembly plants blocked a plan to increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards 50 percent over a 10-year period. "
nice.

 

So what? US Congress only controls US (fortunately). Automakers sell cars all over the world so they will have to build fuel efficient cars anyway to meet regulations in countries that US Congress does not control.

US automakers sell diesel cars in Europe because there is demand even if they don't sell same models in US (trust me, they will as soon as US diesel fuel becomes as clean as European).

Somewhat similar situation was in Russia with aircraft engine noise. Russian airline companies were forced to buy better engines and/or aircraft since most countries simply banned noisy engines. Local govenment lobby became irrelevant.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LazyBear @ Nov 25 2004, 12:08 AM) [snapback]52667[/snapback]</div>

Lazybear: Before any of this preposterous scenario can start, oil will become so expensive that many people will abandon the idea of even owning a car. Hybrids are a temporary solution to a permanent problem, including emission standards, the greening, new technologies, energy trading. It is all a farce, we will run out of oil...........the question is when? Incidentally, hardly anything ever becomes cheap. Andy