Increased fuel efficiency standards? Whatever
One Katrina away from $3.00 gasSo, fuel efficiency standards are going up a little by 2011. Whohoo!
Yet, whom knows how many flex fuel credits and EV loopholes Congress will offer automakers. Loopholes are the Congressional speciality.
With or without an increase in fuel efficiency standards, automakers better be preparing for higher gas prices. Numerous energy analysts, such as Boone Pickens, are predicting another huge gas price spike around 2011 - and this time it might be permanent. And, yesterday, Cambridge Energy Research Associates warned that a "potentially powerful and long-lasting aftershock" is going to follow the huge decline in oil prices that has been felt the last year.
This time automakers won't be able to use the excuse, "Nobody could have predicted such a gas price spike".
Labels: CAFE, fuel efficiency, gas prices
posted by Dahcredyns at
7:32 AM
6 Comments:
Standards are almost useless. Slow but steady gas tax increase can go to:
1. Building/maintaining roads. (Gas tax only pays for 25% now).
2. Encourages conversation. People behave rationally. If gas is cheap, fuel efficiency doesn't matter.
CAFE is what encouraged SUVs in the first place. Before that, they were known as delivery trucks.
I'm with you John, but is a gas tax enough?
I've heard that higher gas prices, which lead to less use of gas result in less revenue, which is why some politicians have argued for a mileage tax, rather than a gas tax.
Still, in the short term, I think a higher gas tax is a very good idea. Good thing, however, that I'm not a politician because I'd be assassinated for such a suggestion.
No need to fear a gas tax as a politician. The American public will support a gas tax, coupled with cuts in other taxes, like payroll taxes. We don't need to raise taxes, just shift them.
I don't think we should limit ourselves with old ways of thinking, including stereotypes of what the American public will or won't support. Those stereotypes don't reflect the public so much as politicians who for years got on TV and said things like, "shop" in the face of war, and "conservation doesn't work".
So, now we have a real leader with credibility, and the American public won't have to suffer the vapid pandering to our worst instincts of Bush and Cheney. The American people are better than that, and have always been better than those types. And after a few years of a real leader, we'll prove it.
i like that optimism alcatholic, but i've talked to many, many people whom are completely opposed to a gas tax, and I'd bet the majority of Americans would not be supportive of such a plan.
at the same time, there is more support than ever for a gas tax. still, i don't believe we've reached critical mass yet.
It takes a while to wipe away the slime of oil from our body politic. People are not there just yet, but soon.
Generations of Americans have not been told the truth about the costs of oil, so I would say it will take a couple more years of pain and presidential leadership on this issue. Some will never come around, but all we need is a majority.
Let's say after the Nov 2010 congressional elections. I guess I don't think it will happen in this Congress, but will in the next. 2 cents
unfortunately, i think this Congress could scare voters back into a more conservative majority.
still, i'd prefer your two cents.
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