Court rejects fuel standards as too lenient

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Bush administration rules void
FELICITY BARRINGER AND MICHELINE MAYNARD
The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court rejected the Bush administration’s year-old fuel-economy standards for light trucks and sport utility vehicles on Thursday, saying that they were not tough enough because regulators had failed to thoroughly assess the economic impact of tailpipe emissions that contribute to climate change.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, voided the new regulations for 2008-2011 model year vehicles and told the Transportation Department to produce new rules taking into account the value of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The court, siding with four environmental groups, 11 states and two cities (California, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Mexico, Oregon and Minnesota and New York City and the District of Columbia), also asked the government to explain why it treats light trucks – which include pickups, SUVs and minivans – more mildly than passenger cars.

Under the defunct rule, the average fuel economy of light trucks was to rise to 23.5 miles per gallon in 2010, up from the current standard of 22.5 mpg, but still well below the current standard for passenger cars of 27.5 mpg.


SIGNIFICANT IMPLICATIONS


The ruling, which is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, represents a major setback for both the auto industry and the White House at a time of growing public concern over the rising price of gasoline and the issue of climate change.

Lawyers specializing in environmental issues said on Thursday that the decision had significant implications beyond the automobile industry’s struggles over fuel-economy standards.

It was the third federal court ruling in seven months pressing regulators to take the risk of climate change into consideration as they set standards for industries that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases produced when oil, coal and natural gas are burned to produce energy.

“What this says to me is that the courts are catching up with climate change and the law is catching up with climate change,” said Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School. “Climate change has ushered in a whole new era of judicial review.”

In each case, starting with the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling this year that the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate heat-trapping emissions, courts have found that federal officials must either grapple with the consequences of climate change or explain why they chose not to.

In the latest decision, Judge Betty Fletcher wrote that the “impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change is precisely the kind of cumulative-impacts analysis” required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

While the federal government may use a cost-benefit analysis to determine the “maximum feasible” fuel-economy standard, she added, “it cannot put a thumb on the scale by undervaluing the benefits and overvaluing the costs of more stringent standards.”

The appeals court, in a decision that was unanimous on all the major points, also chided the Bush administration for exempting larger SUVs – those like the Ford Excursion and the Hummer H2 that weigh 8,500 pounds to 10,000 pounds – from any fuel-economy standards.


‘SEISMIC CHANGE’ IN REGULATION


Among the environmental groups bringing the case were the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is another major rebuke of the Bush administration’s policy of ignoring global warming,” said Aaron Colangelo, a lawyer with the NRDC.

Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, called the decision “a seismic change moment in terms of environmental regulation of all kinds in this country.”

The ruling came after a decision two months ago by a federal judge in Vermont who rejected industry arguments that states like California, Vermont and New York were improperly usurping a federal prerogative when they set out to regulate tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide.

The decision comes at a time when U.S. auto companies have been trying to paint themselves as more environmentally conscious and interested in developing more fuel-efficient vehicles. At this week’s auto show in Los Angeles, for example, several automakers introduced a number of new hybrid-electric car and trucks.

“Automakers support aggressive fuel economy increases that would raise the standards for all vehicles to as much as 35 miles per gallon by 2022,” said Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. At the same time, he said, the standards should seek “a good balance of safety, higher fuel economy and jobs benefits for all Americans.”

But Detroit and some foreign car-makers have continued to lobby against stringent congressional proposals to raise fuel-economy standards.

source: http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/205249.html

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By Seattle Times news services

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed an energy bill that would impose the most significant increase in vehicle fuel-economy standards in 32 years, and the White House said President Bush would sign it.

The measure cleared the Senate 86-8 after Democratic leaders gave in to the president's demands that they preserve oil-industry tax breaks and drop a requirement that utilities generate more electricity from cleaner sources. Washington's senators, both Democrats, voted for the measure.

The bill goes back to the House, which is expected to approve it next week before Congress leaves for the holidays.

The revised bill would boost fuel-efficiency standards for new vehicles to a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, increase energy-efficiency standards for appliances and buildings and set a mandate for the vastly expanded use of ethanol and other biofuels.

"Thirty years ago, we didn't have air bags, the Internet was a science-fiction fantasy and the closest thing to a GPS system came from Rand McNally, and you had to fold it six or eight times," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Today we have hybrid cars, hydrogen cars, ethanol cars and fully electric cars. And now, after 30 years, we are on the brink of passing new fuel-economy standards."

The final bill represents a major setback for the automobile industry, which had fought to blunt the fuel-efficiency standards. Those standards, the first increase since the fuel-economy program was established in 1975, had gained widespread support amid high oil prices and concerns about U.S. dependence on imported petroleum.

Currently, each automaker's fleet of cars must average 27.5 mpg and its light trucks, including SUVs, pickups and minivans, 22.2 mpg. The tougher miles-per-gallon rules are projected to save 1.1 million barrels of oil a day in 2020.

The energy bill is a major victory for farm states, which would reap the benefits of the mandated use of 36 billion gallons a year of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels by 2022. Critics said, however, that the new mandate could strain water resources, boost food prices, worsen fertilizer-runoff problems and cost scores of billions of dollars in federal subsidies in the next decade.

Wind and solar groups and environmental groups expressed dismay about the death of the bill's tax package and the earlier shelving of a requirement for utilities to rely on renewable energy for at least 15 percent of their power generation. Wind and solar firms said they needed an extension of tax credits and incentives to make plans.

"For the wind industry, it looks like coal in our Christmas stocking," said Gregory Wetstone, senior director for government and public affairs at the American Wind Energy Association.

Daniel Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, said the Senate had given "the green light to more efficient cars and renewable fuels but has a red light for renewable electricity from wind, solar and other clean sources."

Dropped in the tax-break negotiations was a provision that would have extended for four years payments to rural counties that once depended on federal timber money to help cover school and library costs.

A House bill approved last week would set aside more than $1.5 billion to compensate 700 rural counties in 39 states, including Washington, hurt by federal logging cutbacks in the 1990s. An additional $350 million would have gone to rural states through a program that reimburses state and local governments for federally owned property.

Earlier in the day, the Senate had failed for a second time to block a Republican-led filibuster on the energy bill with its tax provisions still intact. GOP leaders made a stand against a proposed $21.8 billion, 10-year tax package that had the support of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The 59-40 vote in the morning — one vote short of that needed to end debate and clear the way for a vote on the measure — came after warnings from White House officials that Bush would veto the bill because of the tax component.

Material from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.

from: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004071293_energy14.html

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By H. JOSEF HEBERT
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Congress is set to increase fuel mileage requirements for automobiles and SUVs for the first time in 32 years and President Bush has signaled he will accept the new mandates on the auto industry.

Democratic leaders were confident the House will pass an energy bill Tuesday that includes a new 35-miles-per-gallon standard, a huge increase in the use of ethanol and new energy efficiency standards for appliances and building construction.

The Senate passed the bill last week after discarding billions of dollars in higher taxes on oil companies and a solar and wind power mandate that opponents said would raise electric rates in the Southeast. Both those measures were opposed by President Bush and Senate Republicans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, anticipating approval of the scaled-back legislation, hailed the tougher auto mileage and renewable fuel requirements as a new direction in U.S. energy policy that will reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and help reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Democrats said the fuel economy requirements eventually — when the fleet of gas-miser vehicles are widely on the road — will save motorists $700 to $1,000 a year in fuel costs. They maintain the overall bill, including more ethanol use and various efficiency requirements and incentives, will reduce U.S. oil demand by 4 million barrels a day by 2030, more than twice the daily imports from the volatile Persian Gulf.

Pelosi cited public complaints about high gasoline and winter heating costs as a reason for getting the new measures passed. Lawmakers acknowledged there is nothing in the legislation that will give people relief in the coming months, or even likely the next few years, from high energy prices.

The requirement for automakers to increase their industrywide vehicle fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 mpg by 2020 compared to today's 25 mpg is viewed by many lawmakers and environmentalists as historic and groundbreaking.

The automakers have repeatedly fought an increase in the federal fuel standard, known as CAFE, maintaining it would limit the range of vehicles consumers will have available in showrooms and threaten auto industry jobs. Bush also has argued against an arbitrary, numerical increase in the fuel efficiency requirement, preferring instead legislation to streamline the federal requirements and market incentives to get rid of gas guzzling vehicles.

Congress has not changed the auto mileage requirement since it was first enacted in 1975.

But the automakers have accepted the political shift toward a tougher requirement. After the Senate approved the legislation last week, the White House immediately said Bush would sign once it reaches his desk.

The bill also requires a massive increase in the production of ethanol for motor fuels, outlining a rampup of ethanol use from the roughly 6 billion gallons this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022. After 2015, the emphasis would be on expanded use of cellulosic ethanol, made from such feedstock as switchgrass and wood chips, with two thirds of the ethanol — 21 billion gallons a year — from such non-corn sources.

However, commercially viable production of cellulosic ethanol has yet to be proven and some Republicans have argued that the new requirements could be impossible to meet and may raise corn prices and food supplies.

The bill requires improved efficiency standards for lighting, commercial and government buildings, and appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers and freezers. It also tells the Energy Department to issue efficiency standards more quickly.

Democrats failed to get through a broad tax package that they had designed to pay for incentives aimed at spurring the development of wind, solar and alternative fuels such as cellulosic ethanol, as well as energy efficiency and conservation programs.

The package would have rolled back $13.5 billion in tax breaks enjoyed by the country's five largest oil companies. The tax package passed the House earlier this month, but was rejected in the Senate as Democrats failed by one vote to overcome a GOP filibuster. The White House said Bush opposed singling out the oil industry for higher taxes and that if the taxes were included, he would veto the bill.

from: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004080062_webfueleconomy18.html