Injudicious climate

Tuesday, November 20

The federal courts are doing the Bush administration's job — regulating greenhouse gases, setting realistic fuel standards for automakers, and allowing states to exercise the powers that the government has squandered. It is long past time for Mr. Bush to embrace the responsibilities that come with his office and order his regulators to do the same.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that fuel economy standards set by the Transportation Department for light trucks and sport utility vehicles were fatally flawed, having failed to take into account the value of reducing greenhouse gases.

The judgment was a major win for environmentalists who have pushed regulators to increase the miles-per-gallon requirements and to treat pickups and SUVs as they do passenger cars. The ruling was a blow to the Bush administration, which ignores the science of climate change and caters to automakers and oil barons by failing to use its regulatory muscle to set honest minimums that would reduce tailpipe emissions and our oil consumption.

The Bush administration rules set the average fuel economy for light trucks and SUVs at 23.5 miles per gallon in 2010, which would be a scant 1 mile per gallon improvement over the current average, and would be still 4 miles less than the current 27.5 mile per gallon average for passenger cars.

In the European Union, automakers have agreed to fuel-economy standards that next year will average 44.2 miles per gallon. Japanese standards are more than 45 miles per gallon, and even China is in the 30s, beating the U.S.

While the administration has rewritten government studies to downplay the effects of greenhouse gases and fought any meaningful effort to reduce our nation's energy consumption, the rest of the world has moved forward.

Mr. Bush's stubbornness on climate change is driven by his misguided notions of economic development. His precipitous withdrawal from the Kyoto treaty, his failure to seek mandatory emission standards, and his weak fuel-economy rules are all justified by his mantra that reducing emissions will hurt the American economy.

Last January, the chief executives of 10 major corporations, including General Electric, Alcoa, DuPont and BP America, asked the president to set a mandatory cap on carbon emissions. The system they proposed would have mimicked one already used in Europe, with the goal of reducing overall emissions by 70 to 90 percent in 15 years. Mr. Bush ignored them.

These companies are not idealists, nor do they welcome government intervention in their daily operations. But clearly, big business has grasped the threat that climate change poses to its bottom line. More importantly, it realizes that there is money to be made by selling innovative, efficient new products to customers striving to comply with the limits.

Mr. Bush's efforts to protect the American economy are instead hurting it, relinquishing our place as the global economic leader. We hope that the federal courts will continue their good work until someone takes office who understands that standing still on carbon emissions means falling behind environmentally and economically.

Source : http://www.berkshireeagle.com/editorials/ci_7514596