Seen in the New York Times:
The Senate passed a trimmed-back energy bill that would bring higher-gas mileage cars and SUVs into showrooms in the coming decade and fill their tanks with ethanol.
The measure was approved Thursday with strong bipartisan support 86-8 after Democrats abandoned efforts to impose billions of dollars in new taxes on the biggest oil companies, unable by one vote to overcome a Republican filibuster against the new taxes.
The bill now goes to the House, where a vote is expected next week. The White House issued a statement saying President Bush will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk, as is expected. Bush had promised a veto if the oil industry taxes were not removed.[...]
The car companies will have to achieve an industrywide average 35 mile per gallon for cars, small trucks and SUVs over the next 13 years, an increase of 10 mpg over what the entire fleet averages today. And it would boost use of ethanol to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a nearly sixfold increase, and impose an array of new requirements to promote efficiency in appliances, lighting and buildings.
While I’m not happy with the ethanol requirement (production of ethanol is draining on resources in other ways), at least the Senate seemed to finally realize that it’d be better to make some progress, rather than killing the entire concept due to political bickering.
It’s not a perfect bill, but those imperfections can be debated, and hopefully fixed or improved, on their own, without delaying progress on CAFE further.
Hopefully Pelosi and crew will think the same way in the House.
1 response so far ↓
1 Kevin // 16 Dec 2007 at 11:21 pm
They did make a compromise in the house on the bill and the new CAFE standards will be 35 mpg by 2020 I think. I think the compromise was reached over a week ago actually. Its good that they’ve made progress and that even a bunch of industries have already announced that they’re behind it. I do some work with the Auto Alliance and even they are behind the new standards.