"Big Auto Fights California's Landmark Global Warming Law
Carmakers work the courts instead of putting technology to work.


Tell automakers you want to see their ingenuity on the road, not in court.
Take a look at the clean car technologies automakers should be using more widely.
America's cars and trucks pump 1.4 billion tons of heat-trapping CO2 into the atmosphere every year.
Eighty-one percent of California voters -- including 77 percent of SUV owners -- support the state's new global warming emissions standards.
New emissions standards will save California drivers nearly $921 million annually by 2012.

States including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and Washington are considering adopting California's standards.

Car companies are trying to have it both ways: They tease us with promises of cleaner cars -- "zero emissions," "energy for the future" -- then sue to prevent states from setting standards to cut global warming pollution from automobiles.

In 2004, California adopted the world's first standards designed to cut global warming pollution from new cars and trucks. The historic law, which at least eight other states may adopt, requires automakers to reduce heat-trapping exhaust from new vehicles by about 30 percent over the next decade.

Cleaner cars are an essential part of the fight against global warming. Automobiles are the second largest source of global warming pollution in the United States. Their heat-trapping emissions are already changing the world's climate, threatening health, the economy and the environment across the globe. If current trends continue, global warming will bring increasingly severe heat waves and droughts, more property damage from floods and wildfires, and more asthma-causing bad air days.

But instead of relying on their engineers to design cars that would protect public health and the environment, automakers turned to their lawyers for excuses. They argue that the law demands too much, that it is too difficult to cut the heat-trapping pollution their vehicles produce.

Carmakers have a long history of battling against simple, cost-effective solutions, fighting everything from catalytic converters to air bags and even seatbelts. The complaint is always the same -- it's just too hard.

Their excuses ring hollow. The new requirements were crafted around technologies that are already in use, like better engine electronics, improved transmissions and energy-saving tires (see Detroit Can Do It), which combine to slash heat-trapping emissions from cars and trucks.

We know the auto industry can build cleaner cars. The solutions are there, and American consumers are ready to put them on the road. A healthy, competitive auto industry relies on ingenuity, not lawsuits. Big Auto should lose its can't-do attitude and start being a leader again."

I don't understand this. Maybe someone here can explain it. The article didn't state anything about better gas mileage, so is California currently involved in some kind of air cleaning expenditure?

I'm not being a wise ass here, I just don't understand the economics of this. Does anyone here?

thanks

link? source?

this seems like a very biased piece (not that i am not of the same bias), and doesn't explain much we don't already know.

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fauto.asp

National Resources Defense Council
Yep, quite biased. Let's go get GM's take!

[quote="PJinmyhead]
We know the auto industry can build cleaner cars. The solutions are there, and American consumers are ready to put them on the road. [/quote]

Don't you think it would be nice if the author could at least come up with one good solution.

Don't you think it would be nice if the author could at least come up with one good solution.[/quote]

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javascript:popwin('suv_popup.html')[/quote]

click on the link, then click on Detroit Can Do It on the 6th paragraph.

click on the link, then click on Detroit Can Do It on the 6th paragraph.[/quote]

Wait a second. Do you even live in the US?

Wait a second. Do you even live in the US?[/quote]

Is that at all important to promote a debate?

Stop requoting each other's html garbage back and forth!!! It's driving me crazy.

Its not nearly as bas as your quotes on the bottom of your posts. I keep thinking its part of the thread.

Those quotes should be a part of every thread.

I've been hearing a lot of commercials lately on the Seattle radio stations from the viewpoint of the automobile manufacturers. This is why:

Back on topic: So automakers now make tires, too? Impressive.

Consumers are ready for it? How many of them can afford it?

My car is an "ultra low emission vehicle". I would be unaffected by this legislation.

LittleWing has a point. (Man, the really felt wierd to type.) That article didn't really offer any proof that consumers are demanding this stuff, and I know that the price of hybrid cars is still significantly higher than normal cars. They don't pay for themselves in gas mileage for years and years.

If it raises costs of cars for too many, that could lead to more alternative fuel research, more carpooling and more public transportation, all of which I see as good things.