Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) - "raise CAFE standards to 40 MPG"

[welshTerrier2]

I was just listening to Bill Nelson speaking on the Senate floor. At first, he was focused on terrorism and on how the US oil supply could be radically disrupted by terrorist acts. He talked about how "bandits" in Nigeria are destroying about 20% of daily oil output. Bandits. The good Senator had obviously not read the recent Vanity Fair article that I discussed in this post entitled "This Is Modern Day Slavery".

That's the problem with conservative Democrats. They either don't know how to tell the good guys from the bad guys or they just assume that any disruption of "commerce" is evil by definition. Nigeria is one of the many front line battles between the tyranny of Big Oil imperialism and the indigenous population who knows all too well they and their country are being raped.

And Nelson went on to discuss Hugo Chavez and how he talks about cutting off oil supplies to the US. Senator Nelson apparently had no interest in delving into the imperial history of the US in South America and Central America.

So, there I was again, angered by yet another Democrat who seems either too blind or too complicit to recognize the real villain in the scenarios he was describing.

But then, turning on a dime, with "garbage in" as his input, he spins out this little gem: He said that the 35 MPG CAFE standard (by 2020) being proposed in the current energy bill is NOT adequate. He said we had warnings about oil cutoffs in the early 70's and then again in the late 70's. The push for better CAFE standards at the time was gradually weakened. The focus on energy efficiency eventually faded. He said the number one use of energy is transportation. And he said the number one use of energy in transportation was the automobile. He said we already have the technology to do better. He said that Senators Levin and Stabinow are pushing to extend the compliance date from 2020 to 2025 and that the Senate should NOT be "seduced" by their pleas. Atta boy, Bill!!!

Nelson is calling for a raise in the CAFE standard to 40 MPG. It won't happen because too many Democrats, like Dingell in the House, and Levin and Stabinow in the Senate, will join with the republicans to torpedo this badly need reduction in CO2 production. Sometimes it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

[Ganja Ninja]

1. If you want to increase the capacity of the strategic oil reserve the

best way to do that is to reduce the demand that might be placed on it during an emergency. It will last a lot longer at 40 mpg than 20mpg or what ever it is now.

[On the Road]

2. My Biggest Concern

is that it cover a wider scope of vehicles -- SUVs, pickups, Hummers, etc. I would be happy with a more modest target if it indeed did that.

There also has to be some way of accounting for consumers who purchase commercial vehicles. Don't know how that would work.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. "accounting for consumers who purchase commercial vehicles"

The existing CAFE standards do cover cars and trucks: there are different standards for the two classes (27.7 vs 20.7) and SUVs unfortunately fall into the 'truck' standard. Raise both numbers and count anything with more than three seats as 'a car'.

The other approach, which should be combined with fleet standards, is to impose a carbon use tax at the pump. In addition, federal gas taxes should stop going into any new highway development projects and instead go to mass transit development and subsidies. Politically unpopular, of course, but essential to get people out of their cars and onto mass transit. We have all the highways we need.