change - Obama Announces First Nationwide Regulation of Greenhouse Gases

[spanone]

remember bu$h* wouldn't allow states to set their own limits on greenhouse gases...


President Obama today proposed tough standards for tailpipe emissions from new automobiles, establishing the first nationwide regulation for greenhouse gases.

The proposal also raises fuel efficiency targets to 35.5 miles per gallon for new passenger vehicles and light trucks by 2016, four years earlier than required under the 2007 energy bill.

The president praised automakers, unions and political leaders for forging what he called a "historic agreement to help America break its dependence on oil, reduce harmful pollution and begin the transition to a clean-energy economy."

"In the past, an agreement such as this . . . would have been considered impossible," the president said in a speech at the White House Rose Garden. "It's no secret that these are folks who've occasionally been at odds for years, even decades." But the "status quo is no longer acceptable," he added.

The measures are significant steps forward for the administration's energy agenda, by cutting greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to climate change and by easing U.S. dependence on oil, most of which is imported.

Obama said the agreement would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years -- more oil than the United States imported last year from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria combined.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051901683_pf.html