Here’s an interesting AP dispatch on page A18 of my morning LA Times:
The Obama administration plans to raise fuel efficiency standards by two miles per gallon to a 27.3 average mpg for new cars and trucks in the 2011 model year, marking the first increase in passenger car standards in more than two decades.
Under the changes, which are slightly less stringent than those proposed by the George W. Bush administration, new passenger cars will need to meet 30.2 mpg for the 2011 model year; and pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans will need to reach 24.1 mpg….The Bush administration had proposed regulations last year that would have raised the standards to a combined 27.8 mpg in 2011, requiring passenger cars to meet 31.2 mpg and light trucks to hit 25 mpg that year.
I know that 2011 is only a couple of years away, so nobody expects anything dramatic by then on the auto mileage scene. But did we really all vote for Obama so that he could set efficiency standards less stringent than George Bush’s?
