Crunching the Numbers on Obama’s California Auto Move

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President Barack Obama’s EPA now looks likely to reverse Bush and allow California and 13 other states to set their own stricter auto emission and mileage standards. By 2016, the California rules will require automakers to show a 30 percent overall reduction in their vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions. That’s not bad considering that at least 40 percent of the 16 million new cars sold each year come from states that want to adopt the California standards (and that the California rules might just become the national default anyway). The transportation sector accounts for 26 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions–the largest single chunk after the catch-all category of “industry.”

By 2015, the California rules are at least 3 miles per gallon stricter than federal standards. That translates into a first-year savings of at least 200 million gallons of gas. It doesn’t seem like much when you consider that each day the United States uses about 390 million gallons of gas, but the savings will grow each year as more new cars hit the road, until 2020, when the California standards become 7 mpg more stringent than the federal rules and things really get interesting.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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