You may have heard that today the Senate reached a compromise on CAFE: they will keep the 35mpg-by-2020 requirement, but drop the 4%-every-year-thereafter requirement. The loophole for SUVs will be closed. (Bizarrely, newly minted environmentalist Ted Stevens [R-Alaska] was instrumental in keeping the amendment alive.)
This is good news, in a symbolic sort of way (suffice to say, when there are working vehicles on the road that get 100mpg, we shouldn't be satisfied with glacial, incremental gains). But it's offset by the bad news that an amendment to levy around $30 billion in taxes on the oil industry, with the funds devoted to renewable energy, fell three votes short of the 60 votes necessary to overcome the threatened Republican filibuster.
Yes, the Republicans threatened to filibuster in order to save the most profitable industry in the world, in history, from taxes. The fossil fuel lobby's really getting its money's worth!
Comments
View as Flat
JohnCaley Posted 3:44 pm
21 Jun 2007
and the most lethal
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Sean Casten Posted 11:30 pm
21 Jun 2007
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GRLCowan Posted 12:10 am
22 Jun 2007
isn't really all that bad, right? Because this way the oil industry will have that money to devote to renewable energy itself.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html --
oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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usandthem Posted 11:40 pm
22 Jun 2007
Why not ask why!?
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:27 pm
24 Jun 2007
And apparently it patched up another quirk of the CAFE system.
Instead of a carmaker having an import fleet AND a domestic fleet, and having a seperate CAFE for both.
Instead they only have 1 CAFE for all.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/24/detroit-says-niss ...
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