I think conserving oil by switching to natural gas/biogas for tractors, long haul trucks, and trains might help too.  They have pumps already to fill up natural gas powered vehicles.

Farm biogas from waste offsets GHG.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

  That is why politicians don't understand this issue. The oft quoted "don't expect a man to understand something for which his job demands that he doesn't", applies to the political class even more than to more ordinary people (who aren't constantly concerned with winning the next popularity contest).

  The problem we have is the drill-drill-drill people are pushing a silver BB (indeed if you account for the limited capabilities of the oil industry (limited number of rigs and trained personell etc. it is a pretty tiny BB), but the voters are most math-a-phobic, and math is needed in order to understand the relative contributions of different strategies. Indeed there is real danger (as we've seen happen in the past), that such proposals create the presumption that we don't need any other solutions.

   My proposal has been that we offer a compromise, let them have some new drilling, in return for a serious effort at conservation. Obviously if that could be arranged, the silver BBs contributed by the conservation part of the program would greatly outweigh those contributed by the supply-side part.

Kevin and Tom,

As George Carlin once pointed out, where politicians are elected by the general population, if you have an ignorant and greedy population, you'll have ignorant and greedy politicians.  While serious defects in the U.S. political process -- private campaign financing, lack of proportional representation, lack of TV time for candidates who are not members of one of the two gangs, etc. -- cause the government to be more right wing and conservative than the general population, people in general get the government they deserve and the government is a good reflection of the people.  We won't fix the politicians till we fix the people.

A non-stupid comparison would be between what CAFE might have done if things had been different, and what offshore drilling might have done if, similarly, things had been different.

If offshore drilling had been pursued 20 years ago, the amount in the illustration would be the peak production per day today, instead of in 2027. So you can make it a would-have-gotten vs. a would-have-gotten pretty straightforwardly. If you're non-stupid.

grist.org

it's not like we get a free vacation for unused negamiles. just the opposite, now.

though i'm still convinced it's how much we're overpaying for other services in this economy that makes us very sensitive to gas prices, at the level of personal transport. we shouldn't look at it as a percentage of income but as a percentage of a household's financial headroom.

He should have had a bar for adding plug-in hybrids in addition to the CAFE.  The potential for oil reduction from plug-ins is enormous.  This has the effect of reducing gasoline prices, reducing the trade deficit, putting more money in consumers' pockets, and sending less money to OPEC.  Strange that the government hasn't been moving on this.

We are going to have to improve efficiencies and find new transportation energies, no question. But in this difficult and dangerous transition period, we are also going to have to exploit what national reserves we have.

Victory in Pattani

Timing is everything. But it's going to take about five years to exploit those reserves, given their location. So, if we start within a year, we will have access about the time we need it. The SUVs are about to become a thing of the past - there won't be many kicking around in five years. Those that are, won't be driving much. Frankly,  I am surprised they survived as long as they did.

Victory in Pattani