Patchwork Quilts

It only took four months for Obama to decide that there will be one nationwide standard for auto mileage, and one that mirrors California's tougher AB32 standard. It took over twenty months of hemming and hawing for Bush's EPA just to render a decision on California's waiver request. Damn, what a difference of administration.

His call also eliminates a load of litigation because now our auto industries can't continue to fight against two standards. Now there's going to be only one (what they used to call a patchwork quilt of standards...yeah, "two" means "patchwork quilt.") And our auto industries can't continue to fight against CAFE because they are all fucking broke. I thank god for our little recession -- without it, all this new found cooperation between EPA, the White House, and the domestic autos would never have been possible had this mild economic slowdown not taken place. If it calls for the loss of a hundred thousand domestic jobs for us to finally move forward with more stringent CAFE standards, well so be it. There are both winners and losers here. It's individual choice to determine which one you'll fall into.

Combined with CARB's more stringent diesel emissions from trucks, this is going to make my local environment all that much better. Hopefully, a lot better, and a lot better to be riding alongside cars on my bicycle. I may have a chance to defer my lung cancer out a few years longer.

While I applaud this outcome, I see vehicle efficiency as only one leg of a three legged stool. I am still at terrible odds with the notion that my "green" California also leads the way in car dependent suburban sprawl. The third leg would be reducing the carbon content of fuels -- but as I've said I'm not as interested in this as James Hanson is. I will leave that discourse to others. We absolutely need to focus on changes to growth patterns that reduce overall driving, and start to build sustainable communities -- those that are transit oriented and mixed-use. SB375 is one tool to allow for this, but I've got reservations about how effective this is going to be. It will only be as effective as the regional planning agencies make it.