New national fuel economy standards coming

by: Eric B.

Mon May 18, 2009 at 23:52:24 PM EDT

Hey ... never saw this coming.

President Obama plans to announce a new national fuel economy standard for cars tomorrow, Politico’s Mike Allen reports.

Top officials will reportedly convene in Washington for the White House announcement, including, potentially, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), a potential Supreme Court nominee, is also rumored to be attending the announcement.

A person with knowledge of the negotiations, tells CBS News' Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid that the new policy includes “harmonized standards."

It falls into a very special category that is emerging around here of late.  The "Who could have predicted such a thing" reaction ... everyone saw such a thing coming down the pike, but yet someone put up an entirely pointless, prolonged fight for no good reason beyond a general sense that the utterly, undeniably inevitable just might not happen for reasons of sheer lack of inertia. Tougher, greenhouse gas-emission based fuel economy standards that will cover the entire country and not a handful of the most car-hungry states in the union.

Do not get me wrong.  The answer here is in the market, not just for demand in relation for more efficient cars but also in terms of usage. Fuel economy standards are just numbers if not coupled with a decline in demand for fuel.  Burning 10 gallons to drive 120 miles is the same thing as 10 gallons of fuel burned to drive 1,200. The way you go forward is to decrease both, which just so happened to have occured when gasoline started to hit the $3.50 point.  Or, were you busy laughing at me for suggesting that Jennifer Granholm hit a high point when she told people that they could do themselves a favor by bicycling to work and riding public transportation?

Whatever, something else related to global warming is going to happen tomorrow (defined as half an hour from now to 24 hours past that). A group of nine Michigan scientists and researchers will formally release a statement calling on government to take major action.  It will be interesting to see what they say.

Because there are three events around Michigan (one statewide, and two on the west side of the state), it doesn't appear to be a spear pointed at Washington. That is, Washington the entire entity.  The target could be Michigan's two senators and Congressional delegation, since we're one of the states expected to hold up climate change legislation ... thanks to our dependence on coal.  For those reasons, it could also be aimed at Lansing.

We can pair the two of those -- scientists calling for aggressive policy on global warming with a new national fuel economy standard based at least in part on greenhouse gas emissions -- and see what lesson Lansing might learn from this. I'm talking about coal, by the way. Coal.  We are swiftly moving towards "Who could have predicted such a thing?" territory.