Obama unveils mpg rule, gets broad support

The plan effectively ends a legal feud between automakers and statehouses over emission standards — with the states coming out on top but the automakers getting a single national standard and more flexibliity in making the changes.

Moreover, cash-strapped states such as California will not have to develop their own standards and enforcement plan. Instead, they can now rely on federal tax dollars to monitor the emissions.

For the auto industry, it will be costly; the Transportation Department last year estimated that requiring the industry to meet 31.6 mpg by 2015 would cost nearly $47 billion.

But industry officials — many of whom are running companies on emergency taxpayer dollars — said Obama’s plan would help them because they would not face multiple emissions requirements and would have more certainty as they develop their vehicles for the next decade.

Activists on board
Environmentalists were among the first to praise the move. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, called it "one of the most significant efforts undertaken by any president, ever, to end our addiction to oil and seriously slash our global warming emissions."

Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, described it as  "a triple play: It will help move America off foreign oil, save families money and spur American businesses to take the lead in developing the job-creating, clean-energy technologies of the future."

In Congress, Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, thanked the Obama administration for bringing together "the federal government, the state of California, and the auto industry behind new national automobile emissions standards that follow California’s lead.

"This is good news for all of us who have fought long and hard to reduce global warming pollution, create clean energy jobs, and reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil," she added.

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