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Obama, California Standards and the TDI Clean Diesel
President Obama has signed an Executive Order requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider a request by the State of California to set more stringent auto emissions and fuel-efficiency standards than required by federal law.If the EPA reverses its original decision to disallow the special waiver to California, Obama will essentially be letting states set mpg regulations. Seventeen states have already stepped up to say they will also adopt the new California standard.
What could this mean for the TDI Clean Diesel? Not much, actually. Current clean diesel already exceeds these California standards and will keep doing so through 2016.
Where are we on this in Canada? Four provinces (BC, Mb, Qc, NS) have indicated they will also move in this direction.
What is the history? The Canadian government hasn’t tried to force the auto industry to improve fuel efficiency in a long time. The energy crisis scares of the 1970s were still fresh memories when Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals passed the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act in 1982. The law would have given Ottawa the power to set minimum kilometres-per-litre rules, and to fine automakers who failed to meet them.
But although Parliament passed the act, it was never proclaimed into law. Instead, after intense lobbying by the powerful car and truck companies, the Trudeau government agreed to let the industry meet targets voluntarily. Since then, the federal approach has been to dutifully – critics would say meekly – follow the U.S. lead on fuel-efficiency standards.
With the latest Obama announcement, we may be have reached a tipping point.
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