Overlooked Tool to Fight Climate Change: A Tweak in Fuel Standards

Unit 4: The Bureaucracy

Article Date: MARCH 28, 2016

By modifying the already standing bureaucratic regulation of making changes to vehicle fuel efficiency standards, the use of greenhouse gas emissions could be greatly reduced. The purpose climate change accord, recently passed by the United Nations, is to reduce decrease greenhouse gas emissions and slow down the effects of climate change. To meet these requirements, the United States needs to reduce carbon pollution generated from power plants as an authorization legislation. In addition, since this reduction will not be enough, fuel economy of automobiles will also need to be modified. On proposed plan is for the Environmental Protection Agency to review CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard. Thinking about fuel economy, not just gas mileage per gallon, is one way of effecting change.  If the lifetime gasoline consumption of each car model is taken into account, the article states we can calculate the CO2 emissions by car group over its anticipated lifetime. By doing so, the government could issue permits to car manufacturers based on fuel efficiency. Car companies could then use a "cap-and-trade program" to sell permits with other manufacturers.

Personally, I feel like we should be working to slow the effects of climate change, and beginning with improving the fuel efficiency of cars will be a beneficial improvement. This specific federal bureaucracy will work to improve the efficiency of cars so that fuel can be saved even more. Even though this process will involve a lot of bureaucratic red tape, is it definitely worth it to protect our environment.











Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/upshot/overlooked-tool-to-fight-climate-change-a-tweak-in-fuel-standards.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FEnvironmental%20Protection%20Agency&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=collection