Thursday, January 3, 2013

Seeing red? Now go green!

Obama’s new emission standards will only add to the woes of the already dying US auto industry

“Yes, we can!” That’s what the head honchos of US automakers seemed to be echoing with President Obama at the White House, when the new fuel efficiency and Green House Gases Emission Standards were declared. For the first time in US history, there are clear signs of a tectonic shift in the policies of the federal government on climate change. With green house gas emissions at an all time high and US being the largest emitter of transport pollution, a complete overhaul of current laws and regulations was long overdue so that a sustainable development path could be traversed.

According to the current declaration, a single unified emission and efficiency standard is in place for the US of A, overpowering all other standards. This, in effect, implies taking 177 million cars off the American roads over the next four years. This also implies an average car price rise of $1300 to $1600 per model as compared to current prices. Till now, standards were governed by the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) regulations enacted in 1975 and the Energy Independence & Security Act (EISA) of 2007. Till now, technically contrasting norms were followed by automakers. Laws were tweaked to bolster revenues without paying heed to climate change war cries.

But, in a peculiar sense, the road turned full circle as the same automakers continued to neglect their Japanese counterparts, who sold fuel efficient and cheaper cars to Americans and made huge profits, while not incurring any costs on pension, insurance and healthcare benefits to workers. Eventually, the debacle in Detroit has made the Big Three bend before the government and accept Obama’s ‘change’ agenda.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
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