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In the auto industry, there’s one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster.

From the New Yorker:

A few years later, when Congress was thinking about requiring fuel-economy standards, auto executives warned that instituting such standards would create '“massive financial and unemployment problems.' And now, with Congress debating a bill to raise fuel-economy standards, for the first time in almost twenty years, the Chicken Littles are squawking again, forecasting doom for Detroit and asserting that making higher-mileage vehicles is technologically unfeasible and economically suicidal."

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"Environmentology" is Honda's buzzword for its commitment to the environment. To quote Honda's environment statement:

"Honda will pursue challenging goals for the conservation of the global environment. As a responsible member of society whose task lies in the preservation of the global environment…"

While Honda's word are commendable (and I am big fan of their hybrid line-up), their actions on the environment are much less so.

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Toyota, the world's new number one automaker has been winning praise far and wide for the fuel efficiency of its fleet. And Toyota Vice President Josephine Cooper said in a recent TV interview that "Toyota has long supported increasing fuel economy standards for vehicles, which means increasing CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency] standards."

This would be noble if it were true.

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With the Supreme Court ruling today on greenhouse gas emission regulations, readers have been asking us who were the parties opposing the ruling.

Not surprisingly, the list includes many third-party groups representing major auto manufacturers, heavy industry, oil and gas and electrical production. We thought it would be interesting to see where each of these organizations stood on the issues of environment and global warming. And interesting it was, for example, one of the opponents of new carbon emissions regulations is the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, yet their website states that, "members of the Alliance believe that it is prudent to reduce emissions, including carbon dioxide…"