U.S. Auto Industry Finally Succumbs to Inevitable Defeat on California Emissions Standards

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The Obama administration recently granted California the right to enforce its first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks, after announcing plans in May to boost federal fuel efficiency standards.  Thirteen other states will also implement the California emissions standard until 2012 when the U.S. government will adopt the California standards as federal law. 

The move will collectively slash emissions by 30 percent in 2016.

But California’s long overdue victory on emissions standards didn’t come without a protracted legal and public relations effort by the auto industry, which spent untold millions (billions?) trying to derail the California Clean Car program that would reduce global warming pollution from cars and trucks.

Headed up by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers – whose members include Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota, BMW Group, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz USA, Mitsubishi Motors, Porsche, and Volkswagen – the auto industry thumbed its nose at customers by fighting against fuel efficiency improvements and denying consumers the choice of highly efficient American vehicles. DeSmogBlog followed this fight in multiple posts over the years, exposing the senior Bush Administration officials who lobbied EPA to deny California’s waiver request, and chronicling the auto industry’s failed legal and public relations efforts.

After battling against fuel economy and emission standards for so long, the beleaguered auto companies appear to have finally relented.  They don’t have much choice given the state of crisis in an industry dependent on billions of dollars in federal money to stay (barely) afloat.

The U.S. auto industry – what’s left of it – should be ashamed to have dragged taxpayers through a grueling eight year battle over what should have been a no-brainer fuel efficiency goal.  Now taxpayers are footing the bill – potentially reaching $50 Billion – to bail out Detroit and help the U.S. auto industry retool plants to build cleaner cars.

Imagine for just a minute how much more cheaply – and quickly – the transition to cleaner cars could have been accomplished had Detroit not fought tooth and nail against every effort to get here.  What a waste of money, time and talent, and then there are the lost jobs, not to mention the lost credibility!

Fran Pavley, the California state senator and architect of the 2001 blueprint for the cleaner car standards, summed up the saga recently.  “It took eight years, multiple federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court, two presidents, two governors and a partridge in a pear tree,” she said in an interview. “What a difference that last presidential election made.”

What a difference indeed.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmogBlog.

He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning.

Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks.

Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder.

Prior to DeSmogBlog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health.

In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications.

Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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