California’s Fuel-Efficiency Battle and Peak Oil

California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his staff should be commended for their effort to increase automobile mpg standards in their great state. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 doesn’t require new vehicles to meet 35 mpg standards until 2020, which is laughable considering at least 3 big oil CEOs have said publicly that 2015 is the year in which worldwide oil supply will be inadequate to keep up with worldwide oil demand. California and a few other states want to adopt improved mpg standards much faster. Yet the EPA (the Environmental Disaster Agency) is blocking this effort, declaring that California hadn’t demonstrated “compelling and extraordinary” conditions that would warrant the state to act independently of the federal government. So, off to federal court we go.


California’s arguments for increased mpg standards are based on environmental factors. Instead, what they should be arguing in court in order to demonstrate “compelling and extraordinary” conditions is occurrence of peak oil. If anything in the world today is “compelling and extraordinary” it is the fact that worldwide oil demand will soon outstrip worldwide oil supply! It is an economic argument that should be the focus of California’s legal case for requiring increased mpg standards. Imagine for a moment what life will be like in Los Angeles when it’s millions of citizens can no longer either afford or obtain gasoline. Boy, if that doesn’t scare ya, you’ve got iron cojones. But, like all US governmental agencies, the facts of peak oil rarely are spoken of let alone properly addressed with a real energy policy. Here is a real energy policy.

Hopefully, someone on the state of California legal team will read this article and decide to change their courtroom strategy. How could they not win their right to higher mpg standards if they can easily prove the state’s economy will be thrown into chaos if they don’t? Some would argue that oil at $119/barrel should be argument enough….

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