One Nation, One Energy Plan — but It’s the Wrong One

…Thus, it came as a surprise to me that anyone in the federal power structure — perhaps with the exception of Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-Md.), a man who repeatedly has warned us about our refusal to take peak oil theories seriously and who voted against the bill for that and other reasons — had the temerity to stand up and do something gutsy about the matter.

But that is what EPA Administrator Johnson did. I had expected him to roll over and give up in the face of so much support for what I call the “California Above All” approach to fuel conservation and the reduction of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.


But Johnson, much to my surprise and delight, just said “No.” Good for him, and here’s why:

We need one national policy affecting fuel conservation and tailpipe emissions. There are two simple reasons for this, both of which are painfully and expensively evident in the U.S. automobile industry. That same expense and pain, much of it unwittingly borne by consumers, exists in the global automobile business, where competing fuel-conservation and emission-control rules collide.

All too often, those competing rules — developed, applied and brought to the marketplace at great expense — offer negligible differences in outcomes and create much confusion in the marketplace. The California Above All approach, now mimicked by 16 me-too states, is representative.

Washington Post