OPINION: A Green Deal for Transportation

In early 1942, the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt directed the entire U.S. auto industry to make a sudden and wholesale switch from producing cars to churning out tanks, armored cars, tank engines, and aircraft propellers. Close to 4 million vehicles had rolled off assembly lines the previous year, but emergency wartime priorities brought the nation’s auto production to zero for three years as the sale of private cars was banned. After World War II ended, the reconversion from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy was carried out with equal speed, accompanied by careful planning.

Today, facing an emergency of a different nature, it is imperative to consider a similar break with business-as-usual. Over the past half-century, automobile manufacturers in the United States and the rest of the world expanded production from 8 million vehicles in 1950 to some 74 million in 2007. The industry has grown to become a major driver of climate change. The U.S. “Big Three” manufacturers – GM, Ford, and Chrysler – have for two decades peddled oversized, gas-gulping SUVs that were good for short-term profits but lethal for the planet. This strategy has left Detroit with few options now that the financial crisis, rollercoaster oil prices, and unease about peak oil are weighing heavily on consumers’ minds.

…A green transportation overhaul would overcome these handicaps by:

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