GM to dealers: oppose greenhouse gas laws!

Jay

the fool on the hill
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SAN FRANCISCO - General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner urged a group of auto dealers Saturday to lobby against individual states trying to set their own limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
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Wagoner, speaking to the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in San Francisco, said several states want to go beyond requirements passed by Congress.

If that happens and automakers must focus on state regulations, they won't be able to focus as much on alternative fuel vehicles to reduce oil consumption and pollution, he said.

"We're not going to be able to accomplish everything that we otherwise could," Wagoner said.

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson in December denied a federal waiver that would have allowed California to enact its own law slashing greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

Other states could then have followed suit and 12 were ready to do so, with others making preparations.

Because global warming is an international phenomenon not unique to California, the state doesn't need its own standards to meet "compelling and extraordinary conditions" as set out in the law, Johnson has said.

California's law would have forced automakers to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 30 percent in new cars and light trucks by 2016.

State officials contend it is stronger and would take effect more quickly than the new federal fuel efficiency law.

"We need to work together to educate policymakers at the state and local levels on the importance of tough but national standards," Wagoner told the dealers group.

He also said dealers and automakers should push for infrastructure to handle new technologies including hydrogen and ethanol fueling stations and charging stations for electric vehicles.

After the speech, Wagoner said dealers gave automakers valuable help as Congress was debating stronger fuel economy standards last year.

"Dealers are very effective in the political process because we don't have a plant in every state," he said. "We have dealers in every state."

About 10,000 auto dealers and their spouses are attending the four-day NADA convention.

Source.
 
California...figures.
 
It saddens me to see Arnold, the most manly of men turn into an eco-hippie.

http://img119.imageshack.**/img119/8214/0392477arnoldschwarzenean5.jpg

We will miss you old friend..
 
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I hate states rights. Biggest BS ever created.

Those very rights are whats keeping your state from having to take them. Imagine if CARB didn't exist and California was constantly petitioning the EPA to up it's standards along with New England? Tennessee would be just as screwed.

For those that don't know, California established CARB before the EPA became into existence. Due to this, as long as CARB is stricter than EPA's rules, it can exist and other states can chose to accept CARB's rules or EPA's.

oh and CARB = California Air Resource Board.
 
CARB is also the reason why all new cars in the US are choked from the factory, as the automakers were fed up with making special California cars in the '80s.
 
I really hope other automakers will jump on Wagoner's bandwagon here. thedguy and Lupin already mentioned the failings of California's system; we don't need every state enacting different pollution laws and thus force car makers to tailor cars to so many markets.
 
I think California would love to see our nation as a confederacy.
 
I hate states rights. Biggest BS ever created.

I disagree. State's rights are one of the best parts of the US system. Each state can run themselves however they feel appropriate. The US is a huge country with many different sub-cultures.
 
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