This has been an such a good thread, I have to give everyone kudos who put there 2 cents in.
The bottom line is how we wean ourselves of the tremendous thirst for oil that Americans have. I do feel our consumption is excessive and I have a hard time believing that market forces that are making so much money off oil are going to help us in anyway until the oil is gone. Inovation and technology are the things that drive markets.( me making a better widjit than your widjit will allow me to gain market share in the widgit business. I can use pr and claim to have a better widgit but the market will straighten that out eventually. ) I do think Hybrid technology is a better widgit.
I also understand that the section of our economy that consumes the most fuel is the daily drivers. Those of us that buy into the idea that we actually need all the hp to get to work and buy the groceries consider it to be a right,and in the long run, will prove to be detrimental to our economic strength and security.
I don't mind driving a small car at home if it enables me to have fuel to produce something and make a living. We should try and plan a generation or two ahead if we really want to stay on top of things.
The daily drivers are what these 29 mpg regs are going to affect. and I think thats what really should be done.The car companies could have done this in the ninties but they sold us on power and flashy ego trips. Priority on how we use our resources should be a common sense thing,but reality has shown that those with the most influence usually win out, whether the influence is political or monetary or through Madison Ave. And the influence is almost always short term thinking. And we all know how easy most of us are persuaded.
If we we don't strive for a higher bar, We can't claim to be a leader.
I would much rather see oil conserved or at least used in a constructive manner.I live in a oil state where waste is the norm and its like watching all the heat go out the stack instead of warming the house. We have thousands of trillions cu ft of gas and no industry using it to make anything.:Banghead. I also know that all the oil reserves that my state has, if put into the system would only be a blip in the scheme of things at the rate we are using it.
"Science supporting the case that we need cleaner, more efficient cars and half-ton pickup trucks must be reasonably unassailable. Because the auto and oil industries know a few good engineers who would certainly have shot the regulations down by now if the down-side was not pretty clear and creating the solutions was not possible.
Of course its not free. The object -- energy independence and a survivable environment -- are of great value. But fuel-efficiency improvements at least begin paying for themselves with the first fill up.
All reactions to unlimited domestic consumption of gasoline and diesel fuel will cost us all more, anyway. North American sources of oil are very expensive to deliver as usable gasoline and diesel fuel at the pump (see: Canadian oil sands). "Drill baby, drill"? That's gonna cost us. Ever see the TSA's budget? It's already costing us dearly to ward off oil-backed Muslim fanatics. Shame that cost, and a representative (significantly larger) chunk of our "national security" dedicated to keeping oil flowing from the Persian Gulf isn't paid for directly by a tax on gasoline. That'd inspire some demand for fuel efficiency.
Reality is that growing population, as was mentioned before, is going to continue to increase our total energy demand and continue to stress the environment. The aforementioned Chinese had a solution for that: close the borders and impose a household size limit. Kind of a steep price to pay (China's economy was hobbled to third-world poverty until the end of the 20th century, and its people cowered under what could only very generously be called "social engineering") to preserve the unlimited towing capacity of a half-ton pickup truck. (We are talking about cars and half-ton pickup trucks, here, not heavy duties. NOT the Ford F-250 and larger, and GM and Dodge 2500s and larger.)"
I have to agree with this and most of the points that CEwriter has put out in this thread.
I did find it pretty refreshing Scott