US Presidential candidate John Edwards announces energy program
US Presidential candidate, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, unveiled specifics of an energy program during his Iowa bus tour.
Specifics include:
- Give Kids a Biofuel Ride to School: Today, Edwards announced a new Biofuel Buses program to help school districts replace conventional diesel with cleaner-burning biodiesel blends in 100,000 school buses nationwide. Biodiesel reduces bus-riding children’s exposure to cancer and asthma-causing emissions.
- Boost Biofuel Production: Edwards will invest in public-private research partnerships to develop ways to maximize America’s biofuel ouput while minimizing pollution, soil erosion, and water, land and energy use.
- Build Out the Biofuels Infrastructure: Edwards will require oil companies to install biofuel pumps at 25 percent of their gas stations and require all new cars sold after 2010 to be “flex fuel†cars running on either gasoline or biofuel.
- Make American Cars and Trucks Virtually Petroleum-Free: Edwards believes that American automakers have the ingenuity to lead the world in building the clean, safe, economical cars of the future. He will provide $1 billion a year to help U.S. automakers advance and apply the latest technology, including biofuels, hybrid and electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells, ultra-light materials, and drive train improvements.
- Raise Fuel Economy Standards: Edwards believes that everyone should be able to drive the car, truck or SUV of their choice and still enjoy high fuel economy. American cars and trucks are less efficient than they were two decades ago, despite the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. Edwards will raise standards to 40 miles per gallon by 2016, a step that could single-handedly reduce oil demand by 4 million barrels per day.
The CAFE standards increase is unfunded; the reduction in federal gasoline taxes is not accounted for, otherwise it is a popular notion although unlikely to be warmnly welcomed by the automotive industry.
The $1 billion commitment to research is impressive, but it is not spelled out how this money will be allocated. Currently, the Department of Energy is primarily invested in cellulosic ethanol research, and it is unlikely that the $1 billion figure will allow the US Government to make a significant impact across such a broad array of fuels as mentioned by the Senator. The mention of support for automakers may well make the fuel economy mandate more palatable in Detroit.
The oil company mandate on biofuel pumps is welcome but it is not clear how this mandate will affect independent gas station owners, generally considered small business. The majority of gas stations across the company are not company-owned.
The private-public partnership idea is welcome, but the absence of specifics makes it difficult to analyze the benefits of the program.
The school bus initiative is entiurely welcome and will materially advance a worthwhile idea that has been proposed by others but hitherto has not been funded.
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Gismo | Aug 23, 2007 | Reply
Everyone is for better fuel efficiency, but I think Edwards either glosses over or doesn’t realize what kind of impact a drastic increase would have on the American working man. If Washington gets it way and standards are rapidly increased, then the automakers could be forced to cancel a line of trucks. This could have lasting and detrimental affect of many workers. I do some work with AAM, and we’ve seen this happen. There are only 13 million American manufacturing jobs today, down from 18 million in the 70s.