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Obama shifts energy narrative away from offshore drilling to clean-energy plans
President Barack Obama used a Rose Garden ceremony Friday to shift the White House’s political narrative on energy away from questions about its offshore drilling plans.
Obama signed an order Friday that will create first-time national mileage and greenhouse gas standards for large trucks, and also called for Congress to give final approval this year to climate change legislation.
The drilling plans announced in late March face fresh attacks daily from environmentalists and some Democrats in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill — a disaster that has also put the administration on the defensive over its oversight of drilling operations.
Obama cautioned the new fuel efficiency plan is not a “substitute for other necessary steps to ensure our leadership in a new clean-energy economy” and called for action on climate change legislation, which passed the House last year but faces big hurdles in the Senate.
“I intend to work with members of both parties to pass a bill this year,” Obama said.
Obama tasked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation with creating a national policy for medium- and heavy-duty trucks for model years 2014-2018.
He also set in motion development of car and light truck standards beyond the current national program that ends in 2016.
“We know that our dependence on foreign oil endangers our security and our economy,” Obama said. “We know that climate change poses a threat to our way of life, in fact we are already seeing some of the profound and costly impacts, and the disaster in the Gulf only underscores that even as we pursue domestic production to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Our long-term security depends on the development of alternative sources of fuel and new transportation technologies.”
Trucks consume more than 2 million barrels of oil daily and account for a fifth of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, according to the White House. Obama said that tractor-trailer fuel economy gains of 25 percent are possible using existing technology.
Obama emphasized the range of administration efforts to development alternative energy sources and advanced vehicle technologies, including money in the 2009 stimulus law.
The new presidential order also tasked the Energy Department with providing “increased support for deployment of advanced vehicles, including electric vehicles, and directed EPA to reduce non-greenhouse-gas pollutants from motor vehicles,” the White House said.
Obama on Friday also sought to show that White House efforts on vehicle mileage – both the existing auto standards set in motion last year and the new plan – have ended decades-long stalemates on the issue. In the past, he said, “progress was mired in a lot of old arguments traded across entrenched political divides.”
Attending the ceremony Friday were officials from Daimler Trucks, heavy engine-maker Cummins, the United Auto Workers and others.
The new car and truck plan drew quick cheers from environmental groups and Democrats.
“These are big steps to curb America’s dependence on oil and cut our contribution to global warming. The cars and trucks on the nation’s roads and highways account for more than 60 percent of the oil we use and more than 25 percent of our carbon pollution. These steps are especially welcome in the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,” said David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center.
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who attended the Rose Garden event, praised the new plan in a statement that also took a shot at offshore drilling.
“As we have learned in the past month, even a dependence on domestically produced oil is a dangerous one. These new standards will help to ensure that one day, we will no longer have to import oil from countries who wish to harm us, or remove it from a mile beneath the ocean off our shores,” he said.
White House officials often tout the administration’s vehicle mileage rules as a centerpiece of its energy strategy, claiming that efficiency and emissions requirements for model years 2012-2016 completed several weeks ago will eventually save 1.8 billion barrels of oil.
The 2012-2016 car and light truck standards — which reflect a deal between automakers, states and the White House last year — were recently finalized under a first-time joint rulemaking between the Department of Transportation and EPA that addressed both efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions.
