Automobiles

Your morning transportation speed-read: 

The national average price for gasoline, which soared in early 2013, dropped in March by 15 cents per gallon.

Your morning transportation speed-read: 

California-based Tesla, which produces high-end electric cars, received a $465 million Energy Department loan in 2010.

Republicans and the Obama administration disagree about the impact proposed pollution controls will have at the pump. 

Environmental groups say the low-sulfur gasoline and vehicle emissions rules are vital tools to reduce smog.

Your morning transportation speed read: 

An array of automakers and their lobbying groups are pressing the Obama administration to issue low-sulfur gasoline rules that face resistance from oil industry officials who call them costly and unneeded.

Auto industry representatives met with White House Office of Management and Budget aides on March 22, where they offered backing for the Environmental Protection Agency’s planned “Tier 3” fuel and vehicle emissions rule.

Two trade groups — the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and Global Automakers — along with representatives from Toyota, Chrysler, Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes and others, participated, according to the online meeting record.

A joint presentation from the trade groups for the meeting calls the rules “critically important,” argues they will provide public health benefits, and calls them necessary for harmonization with California’s emissions rules.

Environmentalists are unhappy with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R)’s decision to retain a tax on hybrid vehicles in a transportation funding plan for the state.

McDonnell reduced the amount of the tax from $100 per year to $64, his office announced on Tuesday.

But the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) said he should have removed the entire tax.

“While Gov. McDonnell bent to public outcry and reduced the hybrid car tax, he should have vetoed it altogether, as thousands of Virginians urged,” CCAN Virginia State Director Beth Kemler said in a statement. “The hybrid tax remains an unfair and unreasonable policy. A $64 fee is just as arbitrary as the whole policy is to begin with.” 

Your morning transportation speed-read: