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While the Federal government of the United
States ostensibly still maintains control over the "published" minimum
mileage standards, a State emission limitation, such as California's, could
clearly (even if only indirectly) in effect make Federal standards moot.
The Federal mileage standard has, from the
beginning, been designed to serve a dual purpose: First, it was intended to reduce the sheer
usage of oil and thus help to free America from its dependence on oil,
especially foreign oil. Second, the mileage standard indirectly
promoted reductions in pollution, by mandating a reduction in oil usage.
States, meanwhile, had always had the
responsibility for carrying out such things as the mandates
of the Environmental Protection Agency (a non-Cabinet yet Federal-level
bureaucracy) whose focus is primarily on the impacts of industry and
development. Since, under the US Constitution, each State
is responsible for protecting the "health and welfare" of it's own citizens,
it was quite natural, appropriate and decidedly constitutional that each
State should individually determine such things as the allowable levels of
pollutants in their air, water and soil.
The interplay of the Federal government's
rights and responsibilities vis a vis the States can be a complex, fluid and
often times confusing area of the law, but even so this much is now very
clear: States can force a higher mileage standard
onto car companies, even if only indirectly, through their exclusive right
to set auto emission standards. Let's face it, it is very unlikely that a
clean-burning (read "highly efficient") engine will be anything less than a
high mileage engine as well.
Further, while the State's mandate to
protect its citizens health does nothing to directly force a
reduction in the usage of oil, the obvious indirect effect of highly
efficient engines will be a reduction
in overall oil consumption as well. In short, both areas that the Federal
government had originally sought to control have (or will), by the stroke of
a pen, soon become State-controlled affairs.
Since no car company could afford to build
cars for each of the 50 different states in the US, only a car that can meet
all of the various State standards will be feasible. At present, it seems the only choices any
car company will have is to build either very small cars, or
hybrids, or
both. This new incarnation of State power then has
yet another final if subtle impact: It leaves California, with 11% of the new
car sales in the US (and a similar percentage of all the cars in America)
to, in effect, set the standard which all other States, and thus all car
manufacturers, will very likely be forced to follow. While California's tough, new emission
standards do not actually go into effect until 2009, several revenue-raising
measures go into effect sooner, such as surtaxes on gas-guzzlers both at the
pump and during the annual vehicle registration process. All this will serve to drive down the true
cost of hybrids as compared to conventional cars, making these modern
wonders not only environmentally responsible, but fiscally smart as well.
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Her
Electric Vehicle 
