Obama challenges the car companies

In a sharp break from the Bush administration, President Obama this week granted states permission to regulate tailpipe emissions and said he would vigorously enforce a law requiring automakers to improve fuel efficiency. The executive orders, which Obama said were necessary for “our security, our economy, and our planet,” clear the way for California and other states that want to set greenhouse-gas emission standards tighter than federal limits.

Republican lawmakers complained that the new rules would impose heavy burdens on an industry that has been staggered by plunging sales. “The federal government should not be piling on an industry already hurting,” said Sen. George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican. Carmakers also warned that the stiffer regulations could add thousands of dollars to the cost of a new car.

The Bush era of willful environmental neglect really is over, said The New York Times in an editorial. Bush began his tenure by declining to regulate carbon dioxide and withdrawing from the Kyoto agreement on climate change. Obama began his “with a clear signal” that he fully intends “to fight global warming” with the tools available to him. Much more is needed, but what a “wonderful start.”

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Actually, “Obama has set the wrong priority,” said The Detroit News. What America needs most right now is jobs; hobbling the collapsing auto industry will cost jobs, not create them. And by allowing states to make their own emissions rules, Obama will spawn “a crazy quilt of regulations for making vehicles.” That leaves automakers “at the whim of the most environmentally goofy states, such as California and Vermont.”

Shed no tears for Detroit, said Andrew Leonard in Salon.com. For years, America’s carmakers, “in cahoots with” the Bush administration, fought the forces of environmental responsibility and technological innovation “every single last, grudging step of the way.” Maybe General Motors would still be the world’s biggest automaker “if it had spent more time investing in the future.”