Clean Car Act Established

Listen to the full audio story

Download the MP3

President Obama announced new national clean car standards today, with a plan based off Californian legislation. State Senator Fran Pavley was the author of that bill. She says her attempt to have it put into effect countrywide was denied during the Bush administration.
(Senator Fran Pavley)
All of the sudden in 2009 a new president of the United States and five months later this historic ceremony in the rose garden of the White House, he announced that the California clean car standards would become the federal standards.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the act will reduce greenhouse gases, save consumers billions at the gas pump. A study by Environment California found that the Clean Car Act will save California drivers 1.6 billion gallons of gasoline by 2016. Bernadette Del Chiaro, a clean energy advocate with Environment California, says it’s a move in the right direction.
(Bernadette Del Chiaro)
I mean oil is Americas Achilles heel and this one step thanks to the decisions at the state level is a huge step forward for America breaking our dependence on oil and tackling global warming.
However the clean car act comes on the heels of yesterdays announcement that the US would now allow offshore drilling, something that has environmentalists like Del Chiaro concerned. She says with the clean air act, offshore drilling is unnecessary.
(Del Chiaro)
This one standard overshadows any kind of oil that we would get from drilling off the coast. So really, President Obama got it wrong in our opinion yesterday with opening up Americas shores to oil drilling, but he got it very right today with making our cars cleaner which will not only reduce our dependence on oil but clean up our air.
Supporters of off-shore drilling say that it will help ease Americas reliance on foreign oil, and would help bring down the cost of gas. Reporting for Annenberg Radio News, Im Jenna Zwang.