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| 2006/1/18-21 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:41424 Activity:moderate |
1/18 "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as
one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
-Hillary Clinton (Jan 18, 2006)
\_ I predict to you that Hillary Clinton will foolishly run for
the president and fail, setting up for another four years of
GOP incompetence that will go down in history as the worst
platform that has ever controlled our country.
\_ I predict that she will not even come in second in the primary.
\_ President Hillary Clinton. Get used to saying it, because
you will be saying it for eight long years.
\_ Just because someone *really* wants power *really* badly
doesn't mean we should give it to them. Quite the opposite.
It'll be interesting if she does run and some how gets
nominated for the (D) party. She has never gone through the
journalist gauntlet. Never been in a public debate of any
note. Never really had to do any of the things experienced
politicians normally have to go through to get into the top
levels of politics. No polish. The (R) would have to find
a child raping axe murderer to lose to someone so poorly
prepared for a brutal Presidential bid. I'm not sure why
you'd want a President who didn't earn it but whatever.
\_ As opposed to Dubya? What would "we" need to do, have
millionaires give Hillary an oil company, a baseball
team, and a magazine to run into the ground first? -tom
\_ What "we" are you talking about? If the (D) party had
put up a human being instead of a self righteous "I'm
owed the Presidency" plank of wood, Bush would've been
crushed. They put up the proverbial axe murdering
child rapist and lost. Big deal. Kerry was even
worse. He only happened through Dean's "Yeaaarrrggh!"
fluke, and the idea that "Even though we think he's
an idiot we think he's got the creds to beat W so let's
nominate this guy we don't otherwise believe in". He
was the only available candidate in 04 worse than Gore
was in 00. Going back a bit we can see Dole was also
only running because "it was his turn" just like Gore
and he got crushed and rightly so. Bush I was busted
on stage looking at his watch during a debate. Clearly
not interested and out of touch. Crushed. Rightly so.
Attacking a former candidate or President doesn't make
Hillary a better candidate or more Presidential for the
future.
\_ I realize that this puts me in a small minority, but
I genuinely liked and believed in Kerry.
\_ I'm not saying he had zero real supporters just
that the typical noise at the time (on the motd
and other places) was "We don't like him but we
think his war record can win enough middle ground
people to beat W". Very cynical and not a very
good way to choose a candidate.
\_ If we ever managed to uncover all of the backroom bullshit
corporate and private selling out that's going on? That might be
true. Will history reveal all that? Probably not.
\_ Why do you hate America?
\_ Why do you think any of this is somehow a new thing? You think
politics was clean and money free until January 2001 when it
suddenly all magically changed? Status quo.
\_ BUSHCO is worse than Nixon, Hover and Grant? WOW.
\_ Nixon was embarassing. Hoover probably was swamped by
inexorable market forces. Grant allowed all kinds of
corruption and failed to win the Reconstruction, but those
racist southern bastards were probably gonna do all that shit
one way or another anyway. BUSHCO has mushroomed our national
debt and deficit in addition to discarding our civil rights,
making "USA" synonymous with "torture", alienated most of
our allies.... It'll take two generations to undo the damage
BUSHCO has caused.
\_ Well this is an improvement. Weren't you saying last year
it would take "many" generations? So things are better
now. All we need to do now is stay the course.
\_ Because clearly motd consists of only two people, so
naturally....
now. All we need to do now is stay the course.
\_ Same phrasing. Likely the same person. And certainly
coming off the same DNC talking points memo either way.
\_ I never weighed in on BUSHco before. I wrote the
above. I read google news and don't watch much TV,
that is how my opinions are formed. If I echo DNC,
then maybe the liberal media conspiracy is true,
OR maybe I came to my conclusion above independently.
\_ Nixon was embarrassing? Do you even remember watergate? Nixon
ran roughshod over the constitution to cover the asses of his
campaign staffers, &c. He directed the intelligence services
to cover up these crimes.
In contrast, BUSHCO has been overtly working for the defense
of the REPUBLIC. Even if this effort has enriched them pers-
\_ Plame? Halliburton? Misleading us about WMD?
\_ I'm not PP. With that in mind:
Plame: stupid but not the first time someone in
government outted an agent.
\_ Not the last either for BushCO (see Khan)
Halliburton: what about it?
Misleading: this is so beaten to death. Every
western government and spy agency in the world
believed it at the time. Let the horse die.
onally, the primary focus has been on the safety and security
of Americans. Arguably they have used poor judgment in many
situations, but their motivation is not overly criminal as
Nixon's was.
\_ Blameworthy as Nixon was and non-criminal as this
administration is, BUSHCO has done more real harm
to our international image (torture, lies about WMD)
and to our long-term finances than Nixon did.
I stand by what I say: Nixon was embarassing,
BUSHCO has done massive harm.
\_ I find it curious that people seem to think the
US had some sort of golden image around the
world pre-Bush. The US not only had a history of
but an active and intentional policy throughout
the Cold War of supporting thugs, dictators and
drug dealers as long as they were OUR thugs. I
don't see any change for the worse in terms of
how the US deals with the rest of the world. At
least we now give lip service and sometimes
actually do something to push better ideals than
we have in the past.
\_ So says you. I suspect that when we really find out the
extent of the NSA wiretapping, it will turn out to be
much worse than anything Nixon did. Using the NSA to
spy on your political opponents, things like that...
And the Valerie Plame coverup is pretty criminal as well.
Not like the Watergate coverup, but pretty bad.
By most stds, the Grant admin was the epitome of poor mgmt.
His VP had accepted bribes (let's see some proof that Cheney
has been bribed), his brother-in law was taking bribes and
giving him bad advice, the Treasury Dept. was taking bribes,
the Sec. of War was taking bribes, &c. You are willing to
write this all off as southern bastards acting normally, but
you won't write off BUSHCO as southern bastards? Sounds like
a double std to me.
I noticed that you didn't include Hoover. Why? Perhaps the
Depression and his failure to deal w/ that were maybe just a
BIT worse than ANYTHING BUSHCO has done?
BTW, I completely left out any reference to the Alien and
Sedition acts, which were at least as bad as the Patriot Act.
\_ Are people too young to remember living under Carter?
\_ Much better to flush $2-$3 trillion down the toilet instead of
spending it on switching on renewables. God will provide more
spending it on switching to renewables. God will provide more
magic oil!
\_ Apparently, yes, you're too young to remember Carter.
\_ Nope, I'm not. He may not have managed things well,
but he was the last President to tell the truth on
energy.
\_ You win this week's Motd Blue Ribbon For Understatement!
Carter "may not have managed things well, but...". How
old were you when that loser gave the infamous "malaise
speech"? How old during that little itty bitty
"Hostage Crisis" thing? How badly were you hurt from
double digit inflation? You may have been alive but
you don't remember.
\_ Get ready for more maliase, and this time the
energy crisis is a permanent one.
\_ Is this the Peak Oil thing again? So if Carter
"told us the truth about energy" back in 76-80,
what did Reagan x2, Bush I, Clinton x2 do about
it differently that saves them from your scorn
yet Bush II is deserving of it? Actually, since
we're here, what did Carter do about it?
\_ Carter put programs in place to start moving
the nation away from oil dependency, which
Reagan quickly abandoned. Fortunately for
Reagan, the oil bonanza that followed saved
our asses. That oil bonanza is rapidly
fading ... Like I said, none of the
Presidents after Carter dealt with the
problem or admitted to it. I blame all
them for the position we are in. However,
Bush's wasteful spending is using money
that could be used to get us out of the
situation, that's all. Hence the flushing
of money down the toilet.
\_ Ok, I looked this up. Carter's plan was
essentially: conserve/reduce usage, burn
a lot of coal, insulate homes, create a
strategic oil reserve, put solar on 2.5
million homes by 1985. Today: cars burn
less gas, we tried to not burn coal until
more recently when cleaner burning tech
could be put in place, homes and all new
construction are insulated, we have a
strategic oil reserve. I have no idea
how many homes have solar but people can
get it if they want to. Which parts of
the plan got ditched?
I found several sources but it was all
nicely summed up here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
So, where were we? Oh yes, Peak Oil and
Carter's energy policy. What about it?
What did Carter do besides depress
everyone and lead poorly? Check out
some of the quotes in this classic:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html
Jimmy, where are you now? We need you!
Oh yeah, you're out there putting your
stamp of approval on stolen elections in
South America.
\_ If the GOP hadn't gutted the Carter
CAFE standards and written an exemption
literally large enough to drive an
SUV through, Americans would be using
1/2 the gasoline we do today. Gasoline
is 1/2 of our total energy consumption
so we would be using 25% less oil.
This is most of our imported oil.
We would be in much better shape if
we hadn't catered to the oil and
car interests.
\_ I gave you a detailed summary of
his energy plan and 2 URLs straight
from Carter's speeches which you
couldn't bother to post in the
first place so I looked it up for
you. Now you give more
unreferenced noise and
speculation. Put up for shut up.
If you're going to defend a useless
wanker like Carter, you need to
prove your statements. I'm not
doing any more of your research
for you.
[Actually, I lied. I looked up
CAFE and it predated Carter]
http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/auto/cafe.html
So, Carter didn't even do CAFE.
What did Carter do?
\_ See above. He implemented
stringent CAFE standards, just
like I said. Do you really have
this tough a problem with the
English language?
\_ Stringent is a relative
term. Go find us the actual
standard and we can then
all decide how stringent
they are. The concept
sure as hell wasn't his and
if his only claim to fame
in 4 years in office was to
pick highish CAFE numbers
in 1978 after being in office
~2 years then we sure as hell
didn't need him. Any random
beaurocrat could've picked a
number.
\_ "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been
run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know that I'm
talking about."
\_ It's spin unless you include the second half of that
thought.
\_ The second half?
\ "It has been run in a way so that nobody with a
contrary view has had a chance to present
legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."
\_ Gosh! Imagine that! When you have a government
system with 2 major parties, the party out of
power can't get their agenda through! Shocking!
Were you equally upset about the 50 years the
Democrat party ran the show while Republicans
got sidelined? Sheesh, read a civics book.
Hillary said a stupid thing and barely got
called on it. This time. All this idiocy will
come back later though. Always does.
\_ Of course, but the media is "enraged" about
the plantation bit, not the whining that
the Democrats can't get their agenda
through.
\_ President Hillary Rodham Clinton. Get used to saying it
because we will be saying it for eight long years.
\_ Good news for Republicans ... Osama bin Laden is saying
new attacks are planned for the United States. Voters
will be scared and vote in more right wingers promising
to take away our liberty for security!
\_ The rest of the Osama tape saying essentially, "we offer
you a truce to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq" which sure
sounds like weakness and surrender. This is much more
likely to be played as "See? We're winning, now we just
need to stay the course and finish them off" than "OMG!
We're going to get hit again eeeek!" But, yes, anytime
Osama spews forth it is bad for the Democrat party.
\_ He's always offering compromises that sound
"reasonable".
But of course if we meet offer #1 then immediately
there will be offer #2 until offer #n which is "the
whole world is a Muslim theocracy ruled by me"
\_ Of course. I don't think it'll be portrayed like
that by either party or anyone in the media,
though. Dealing with someone like Osama just isn't
an option. So the discussion will be on what it
means that he said it. I'm surprised he's still
alive, simply due to age, stress, and poor living
conditions but that's another story. I don't
think he's in a position to negotiate anything
even if he was a reliable treaty partner and we
actually wanted to talk with him.
\_ It's "Democratic" party. Not "Democrat" party.
\_ I have a term paper due in a few months. Will you
spell check that for me, too? Thanks!
\_ If you post it to MOTD, I'm sure we'd have a
blast editing your term paper for you.
\_ Holy crap! This could be really entertaining!
Why not let the motd collectively write
your paper?
\_ Meh, I've generally found that MOTD has
the collective creativity of a kumquat.
We're quite creative provided we have
something to start working on, though.... |
| 4/3 |
|
| www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on April 18, 1977. Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us. Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress. Its members will be my partners and they have already given me a great deal of valuable advice. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices. The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation. Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy. I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. The oil and natural gas we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about six percent a year. Our nation's independence of economic and political action is becoming increasingly constrained. Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil that it can produce. The world now uses about 60 million barrels of oil a day and demand increases each year about 5 percent. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every nine months, or a new Saudi Arabia every three years. We must look back in history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years there has been a transition in the way people use energy. The first was about 200 years ago, away from wood -- which had provided about 90 percent of all fuel -- to coal, which was more efficient. This change became the basis of the Industrial Revolution. The second change took place in this century, with the growing use of oil and natural gas. They were more convenient and cheaper than coal, and the supply seemed to be almost without limit. They made possible the age of automobile and airplane travel. Nearly everyone who is alive today grew up during this age and we have never known anything different. Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power. During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s, we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of mankind's previous history. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade. I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum. All of us have heard about the large oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. In a few years when the North Slope is producing fully, its total output will be just about equal to two years' increase in our nation's energy demand. Each new inventory of world oil reserves has been more disturbing than the last. World oil production can probably keep going up for another six or eight years. But we do have a choice about how we will spend the next few years. Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden. One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our houses, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste. We can continue using scarce oil and natural to generate electricity, and continue wasting two-thirds of their fuel value in the process. If we do not act, then by 1985 we will be using 33 percent more energy than we do today. We can't substantially increase our domestic production, so we would need to import twice as much oil as we do now. Last year we spent $37 billion -- nearly ten times as much -- and this year we may spend over $45 billion. Unless we act, we will spend more than $550 billion for imported oil by 1985 -- more than $2,500 a year for every man, woman, and child in America. Along with that money we will continue losing American jobs and becoming increasingly vulnerable to supply interruptions. We could endanger our freedom as a sovereign nation to act in foreign affairs. Within ten years we would not be able to import enough oil -- from any country, at any acceptable price. If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source. We will not be ready to keep our transportation system running with smaller, more efficient cars and a better network of buses, trains and public transportation. We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country. If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions. That is the concept of the energy policy we will present on Wednesday. Our national energy plan is based on ten fundamental principles. The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices. The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems -- wasteful use of resources. The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil c... |
| www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on July 15, 1979. Exactly three years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for president of the United States. I promised you a president who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you. During the past three years I've spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the government, our nation's economy, and issues of war and especially peace. But over those years the subjects of the speeches, the talks, and the press conferences have become increasingly narrow, focused more and more on what the isolated world of Washington thinks is important. Gradually, you've heard more and more about what the government thinks or what the government should be doing and less and less about our nation's hopes, our dreams, and our vision of the future. Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject -- energy. For the fifth time I would have described the urgency of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem? It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper -- deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as president I need your help. So I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America. I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society -- business and labor, teachers and preachers, governors, mayors, and private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other Americans, men and women like you. It has been an extraordinary ten days, and I want to share with you what I've heard. Let me quote a few of the typical comments that I wrote down. This from a southern governor: "Mr President, you are not leading this nation -- you're just managing the government." "Don't talk to us about politics or the mechanics of government, but about an understanding of our common good." Many people talked about themselves and about the condition of our nation. This from a young woman in Pennsylvania: "I feel so far from government. I feel like ordinary people are excluded from political power." And this from a young Chicano: "Some of us have suffered from recession all our lives." "Some people have wasted energy, but others haven't had anything to waste." And this from a religious leader: "No material shortage can touch the important things like God's love for us or our love for one another." And I like this one particularly from a black woman who happens to be the mayor of a small Mississippi town: "The big-shots are not the only ones who are important. Remember, you can't sell anything on Wall Street unless someone digs it up somewhere else first." This kind of summarized a lot of other statements: "Mr President, we are confronted with a moral and a spiritual crisis." Several of our discussions were on energy, and I have a notebook full of comments and advice. "We can't go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment." The Middle East has only five percent of the world's energy, but the United States has 24 percent." And this is one of the most vivid statements: "Our neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife." American wisdom and courage right now can set a path to follow in the future." And this one from a labor leader got to the heart of it: "The real issue is freedom. And the last that I'll read: "When we enter the moral equivalent of war, Mr President, don't issue us BB guns." These ten days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my long-standing concerns about our nation's underlying problems. I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law -- and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own. Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past. In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world. As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy. We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate. We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of absolute dependability, until ten years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. We believed that our nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil. Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and fou... |
| www.ita.doc.gov/td/auto/cafe.html The Act was passed in response to the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo. The stated near-term goal was to double new car fuel economy by model year 1985. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 required passenger car and light truck with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less manufactured for sale in the United States, to meet CAFE standards. The CAFE standards are applied on a fleet-wide basis for each manufacturer; For example, if a manufacturer produces 2 million cars in a particular model year, and its CAFE falls 05 mpg below the standard, it would be liable for a civil penalty of $50 million. Manufacturers earn "credits" for exceeding CAFE standards, and these credits can be used to offset fuel economy shortfalls in the three previous and/or three subsequent model years. Two vehicle fleets are defined for CAFE purposes: vehicles with 75 percent or more US/Canadian content are considered to be "domestics"; vehicles with less than 75 percent US/Canadian content are considered to be "imports". If a manufacturer has both "domestic" and "import" fleets, each fleet must comply separately with the CAFE standard. Therefore, there could be an incentive for a manufacturer to raise or lower US/Canadian content in order to "move" a vehicle from one fleet to the other in order to meet the standard for both fleets. The union was concerned that the Big-3 would start importing small fuel-efficient vehicles from overseas to raise their overall CAFE numbers. For the purpose of CAFE content is based on a value-added definition that includes operations within the US and Canada such as advertising, overhead, depreciation of plant and equipment. price of gasoline extremely low by historical standards we can expect consumers demand for more powerful, larger vehicles to continue to grow In April of 2003, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration promulgated a final rule establishing the average fuel economy standards for light trucks that will be manufactured in the 2005-2007 model years (MYs). In December of 2003 NHTSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comments on possible enhancements to the CAFE program that will further the move toward more fuel efficient vehicles while maintaining vehicle safety and the well being of the motor vehicle industry. NHTSA is looking to improve the structure of the CAFE program within existing legislative authority. |