When I think about climate change, the images that come quickly to mind are of melting polar ice caps, heat waves, droughts, and severe flooding. This kind of climate change, or global warming, is one of the biggest problems UCS is trying to help slow and ultimately stop.
Melting glaciers are a disturbing part of global warming, but a thawing of the auto industry’s opposition to clean car standards is more than welcome.
But, last week I was in Los Angeles to testify in front of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) about their package of advanced clean car standards, and I got to see first-hand a completely different kind of climate change. If you will pardon my stretching the pun to the limit, I saw the results of a global warming of attitudes on the part of automakers, a willingness to step up and support California’s strong standards that will require cleaner gasoline cars and over 1 million electric cars in California through 2025. In sharp contrast, representatives of the oil industry threatened to sue the state over a portion of the requirements.
Worldwide Auto Industry Supports California’s Clean Car Standards
Representatives from automaker after automaker—whether their headquarters were in the U.S., Japan, Germany, or South Korea—stood up in front of the ARB and declared their support for strong global warming pollution standards, smog standards, electric car standards, and hydrogen infrastructure requirements. This stands in sharp contrast to the last decade when automakers were suing California and other states to try to stop these kinds of standards from being implemented. And this is nothing like automaker efforts to argue to the U.S. Supreme Court that regulators had no legal right to protect public health and welfare by setting global warming pollution standards (the Supreme Court rejected those arguments).
Automakers did voice their concerns with some of the provisions. And, of course, automaker support did not come without a price. As was noted by the ARB chair at the hearing, Detroit-based automakers got a big break on global warming pollution standards for pickups and other vehicles that qualify as “trucks” and some Japan-based automakers got a big break on their electric car requirements. We still think these provisions should be fixed, but that should not diminish the historic nature of strong clean car standards being supported by the auto industry for the first time.
This is the kind of climate change we need.
Oil Industry Representatives Threaten Lawsuit
Unlike the auto industry, the oil industry’s attitude has not thawed. They still seem more than willing to stay stuck in the 20th century, keeping Americans addicted to oil despite opportunities to make a profit elsewhere.
Oil industry representatives threatened to sue California over a provision that would require them to invest in infrastructure to supply hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles if nobody else does. The ARB expects to see about 10,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars on California roads by 2018, and as many as 170,000 by 2025 as a result of the clean car standards. Analysis by Energy Independence Now indicates that oil companies can make a profit from selling hydrogen after just a few years. Thus, all that oil companies are being asked to do is to invest about $4 million dollars during the first two years of the program in something that can deliver a long term return on their investment—that’s just one half hour of the annual profits of the top three U.S. oil companies (see biofuels link below for background on oil industry profits). And they don’t even have to make the investment if someone else does.
This unwillingness to step up on global warming, to invest in America’s future, is not news from the oil industry. We’ve seen it on biofuels and tar sands, just to name a few. But it has to change. The clock is ticking on global warming, unhealthy air, and America’s oil addiction. Just as we’ve said of electric utilities, oil companies need to follow the lead of the auto industry and shift from being a part of the problem to becoming part of the solution.
We’ve got a plan that would require oil companies to step up alongside of the many others who are intertwined in America’s oil addiction. Check out our work and keep your eyes open for more to come this spring and summer.
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Photo credit: iStockphoto.com