Gore: Don't single out cars and trucks to solve global warming
Harry Stoffer | Automotive News / March 21, 2007 - 11:41 am
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In a highly anticipated appearance before Congress today, the former vice president said he supports higher fuel economy standards. But automakers alone should not be expected to solve global warming, he contended.
"Don't single out cars and trucks," Gore said in a lengthy statement before a pair of House subcommittees. He described emissions from motor vehicles as "only a slice of the problem" and not the biggest slice.
Still, the future Gore envisions would be vastly different. He called for an immediate freeze on greenhouse-gas emissions and a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050. He did not say exactly how those moves could be accomplished.
The ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, said a freeze, if taken literally, would mean no new businesses, no economic growth and no more people.
Gore also called for:
- Taxes on the carbon in fuels, offset by cuts in payroll taxes.
- U.S. participation in a new international treaty on climate change, which would follow the Kyoto treaty rejected by Congress and the Bush administration.
- Programs that would encourage consumers to generate their own electricity through means that don't release greenhouse gases into the air.
Gore said such steps are needed to deal with "a crisis that is by far the most serious we have ever faced." He has achieved international recognition for his Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.
Auto industry leaders who testified last week before a subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee said they could support a cap on total U.S. emissions. But they said the burden for compliance should be spread across all businesses.
Automakers say that regulators should determine the highest feasible fuel economy standards and that lawmakers should not arbitrarily set tougher standards.
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