If this is true, I believe it will stand as the single best thing I think Obama has done so far in his career as President. More important than closing Guantanamo, and certainly more important than infrastructure stimulus.
At some point, every politician "wants the environment to get better" even if they won't admit global climate change is caused by humans. Conservatives want more waterfowl areas, or more hunting land, or even cleaner rivers and lakes. Liberals want more parks, less emissions, less CO2, less human interference with the environment.
So the situation is always this: politicians want climate change policy, and they want it to be enacted immediately...AFTER THEY LEAVE OFFICE.
Just look at the "2030" push, for "net-zero" buildings (buildings that produce zero carbon footprint per annum. Or the previous Administration's clever tactics to increase car emission standards by 2050, or something ludicrous like that. The hypocrisy of it has always stood up the hairs on the back of my neck. Why would you believe that a policy is a good idea, but not want it enacted immediately?
The usual argument is that "these changes take time" but the truth is that by 2050 most of the politicians in Congress plan on being very dead or very retired, and so this long-in-the-future climate change policies are great for P.R., but also not damaging to a politicians career. They'll be quietly sitting in their homes, blissfully retired, writing their memoirs about how they brought the climate change about, long before the climate change policies take effect.
Plus, giving 38 years for people to enact tighter CO2 emission standards gives lobbyists TONS of time to get the law pushed back even farther.
So we get down to it. Obama, if he really does state tomorrow that emission standards in cars will have to be increased to ~42 mpg by 2016, will strike a blow for the Earth unlike any I have seen in my short life. I'm not exaggerating in the least here. Obama will most likely be reelected in 2012 (are the Republicans even going to nominate a candidate at this point?), so he'll still be President in 2016 when the distant future becomes clinically present. Obama will have to face the shrill cries of Michigan based fossils who should have done this in 1972 when everyone else did. He'll have to come up with a way to enforce the law, so that offenders who say "just a couple more years, pleeeeeeeaaaaase" will have to pay heavy fines or face the music.
Of course, if GM is gone by then, which is likely, or at least GM as we know it today, and Chrysler is gone as well, that really just leaves Ford, who has started making totally awesome cars and trucks with great engines again, if you didn't notice.
(Aside: Ford's 2010 models are ridiculously efficient. Their F-250 gets better gas mileage than the F-150 used to, and their Fusion hybrid is SICK. I read an article that someone drove the Fusion hybrid and went 1,445 miles on a single tank of gas. That is RIDICULOUS. Buy Ford stock NOW.)
Anyway, with Ford happily in line for the emissions, and GM and Chrysler waning like a tide, there's not a whole lot of domestic resistance left. And most of the foreign automakers (that don't originate in Germany) are already meeting the standards. So Obama isn't really making magic happen, he's just making evolution into law.
It's just that for a politician to actually enact emission standards that will take effect during his term is...well, it's revolutionary. Massive hat tip to Mr. Obama.
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