Environmental Matters in the Commonwealth of Kentucky

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the corporate average fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks.  The proposed regulation is required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which Congress passed in December 2007.  This legislation mandates the setting of separate maximum feasible standards for passenger cars and for light trucks at levels sufficient to ensure that the average fuel economy of the combined fleet of all passenger cars and light trucks sold by all manufacturers in the U.S. in model year (MY) 2020 equals or exceeds 35 miles per gallon. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that is a 40 percent increase above the average of approximately 25 miles per gallon for the current combined fleet.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the proposed standards for passenger cars should save approximately 18.7 billion gallons of fuel and avoid tailpipe CO₂ emissions by 178 billion metric tons over the lifetime of the passenger cars sold during those model years, compared to the fuel savings and emissions reductions that would occur if the standards remained at the adjusted baseline (i.e., the higher of manufacturer’s plans and the manufacturer’s required level of average fuel economy for MY 2010).

The proposed substantial increases in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for passenger cars and light trucks is at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-AIR/2008/May/Day-02/a1186.htm