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Florida Should Demand Clean, Efficient Vehicles

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 2, 2008

Automobile lobbyists argue proposed tough state emissions standards for cars and trucks will cripple the beleaguered industry and prove costly for consumers.

But Americans have heard such Chicken Little claims from the industry many times before.

What's best for the people of Florida should be obvious to the state Environmental Regulation Commission, the rule-making board that will decide today whether to endorse the emissions and fuel-efficiency standards.

Making cars cleaner and more efficient will protect the public health, cut energy costs and improve the environment, including reducing the greenhouse emissions that contribute to climate change, which threatens Florida's coastal communities.

Even those who dismiss climate change's dangers should recognize the payoff from cleaning the air and making vehicles more economical.

The industry claims the proposed tighter emission standards endorsed by Gov. Charlie Crist would increase the cost of a car by as much as $4,000.

But studies have found that the price increase would be far less - somewhere from $92 to $670 a car - and consumers would more than recover those costs in fuel savings of from $1,000 to $2,300.

And the tougher standards would apply to the average vehicle emissions for the state, not to individual cars. There would be plenty of flexibility in applying the rules.

Not every type of vehicle would have to meet the standards, which are hardly unreasonable.

Some cars, including Hondas and Toyotas, already meet them. And manufacturers would have about a decade before facing any penalties. Emergency and military vehicles would be exempt from the fuel-efficiency requirements.

In addition, the proposed standards, similar to those that have been approved in California and 12 other states, would encourage the use of clean-burning ethanol. This, in turn, would give a major boost to the state's agricultural industry's plans to produce ethanol, creating jobs and making the state more energy independent.

No one wants to add to the American automobile industry's woes, but it's in trouble precisely because it has resisted evolving to meet the needs of today's market, which demands reliable, fuel-efficient cars.

The industry also made doom-and-gloom claims about seat belts, anti-pollution devices, air bags and other developments that ended up making vehicles safer and cleaner without the high costs that had been predicted.

Moreover, the ERC vote is not the final word. State lawmakers must approve the standards, so there will be additional time to scrutinize the likely impacts.

A year ago in a speech to homebuilders, Crist aptly explained the importance of taking a strong stand on clean air: "We have a duty to lead. It means a partnership for government with the people. We have a duty to serve them and part of that service is to protect Florida. I doubt that very many object to the fact that we're going to keep Florida clean.

"We're all in the same planet. We need to work together to make sure the environment is an issue at the forefront. It shouldn't be a political issue. It's a global issue. It's not bipartisan. It's nonpartisan."

Members of the Environmental Regulation Commission should, as Crist says, act as leaders. They should give the go-ahead to pollution-cutting standards that will benefit the environment, consumers and the economy.

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