{"id":7274,"date":"2006-04-28T15:19:51","date_gmt":"2006-04-28T19:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7274"},"modified":"2006-04-28T15:19:51","modified_gmt":"2006-04-28T19:19:51","slug":"bush-passes-the-buck-on-cafe-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-passes-the-buck-on-cafe-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush passes the buck on CAFE standards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The president hosted a rare Rose Garden <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/news\/releases\/2006\/04\/20060428-2.html\">press conference<\/a> this morning with a few interesting exchanges, but this one stood out for me.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Q: In talking about gas prices, in 2001, when you did your first energy policy, and gas prices were about $1.50, a lot of people were saying, you know, you have to push CAFE standards higher for the entire fleet of vehicles; you have to scrutinize oil companies more closely; you have to spend a lot more in alternative fuels than even you were proposing. Do you have any regrets now that gas is $3 that you didn&#8217;t do enough in your first term to prevent these prices?<\/p>\n<p>Bush: As you know, in order for there to be a CAFE standard increase on cars it requires congressional action. I think it&#8217;s a good idea to give the President, through the Secretary of Transportation, the opportunity to raise CAFE standards, just like I did on light trucks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A couple of things. One, I love the way Bush basically said CAFE standards are Congress&#8217; problem, not his. Would the president have us believe he really, truly wants to raise the standards, but can&#8217;t because the mean ol&#8217; lawmakers can&#8217;t get their act together? Please.<\/p>\n<p>Two, before Bush pats himself on the back for raising standards, he probably should recognize the fact that a) his policy on light trucks is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7002.html\">a bit of a joke<\/a>; and the policy b) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogressaction.org\/site\/apps\/nl\/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&#038;b=914257&#038;ct=1364537\">actually<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogressaction.org\/site\/apps\/nl\/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&#038;b=914257&#038;ct=1352241#3\">encourages<\/a> automakers to produce bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles, while <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2005\/08\/24\/breaking-bush-secretly-undermines-state-efforts-to-curb-global-warming\/\">preventing states<\/a> from taking strong, progressive action to reverse global warming.<\/p>\n<p>I guess Bush just forgot to mention this. Must have slipped his mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The president hosted a rare Rose Garden press conference this morning with a few interesting exchanges, but this one stood out for me. Q: In talking about gas prices, in 2001, when you did your first energy policy, and gas prices were about $1.50, a lot of people were saying, you know, you have to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}