Thanks California

You know the great thing about having the car industry over a barrel? They pretty much are forced to agree to do all the things that it would have been smart for them to do a decade ago. Plus, if you jerk their arm up behind their back hard enough, they'll agree to extra stuff, like a "one free backrub" card that the President can turn in at any time, a solemn promise to run 300% less "This is ouuuuuuuuur counnnnnntry" ads during the football season, and new fuel standards. What are these new fuel standards? The ones California wanted to pass four years ago.

In a ceremony today at the White House, Obama will establish the first national limits on car exhaust and dramatically raise fuel efficiency standards. The new exhaust target – an average 35.5mpg by 2016 – will force US manufacturers to produce cars and trucks that are nearly 40% more efficient.
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A senior administration official said the change, which will sharply ramp up today's average 25mpg performance, equates to taking 177 million cars off of America's roads, or shutting down 194 coal plants, and will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 900 million metric tonnes.

The plan is the product of months of negotiations between the White House, the Big Three struggling auto makers of Detroit – General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – and the state of California.

There are two parts to this. First is the raising the CAFE standards to the levels California wanted (cars - 39mpg and light trucks - 30mpg), makes that the national standard, and moves the timetable up to 2016. Second is new emissions standards, which again are California's emissions standards, that put an end to auto industry lawsuits against the standards.

So big thanks to California for pushing for this and big thanks to the auto industry. By holding onto a failed model for so long, filing lawsuit after lawsuit to block this kind of action, and refusing to even consider the possibility that better fuel economy was a smart idea, you brought about your own doom and are now being forced to do what smart people would have done a long time ago. We appreciate it. Now you have a couple more years to get your fleet up to the standards already reached by Japanese car companies reached a few years ago.