The Texas Legislature has a pending bills in both the Senate and the House to support a reduction in CO2 emissions by requiring automakers to produce cleaner cars. You can make sure your state is considering similar legislation as well. In Texas, you can lend your support to these SB 124 and HB 548/HB 344 by contacting your state rep and/or senator. Union of Concerned Scientists makes it easy to do this as well. Luckily, I will be at the legislature almost every week and will make it a point to talk to everyone who I can get to listen. It is important to understand the battle the automobile manufacturerers are levying against legislatures across the nation to stop these kinds of laws:
Under the guise of their legal and lobbyist groups—the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers—all the major automakers have filed suit against the people of California to block the state’s law to reduce global warming emissions from cars and trucks.
And they are not stopping in California. They have sued in Oregon, Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island trying to block other states from following California's lead and adopting similar global warming standards. Ten other states have so far adopted the California standard. (These states are: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, and Washington.) On September 22, 2006 the Canadian Conservative government announced that it would also adopt the California standards. Together, these 11 states and Canada amount to more than a third of the North American auto market.
The automaker lawsuit is an insult to consumers demanding cleaner cars and ignores available clean car technology and sound scientific data on global warming.
Find out about Vanguard via this information available through Union of Concerned Scientists. Solutions that make sense using technology available today:
UCSVanguard
Protecting Families from Global Warming Using Today's Technology & Fuels
Vanguard Service Center
Vanguard Brochure (pdf)
Vanguard Technical Report (pdf)
tag: energy, environment, automakers, union of concerned scientists, cleaner cars, automobile manufacturers, texas legislature, co2 emissions, sb124, hb548, hb344, vanguard
I remember when the auto industry fought against air bags. They like paying lawyers more than dealing with the cost of changing standards.
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