Obama's Secret Fuel Talks

Politico is reporting that the Obamastration will announce, tomorrow, a new national fuel economy standard that will supplant previous Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that have been relatively unchanged for a decade.

Here’s some interesting info:

“In secret conversations, [my emphasis] the Obama administration has lined up support from many state governments and a huge array of domestic and foreign automakers, including GM, Ford, Chrysler, BMW and many more.”

Earlier this year, I heard about a meeting in Los Angeles that was taking place between the automakers and the federal and state government. (Jim Motavalli first blogged about at The New York Times' Wheels blog.) At the time, I didn’t know that it was part of a series of semi-secret discussions orchestrated, or at least managed, by the Aspen Institute, a think tank that’s currently being run by Walter Isaacson. I assumed it was all about California obtaining an EPA waiver to establish a fuel-economy standard that was more stringent than the national standard.

I couldn’t get anyone to talk about this in detail, and I checked with the Aspen Institute as well with contacts in the sustainable mobility community and at the major automakers. Everyone directed me to official statements. At that point, I began to suspect something larger was brewing. And it now it seems that something was.

The big question now is whether this will be a truly national change to CAFE or whether a collection of states—led by California—will sign on, serve up their major auto markets, and with the cooperation of the carmakers, compel support across the country.

UPDATE: Ask a question, get an answer. The NYT is reporting that the Administration is indeed stipulating a national standard. CAFE standards for cars will need to rise to 42 mpg by 2016. Now, it's worth noting that this is across a carmaker's entire fleet. But a jump like that will force significant changes in the automakers' product mix.