Barack Obama on Environment

Obama has sponsored several proposed bills in Congress to improve CAFE standards, place mandatory caps on greenhouse gap emissions, tax credits to switch pumps over to E85, support more flexible-fuel vehicles, and increase the production and use of alternate fuels. The Senator supports stricter CAFE standards. He would encourage car manufacturers to produce fuel efficient cars by providing assistance with paying for health care costs, or tax incentives to retool parts and assembly plants.

CAFE standards:

Senator Obama supports a 4 percent increase each year in CAFE standards - a rate that the National Academy of Sciences has determined is possible without changes in vehicle weight or performance - unless the experts at NHTSA justify a deviation in that rate by proving that the increase is technologically unachievable, cannot maintain overall fleet safety, or is not cost-effective.

He wants to establish different standards for different types of cars. Currently manufacturers have to meet broad standards over their whole fleet of cars. Obama’s plan provides further flexibility by giving NHTSA the authority to allow companies to earn credit for improving fuel efficiency beyond the CAFE standard in one type of car, and using those credits to meet goals for other vehicle models

Vehicle manufacturers

Barack Obama would encourage the development of fuel efficient cars by offering manufacturers the choice between the following two benefits.

Participating automakers would receive federal financial assistance to cover 10 percent of their annual legacy health care costs through 2017. Automakers would be required to invest at least 50 percent of these savings into manufacturing fuel efficient cars in the United States

or Generous tax incentives for retooling parts and assembly plants:

Carbon reduction:

Obama's plan reduces carbon in our fuel supply by establishing a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The standard would require that all transportation fuels sold in the U.S.contain 5 percent less carbon by 2015 and 10 percent less carbon by 2020. This plan is modeled off of California's policies.

This plan would let the market determine what fuels are used by distributers and blenders. However, it would requre a clean transportation fuel standard, which requires fuel blenders to use minimum amounts of Clean Fuels (50% lowever lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline) and Ultra-Clean Fuels (75% lower greenhouse gas emissions). The plan also includes a banking and credit trading mechanism to allow providers of cleaner-burning fuel to trade allowances to other producers or bank allowances against future carbon reductions.

The goal would be to spur greater production and research into renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. According to one estimate, the NLCFS would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by about 180 million metric tons in 2020 compared to 2007 levels. This is the equivalent of taking over 30 million cars off the road in 2020.

Cap-and-trade

Obama supports a cap-and-trade system where the carbon credits would be auctioned off-- would generate "millions of dollars."

Greehouse gas reduction:

Obama has co-sponsored legislation that calls for mandatory caps on greenhouse emissions for power plants, industry and oil refineries. The bill requires that releases of heat-trapping gases to return to 2004 levels by 2012 and to 1990 levels by 2020. Greenhouse gas emissions would be cut from 6,100 metric tons of carbon equivalent in 2004 to about 2,100 metric tons in 2050.

Hybrids:

Senator Obama's legislation is known as Health Care for Hybrids. It encourages automakers to make fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles by helping the companies shoulder the health care costs of their retirees. Domestic automakers would get health care assistance in exchange for their investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. This legislation came before Obama's more detailed proposal.

Changes to the tax code:

Sen. Obama and Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) are co-sponsoring a bill to give a 30% tax credit to cover costs of switching one or more traditional petroleum pumps to E85 -- a blend of 85 percent clean-burning, domestically grown ethanol and 15 percent petroleum gasoline.

Barack Obama would lift the 60,000-per-manufacturer cap on buyer tax credits to allow more Americans to buy ultra-efficient vehicles.

Bio-fuels

Obama is sponsoring legislation that would create infrastructure to support more flexible-fuel vehicles (cars that run on both E85 and regular gasoline). Senator Obama introduced legislation with Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) to require 2 billion gallons of alternative diesels, such as biodiesel, to be produced domestically by 2015. Obama also sponsored legislation requiring oil companies, that made at least $1 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2006 to invest at least 1 percent of the their total reported first quarter 2006 profits into installing E85 pumps. Senator Obama helped introduce the American Fuels Act that would increase the domestic production, distribution, and use of biofuels, including expanded manufacture of flexible fuel vehicles, tax credits for biofuels, and a nationwide distribution infrastructure.

Directly from the candidate:

For all of our military might and economic dominance, America's Achilles heel is the oil we cannot live without. Oil fuels 96 percent of our transportation needs, and it is critical to the manufacture of millions of goods and products in this country. The interruption of even a small amount of oil for just a few days could cause economic panic and soaring prices. A serious embargo could cause untold disaster. Senator Obama has been a Senate leader in pushing for a comprehensive national energy policy and has introduced a number of bills to get us closer to the goal of energy independence. By putting aside partisan battles, he has found common ground on fuel economy standards, renewable fuels, and clean coal.

Video of an Obama's Town Hall meeting held in Council Bluffs, IA.