Feinstein

It appears that Arnold is having second thoughts about supporting LNG in California. I don't get the pool reports, but it seems likely that Arnold was questioning LNG at the same time as I was writing my piece lambasting him for his inconsistencies on the environment. He raised some good points during his meeting with DiFi yesterday afternoon.

Arnold wants to have LNG "on the table", but expressed his concern that actually producing and transporting it would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Yesterday, Arnold announced his support for a new fossil fuel plant off the coast of California. Today, he was swooned over in DC, giving a speech in conjunction with his NEWSWEEK cover on the environment. Arnold's attitude towards the environment is to have your cake and eat it too. In Arnold's green world, you can drive a muscle car or a Hummer and save the environment. There is no personal sacrifice necessary.

Much has been made of Arnold's appearance on Pimp My Ride, where they convert a 1965 Chevy Impala into a biodiesel machine.

The April 22 episode of "Pimp My Ride" will show that "biofuel is not like some wimpy, feminine car, like a hybrid," Schwarzenegger said in the current Newsweek cover article. "Because the muscle guys, they have this thing: `I don't want to be seen in the little feminine car.'"

Today he said:

"We don't have to really go and take away the muscle cars, we don't have to take away the Hummers or the SUVs or anything else, because that's a formula for failure," he said. "Instead, what we have to do is make those cars more environmentally muscular."

The rebuilt car gets 25 MPG, granted that is biofuel, but there is simply not enough biofuel lying around to be able to repeat this experiment on a large scale. The owner will have to work hard to find a steady supply of fuel for his vehicle. It is not as if he can just pull up to any ole gas station.

The 25 MPG is actually the current average fuel economy standard for all vehicles. It is much lower than the proposed increases to the CAFE standards. Sen. Feinstein and Boxer are both co-sponsors to bill which would increase the fuel economy standards for all vehicles, including SUVs and sedans to 35 MPG by model year 2019.