Automakers, Obama Announce Mileage, Pollution Plan

Washington (AP) — President Barack Obama outlined Tuesday the nation's first comprehensive effort to curb vehicle emissions while cutting dependence on imported oil, calling the plan an historic turning point toward a "clean-energy economy."

Joined in the White House Rose Garden by leaders of the auto industry, labor, government officials and key national and state political leaders, Obama said the agreement that once would have been "considered impossible" was what he termed a "harbinger of a change in the way business is done in Washington."

The two-pronged approach to problems that compound threats to the global environment marks the latest in a series of shifts by the Obama administration away from the policies of his conservative predecessor, former President George W. Bush.

"As a result of this agreement," Obama said, "we will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years. And at a time of historic crisis in our auto industry, this rule provides the clear certainty that will allow these companies to plan for a future in which they are building the cars of the 21st century."

He said the new rules amounted to removing 177 million cars from the roads over the next 6 1/2 years.

In that period, the savings in oil burned to fuel American cars, trucks and buses would amount to last year's combined U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria.

While the new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks will save billions of barrels of oil, they are expected to cost consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016. Obama said the fuel cost savings would offset the higher price of vehicles in three years.

While requiring that vehicle carbon dioxide emissions be reduced by about one-third by the target date, the plan requires the auto industry to be building vehicles that average 35.5 miles per gallon.

The plan also would effectively end a feud between automakers and statehouses over emission standards - with the states coming out on top but the automakers getting the single national standard they've been seeking and more time to make the changes.

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- Khadija Al Mousa