As long as I can remember, environmental activists have been pushing for tougher fuel standards, and the auto industry has been saying that tougher standards would be impossible to meet and would bankrupt them. Maybe now that they're already bankrupt, they won't be able to complain about the new EPA standards set this week.
While that's big news for a major US industry, another industry got some big news from Obama on Wednesday. Acquiescing to demands from Virginians, among others, when he announced that a large portion of the East Coast would be opened up to oil drilling. It's true that in the same stroke he protected the West Coast as well as parts of Alaska from drilling, but this is still good news for business and a disappointing move for environmentalists. One good response is from Eric Smith, who argues that offshore drilling is good for the environment, sort of like local food has less of an impact than the imported stuff.
I'm curious to see how this will shake out over the next decade or two. Ethanol requirements continue to rise, natural gas drilling looks to be poised to take off, and the new gas standards will slowly begin to cut into petroleum consumption. Decreased demand for oil some years from now will limit drilling- we'll see if the world can get there.
