"  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators SNOWE, COLLINS, CANTWELL, CORZINE, DODD, DURBIN, JEFFORDS, LEAHY, MURRAY, REED, CLINTON, and SCHUMER in introducing legislation to increase Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency, CAFE, Standards for SUVs and other light duty trucks.

   This bill will close the ``SUV Loophole,'' and require that SUVs meet the same fuel efficiency standards as passenger cars by 2011.

   Simply put, this legislation is the single most important step the United States can take to limit dependence on foreign oil and better protect our environment.

   If implemented, closing the SUV Loophole would: Save the U.S. 1 million barrels of oil a day and reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports by 10 percent. Prevent about 240 million tons of carbon dioxide--the top greenhouse gas and biggest single cause of global warming from entering the atmosphere each year. Save SUV and light duty truck owners hundreds of dollars each year in gasoline costs.

   CAFE standards were first established in 1975. At that time, light trucks made up only a small percentage of the vehicles on the road, they were used mostly for agriculture and commerce, not as passenger cars.

   Today, our roads look much different, SUVs and light duty trucks comprise more than half of the new car sales in the United States.

   As a result, the overall fuel economy of our Nation's fleet is the lowest it has been in two decades, because fuel economy standards for these vehicles are so much lower than they are for other passenger vehicles.

   The bill we are introducing today would change that, SUVs and other light duty trucks would have to meet the same fuel economy requirements by 2011 that passenger cars meet today.

   The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, has proposed phasing in an increase in fuel economy standards for SUVs and light trucks under the following schedule: by 2005, SUVs and light trucks would have to average 21.0 miles per gallon; by 2006, SUVs and light trucks would have to average 21.6 miles per gallon; and by 2007, SUVs and light trucks would have to average 22.2 miles per gallon.

   Last year, the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, released a report stating that adequate lead time can bring about substantive increases in fuel economy standards. Automakers can meet higher CAFE standards if existing technologies are utilized and included in new models of SUVs and light trucks.

   And earlier this month, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said he favored an increase in vehicle fuel economy standards beyond the 1.5-mile-per-gallon hike slated to go into effect by 2007. ``We can do better,'' said Jeffrey Runge in an interview with Congressional Green Sheets. ``The overriding goal here is better fuel economy to decrease our reliance on foreign oil without compromising safety or American jobs,'' he said.

   With this in mind, we have developed the following phase-in schedule which would follow up on what NHTSA has proposed for the short term and remain consistent with what the NAS report said is technologically feasible over the next decade or so: by 2008, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 23.5 miles per gallon; by 2009, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 24.8 miles per gallon; by 2010, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 26.1 miles per gallon, by 2011, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 27.5 miles per gallon.

   This legislation would do two other things: 1. It would mandate that by 2007 the average fuel economy of the new vehicles comprising the Federal fleet must be 3 miles per gallon higher than the baseline average fuel economy for that class. And by 2010, the average fuel economy of the new federal vehicles must be 6 miles per gallon higher than the baseline average fuel economy for that class.

   2. The bill also increases the weight limit within which vehicles are bound by CAFE standards to make it harder for automotive manufacturers to build SUVs large enough to become exempted from CAFE standards. Because SUVs are becoming larger and larger, some may become so large that they will no longer qualify as even SUVs anymore.

   We are introducing this legislation because we believe that the United States needs to take a leadership role in the fight against global warming.

   The International Panel on Climate Change, estimates that the Earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10 degrees in the next 100 years, the most rapid change in 10,000 years.

   This would have a major effect on our way of life. It would melt the polar ice caps, decimate our coastal cities, and cause global climate change.

   We are already seeing the effects of warming: In November, the Los Angeles Times published an article about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park in Montana. Over a century ago, 150 of these magnificent glaciers could be seen on the high cliffs and jagged peaks of the surrounding mountains of the park. Today, there are only 35. And these 35 glaciers that remain today are disintegrating so quickly that scientists estimate the park will have no glaciers in 30 years.

   This melting seen in Glacier National Park can also be seen around the world, from the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to the ice fields beneath Mt. Everest in the Himalayas. Experts also predict that glaciers in the high Andes, the Swiss Alps, and even Iceland could disappear in coming decades as well. These dwindling glaciers offer the clearest and most visible sign of climate change in America and the rest of the world.

   Yet, the Administration has walked away from the negotiating table for the Kyoto Protocol. This is a big mistake. The United States is now the largest energy consumer in the world, with 4 percent of the world's population using 25 percent of the planet's energy. We should be a leader when it comes to combating global warming.

   The single most effective action our nation can take to limit reliance on foreign oil and reduce global warming is to increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles. The simplest way to do this is to simply bring the fuel efficiency standards for light trucks and sport utility vehicles, SUVs, into conformance with other passenger vehicles.

   I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. "

Legislation that actually can help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil by a million barrels a day, more than 1/3 of what we currently important from the Persian Gulf by raising fuel efficiency standards for light trucks by over 33% to bring them in line with regular passenger automobiles.  This bill needs support since similar measures have been squashed many times over by the automobile industry and unions.  Write and urge your Senators to support S. 255.  Don't yell "No Blood for Oil" without exercising your responsibilities as a citizen to try and remove as much oil from our foreign policy equation as possible.

"Sometimes I wish that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council could be chosen like the starting five for the N.B.A. All-Star team — with a vote by the fans. If so, I would certainly vote France off the Council and replace it with India. Then the perm-five would be Russia, China, India, Britain and the United States. That's more like it.

Why replace France with India? Because India is the world's biggest democracy, the world's largest Hindu nation and the world's second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly. India has grown out of that game. India may be ambivalent about war in Iraq, but it comes to its ambivalence honestly. Also, France can't see how the world has changed since the end of the cold war. India can."

France-bashing is always fun, no matter your political persuasion ;)

And I do tend to agree with the general point that India needs to take a larger role in world affairs than they currently occupy.

"The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information."

I've been meaning to post something on this, but I think I'm going to wait until it's actually introduced as potential legislation before devoting a whole lot of energy to it.  I suspect the political atmosphere has changed enough since PATRIOT that if introduced it would have a slim chance in hell of being passed in its existing form.  I did think it important enough to mention in any case, so readers can take a look at it and get their thoughts in order in case it does make it to the halls of Congress.

"The winds of political change are swirling even in Saudi Arabia. Sources here point to a "bill of rights" that was signed last month by 140 Saudi business leaders, professors and intellectuals. The four-page document, "A Vision for the Present and Future of the Country," called for a Saudi parliament, free elections, a fairer distribution of wealth, a crackdown on corruption and more rights for women.

The Saudi manifesto concluded: "We need not go beyond Osama bin Laden to prove that the new Islamists are on the wrong path." Sources say that King Fahd met with a delegation of 40 of the intellectuals to receive the document -- a sign that the royal family takes its demands seriously. Though it has been mentioned in the Arab press, the document has received surprisingly little attention in the West.

When the bombs begin exploding over Iraq, this reform process may be threatened by anti-American protest and renewed Islamic militancy. Muasher argues that the best way for the Bush administration to stem such a reaction is to show it is serious about reviving the peace process and halting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "If you don't deal with settlements quickly, we are approaching the time when a viable Palestinian state isn't possible," Muasher warned."

The Arab world is moving to reform itself.  We need to be sure, that whether we go to war in Iraq - as seems almost inevitable now - or don't, that we lead by example in order to help the more reasonable and/or secular forces that are already working to change their societies and to avoid assisting their Islamist counterparts by fanning the flames of extremism.

I will be keeping my eyes open for a copy of the document mentioned, as it doesn't seem to have hit the web yet.

--
Composed with Newz Crawler 1.3 http://www.newzcrawler.com/

"The Islamic group Ansar al Islam assassinated a minister of the Kurdish parliament and two other government officials on Saturday night, and seized two hostages whose fate remained unknown today.

A team of gunmen, whom Kurdish officials said had been able to get close to the minister because they were masquerading as peace negotiators, also killed three civilians and wounded 12 other people. Among the injured was an 8-year-old girl who was shot in the forehead. Doctors said she was likely to die."

Leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated on September 9th, 2001 by al-Qaeda agents posing as reporters to get close.  The assassination has been widely recognized as either a signal, or at least a sign that the 9/11 attacks were underway.  If Ansar al Islam is an Iraqi/al Queda front group as is alleged by many, could the assassination of Shawkat Haji Mushir - an important figure in the Kurdish government - be a sign to carry out pre-emptive strikes in anticipation of a US attacks?  I'll be keeping my eyes open.