Climate Politics

Congress should inflate their tires, not their rhetoric

This post originally ran on the Wonk Room.

For most of this year rising gas prices have been on everyone's mind. Believe me, the auto industry understands very well just how much of an impact $4/gallon gas has had on American consumers. As you may have seen, it's having an impact on us, as well.

Last week, the Auto Alliance and the National Auto Dealers Association sponsored tire pressure checks for members of Congress and their staff who park in the Rayburn Office Building. Surprisingly, we found that most drivers had tires between 5 and 7 pounds under inflated -- some had tires under-inflated by as much as 20 pounds. This significantly reduced their vehicle's fuel economy.

We all share a goal of increasing fuel economy, as well as enhancing energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the fuel economy increases passed last year by Congress (and supported by the Auto Alliance) will help. But consumers want ways to fight back against high gas prices right now. By properly inflating tires, we can have an immediate impact on the more than 245 million vehicles currently on our nation's roads and highways.

Earlier this year, we cosponsored the Alliance to Save Energy's Drive Smarter Challenge. As part of this campaign we advocated maintaining proper tire pressure as one simple step consumers could take to increase fuel economy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It's more important than you may think. For instance, did you know…

• The Department of Energy estimates that 1.2 billion gallons of fuel were wasted in 2005 as a result of driving on under-inflated tires.

• Fuel efficiency is reduced by 1% for every 3 PSI that tires are under-inflated.

• Proper tire inflation can save the equivalent of about 1 tank of gas per year.

• Proper tire inflation also reduces CO2 emissions.

• Experts estimate that 25% of automobiles are running on tires with lower than recommended pressure, because people don't know how to check their tires or don't realize that tires naturally lose air over time.

Maintaining proper tire pressure may not solve our dependence on foreign oil, but it will help. Consumers can get a few more miles to gallon, and when combined other driving and maintenance tips, those small steps can help to make a serious improvement in vehicle fuel economy.

How to stop horselaughs from crushing good ideas?

In a recent post about buy back programs to get polluting junkers off the road, I think David's key point was this: "This is one of those silver bb's enviros need to learn how to market better. All small-bore solutions sound faintly silly in isolation ..."

In fact any solution that is drastically new sounds faintly silly in isolation, or can be made to sound so if an empty-headed media does a one-sentence rephrase (omitting key facts or outright lying if necessary) followed by extended fits of giggles and horselaughs.

For example, Obama made a quite reasonable case that keeping tires inflated properly would save more oil than all offshore drilling combined. The response from the Republican Party and media combined is Tire gauges? Haw, haw, haw!

It would be interesting to hear from some market types on how to counteract this garbage. Because otherwise we can watch idiots giggle our future away: "What, you want to stuff my attic with some sort of fabric? Chortle ... You want to produce electricity by sticking blades on a tower in a windy spot? Heh, heh, heh ... You want to put up paths so people can ride bicycles like little kids? Ha, ha,ha."

You tell me: Are we doomed to forever be South Park Nation, headed by President Beavis and Vice President Butthead? Or is there a way to be heard over the whinnying and braying?

Kolbert on McCain

Elizabeth Kolbert writes a comment in The New Yorker on John McCain’s sad slide into demagoguery on oil, and cuts to the heart of the matter: “If the hard truth is that the federal government can’t do much to lower gas prices, the really hard truth is that it shouldn’t try to.”

McCain to visit nuclear power plant with dismal safety record

After stopping at a biker rally in South Dakota this morning, John McCain is headed to Monroe, Mich., this afternoon, where he’ll visit the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station. While at the power plant, he’s expected to talk up his plan to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, and 55 more after that. During […]

House Republicans’ magical thinking on oil prices

Wow. House Republicans are now saying that their hissy fit cum frat party on the floor is lowering the price of oil. Not for the first time, I have to wonder: do they believe this? Do they really indulge in this kind of magical thinking? The oil price issue is an interesting political case. It’s […]

Enviros unhappy with Obama’s offshore-drilling shift, but pleased with his energy plan

Many in the environmental community are annoyed by Barack Obama’s change of position on offshore drilling, even while they applaud his comprehensive energy plan. The Democratic candidate had staunchly opposed new drilling on the outer continental shelf, but then shifted his position on Friday to say he would be open to some drilling if it […]

Top heavy?

John Stauber on MoveOn et al: MoveOn has fallen into the same top-down rut that all the big national public interest and environmental groups are in. MoveOn raises millions and millions of dollars each year, but the dollars go into marketing, advertising, and candidates, and not into empowering the 3.2 million people on their list. […]

How much does it take to buy a protest on the floor of the House?

Here’s another interesting chart (via Josh Nelson via Open Secrets) showing the amount of oil and gas contributions to the House Republicans now engaging in pep rally theatrics on the floor of the House: Republican House Member 2006 2008 Rep. Lynn Westmoreland $0 $0 Rep. John Boehner $65,000 $0 Rep. Adam Putnam $0 $20,000 Rep. […]

Three models for environmental analysis and planning

There are several fundamental areas of disagreement that underlay the ostensible topics of debate here on Grist. I have pulled together three planning and training devices used by organizers and campaigners in the PIRG tradition, as well as Green Corps, that are helpful in surfacing and naming such disagreements -- a common language for dispute, if you will.

Continuum of environmental action

A strength of environmentalism had been the flowering of its forms and politics. Our power has declined in direct proportion as our diversity has narrowed to an orthodox cannon of acceptable forms of environmental advocacy. At the height of our power, US environmentalism boasted vibrant organizational forms across a spectrum of strategy, tone, ideals and, probably most important, insider/outsider roles, particularly protest.

It is inappropriate to stuff that diversity into the straightjacket of one scale, but I've done so anyway because it underlines the overall point. (I don't want to be flooded with complaints the this or that box is too small or the wrong color. If anyone feels strongly about it, to paraphrase Tom Leher, I am prepared not only to withdraw the chart but to swear under oath that I never created it to begin with.) In 1982 U.S. environmentalists had powerful organizations across the breadth of approach. Today, we are highly concentrated in a handful of specialized areas. But rather than acknowledging that we are weakened by this trend, we seem to be driving even further in the direction of splintering what is already an extremely fragile institution.

The value of drawing the continuum is that it encourages us to look at our efforts on an institutional scale, rather than a myopic organizational view.

The history of House Republicans on energy in the 110th Congress

As you contemplate the House Republican spectacle today, wherein they protest the "Democrat five-week vacation" in the face of high gas prices, keep a few things in mind. The 109th Congress — the first session of Bush’s second term — worked the least, and accomplished the least, of any Congress since the original do-nothing Congress […]