Per a NYTimes uncredited editorial:
The sad truth is that Detroit's automakers, big labor and their rural Congressional allies are adamantly opposed to any and all new limits on the country's gas-guzzling freedoms. So a majority of senators would have you believe that technology has not advanced enough in the last 15 years to justify a change in the standards.
Yeah, right. It couldn't be because the CAFE standards are arbitrary, now could it? Let's face it: the problem is, like the drug war, the demand. Americans clearly love SUVs. They will continue to love SUVs as long as gas is (falsely) so incredibly cheap. If these passed, you would see *old* SUVs preserved as long as possible. How does *that* help with air quality and fuel efficiency?
As long as gas is so cheap, the public has no encouragement to buy alternatively fueled cars. If we don't want to be dependent on foriegn oil, we need cars that don't run on gas at all. This, of course, would kill the oil industry, and thus will never happen.
That's right: I predict that within my lifetime, we will still be driving cars with gas combustion engines. As long as the oil companies own the government anyway, and that won't change without something just short of a revolution.