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January 18, 2008 While Conservative Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon's planned new federal fuel consumption standards are a welcome change from the current voluntary arrangement with auto manufacturers, it is discouraging that he is apparently letting Bush set the new standards in the name of regulatory harmonization. Cannon announced yesterday that, "For the first time Canada will regulate the fuel consumption of new cars and light trucks, beginning with the 2011 model year." The new rules will be, "benchmarked against a stringent, dominant North American standard," which is another way of saying that Canada will adopt President Bush's modest target of 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres by 2020. "The motor vehicle fuel consumption regulations will be consistent with the spirit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America to develop regulatory approaches that are compatible across our borders and reduce the effects of climate change and air pollution, while fuelling the North American economy," said the Transport Canada backgrounder attached to yesterday's press release. "In August 2007, Security and Prosperity Partnership leaders specifically agreed to explore ways to cooperate on national auto fuel efficiency standards. "The regulations will be developed in keeping with our commitment to work in close collaboration with the U.S. government, towards establishing an environmentally ambitious North American regulatory standard for cars and light-duty trucks." But in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Ken Ogilvie, executive director of the environmental research group Pollution Probe, said that the U.S. fuel consumption standards are "the weakest standards in the world," and noted that European standards are even tougher than those proposed by California, which would exceed the 6.7 litre/km mark by 2016 and which several provinces have said they would like to emulate. Granted the North American auto industry is highly integrated and a common North American standard makes sense. But there is no reason why the Americans or the auto sector itself should be dictating that standard, especially when many of the same manufacturers resisting California's more stringent targets are already building fuel-efficient vehicles to meet them in Europe. According to an MSNBC story from February 2007, "nearly two-thirds of the 113 highly fuel-efficient models [available in Europe] that are unavailable to American consumers are either made by U.S.-based automobile manufacturers or by foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations, such as Nissan and Toyota."
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