Obama administration officials touted the tougher car mileage standards announced yesterday as “truly historic”. A historic missed opportunity is more like it. A popular president with a green agenda and with his party in control of Congress could have taken the direct approach to reducing America's carbon footprint by raising the lowest gasoline taxes in the developed world. Detroit, which traditionally lobbied against fuel taxes, is suddenly in no position to argue. Instead, Barack Obama is tightening the flawed corporate average fuel economy standards imposed in 1975.
奧巴馬政府官員將日前公布的更嚴格汽車行駛里程標準標榜為具有“真正的歷史意義”。更恰當的說法應該是一個具有歷史意義的錯失了的機遇。一位有著環保議程、所屬黨派掌控著國會、自身受到民眾喜愛的總統，本應能夠以直接的方式減少美國的碳足跡：提高發達國家中最低的燃油稅。而且通常會游說反對燃油稅的底特律突然徹底失去了談判的資本。但是，巴拉克?奧巴馬(Barack Obama)卻提高了1975年實施的存在缺陷的“公司平均燃料經濟性”(CAFE)標準。