California's Best Response to Al Gore's Nobel Prize: Assembly Bill 493, the Clean Car Rebate Bill

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Rosemary Shahan
Board Member
Speak Out California http://speakoutca.org/

Amid all the well-deserved homage being paid to Nobel prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore, is a message unique to Californians.

Washington is too beholden to the gas, oil, and auto industries to seriously address global warming. The Bush administration is hell-bent on denial and delay. Bush, Cheney, and their rapacious cronies in the dinosaur energy biz are preoccupied with devising ways to block California's landmark global warming law, AB 32 (Nunez).

In Congress, the Senate voted to raise fuel economy standards for automobiles, only to have the popular mandate stymied in the House by powerful and profoundly destructive Rep. John Dingell of Detroit, married to a GM executive and notorious for blocking desperately needed progress in automotive technology on everything from seat belts and air bags to stronger bumpers and improved fuel economy.

Until we have a new Presidential administration that is pro-environment, and Rep. Dingell leaves Congress, the only way we will make progress on auto fuel economy- the leading way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions- is for the states to lead. By default, California is on the front lines of the battle to curb the climate-changing gases that are destroying our planet.

What we as Californians do in our personal lives, and in our policies, will ultimately determine whether we make progress now, or years from now, when it may be too late.

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now, the single most vital piece of legislation you can get behind is AB 493, the Clean Car Rebate Bill. AB 493 will provide up to $2500 in rebates to purchasers of higher-efficiency SUVs, pickups, vans, and sedans, totally funded by an added surcharge on gas guzzlers.

AB 493, authored by Assemblymember Ira Ruskin, is supported by a long list of environmental groups, consumer organizations, scientists with expertise in curbing global warming, faith-based organizations, and forward-thinking, socially responsible businesses.