Friday, December 14, 2007

Energy Bill passes Seneate. Bring on the green cars!

You know what they say. Third time's the charm. In late voting last night the Senate finally passed the Energy Bill by a vote of 86 to 8! The biggest tie up in the 1st and 2nd round of voting was a $21.8 Billion dollar new tax hike. Once that was removed, the bill passed almost unanimously.

The bill is now back on to the House to be voted on again since it had been changed. Though this should not prove to be be a problem. The White House has also agreed to sign this bill in to law once the House has approved it.

The core part of the bill is to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy(CAFE) to 35 mpg by 2020, and this remains. This means that we will start to see the first changes to CAFE standards since the mid-'80s.

There are already a number of automakers on board that can and will meet these new laws. GM, Chrysler, and VW are three of the largest. And are already developing new vehicles to meet these standards, along with exciting new Hybrids.