Climate 411

This post is by Mel Peffers, Air Quality Project Manager at Environmental Defense.

Many people idle their car engine in winter because they think it needs time to warm up. Not true! Today’s fuel-injected engines don’t need a warm-up period, and idling for long periods can lead to excessive engine wear.

Worse, cars idling for over 10 seconds use more gas and create more global warming pollution than simply restarting the engine. Surprised? It’s true. The 10-second rule has been proven empirically.

Read More »

This post is by Fred Krupp, President of Environmental Defense.

A federal judge in California today rebuked the auto industry’s attempt to block California and 16 other states from setting tough new limits on global warming pollution from automobiles, calling these efforts “the very definition of folly.”

Read More »

This post is by Vickie Patton, Deputy General Counsel at Environmental Defense.

The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals just issued a 90-page opinion overturning major aspects of the Bush administration’s flawed fuel economy standards for light-duty trucks. Sean Donahue argued the case for Environmental Defense and Susan Fiering for the California Attorney General’s office – on behalf of a larger group of state and environmental petitioners.

Among other things, the court held that the Department of Transportation (DOT):

Read More »

The author of today’s post, Sheryl Canter, is an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Total greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks is a function of three factors: amount of driving, fuel economy, and carbon emissions per gallon of fuel (the "three-legged stool [PDF]"). The news media tend to focus on the latter two factors, but how much people drive has a huge impact.

A new report published by the Urban Land Institute says that greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced sufficiently by making vehicles more efficient, because growth in driving cancels out improved fuel economy. People also must drive less. And the report’s solution is not just better public transportation.

Read More »

The author of today’s post, Jim Tripp, is General Counsel at Environmental Defense. Working with state agencies and other environmental groups, Tripp presented arguments in the Vermont trial this spring.

We won an important victory today. A federal judge in Vermont ruled against U.S. automakers’ attempt to block states from setting new rules limiting global warming pollution from automobiles. In his ruling, Judge William K. Sessions III said that the auto industry failed to prove that it could not safely meet the tailpipe standards.

A number of environmental groups joined the State of Vermont in defending the case, including us at Environmental Defense, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

So can Vermont now implement the tighter emissions requirements? Not quite yet.

Read More »