We will, hold our breath, see a significant shift this Tuesday in the political structure when it comes to taking action to blunt the impacts of Global Warming and change our path toward a more sensible energy future. From the Oval Office, a new message and new direction will go out. In the Halls of Congress, far few deniers will roam with impunity and pockets filled with cash from fossil fools. In the nation’s courtrooms, however, there will be no dramatic shift and while the judicial system has often been an ally of efforts to enforce the nation’s laws to protect the environment, the judiciary could well be the critical roadblock that dooms our ability to make enough changes to turn the tide on Global Warming’s rising seas.
Just this past week, a Federal judge made a ruling on a ‘minor issue’ indicative of the problem we might face. New York City under Mayor Bloomberg had put into place regulation that 100% of cabs must be ‘green’ by 2012, with a minimum of 30 miles per gallon fuel economy. A federal judge has overturned this on the basis that regulation of fuel emissions standards falls under federal, not city, authority. Sigh … we can expect many more such counterproductive decisions in the years to come, especially with the Bush Administration striving so hard to bury in destructive regulations in its waning days.
Who is leading this battle against more fuel efficient cabs? The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade which represents the owners of about 25% of New York City’s taxicabs.
What is truly frustrating about this is that this is such a counterproductive stance by the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which evidently doesn’t care that moving toward more fuel efficiency would enable greatly lowering the cost side of taxi service and thus likely enable higher profits — even while offering lower fares. While more detail is at CtB vs CtO: Why green taxis?, the basic point: taxis are driven so much (over 100,000 miles per year in New York City) that the fuel savings from going hybrid can literally pay for the vehicle in just a few years.