Automakers will have to get into the electric and hybrid vehicle business to meet the new requirements. (Photo courtesy of the Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory, Warren Gretz)
The Obama administration has set new rules requiring cars and trucks to get better gas mileage. Tracy Samilton reports that
will make vehicles both greener and more expensive.
Transcript
The Obama administration has set new rules requiring cars
and trucks to get better gas mileage. Tracy Samilton reports that
will make vehicles both greener and more expensive.
In ten years, automakers will have to reach an average 35 and a half
miles per gallon for their combined car and truck fleet. To get
there, most will get into the electric and hybrid vehicle business, if
they’re not there already. But that technology is expensive. So
they’ll also make regular internal combustion engines more efficient.
Even that isn’t cheap. So who will end up paying for it all? You
guessed it. You and me.
Michael Omotoso is an industry analyst with J.D. Power and Associates.
“If we say we want a cleaner environment, and reduce our
dependence on foreign oil, one way or the other, it’s going to cost us.
Everyone has an opinion about how much more we’ll pay for vehicles
because of the rules.”
The Obama administration and environmentalists say about a grand. Analysts like Omotoso say it could be more like five grand.
Dennis Macray of Starbucks speaks about the coffee company’s social and environmental efforts. He was the keynote speaker for the annual George McGovern lecture for United Nations’ employees. (Photo by Nancy Greenleese)
People who work to help people in poor countries have always had big hearts. Some of
those helping these days have fat wallets as well. Multinational corporations are helping
the people who grow raw materials for those companies. They’re protecting the
environment, building schools, trying to improve living conditions – just like charities.
Nancy Greenleese reports there’s controversy over the businesses’ motives. But there’s
no denying they’re changing how help is given in poor countries:
Transcript
People who work to help people in poor countries have always had big hearts. Some of
those helping these days have fat wallets as well. Multinational corporations are helping
the people who grow raw materials for those companies. They’re protecting the
environment, building schools, trying to improve living conditions – just like charities.
Nancy Greenleese reports there’s controversy over the businesses’ motives. But there’s
no denying they’re changing how help is given in poor countries:
(sound of steaming milk and cups clanking)
At a Starbucks in Germany, customers are clamoring for their daily fix of caffeine.
“My name is Ellen Sycorder and I’m from Bonn. And I’m drinking a black coffee.”
What she doesn’t realize is that it’s coffee with a conscience.
Starbucks buys the bulk of its coffee from farmers in its program called Coffee And
Farmer Equity or CAFÉ. The farmers agree to grow quality coffee without jeopardizing
the environment. They pledge to take care of their workers and pay them fairly. Ellen
can drink to that.
“I think the idea is positive and I think I would drink more coffee here than somewhere
else.”
That’s exactly what Starbucks ordered a decade ago when it teamed up with the
environmental group Conservation International. They started by helping farmers in
Chiapas Mexico grow premium beans while protecting the region’s famous cloud forest.
CAFÉ practices grew from there. Starbucks and its non-profit partners are working with
farmers now from Costa Rica to East Timor.
Dennis Macray of Starbucks says the environmental advice is paying off.
“We’ve had farmers come to us and say these practices helped me weather a hurricane
for example, where neighboring farms had mudslides.”
Starbucks’ director of global responsibility says the company sometimes even
discourages farmers from growing beans. That might seem like a grande step backwards.
But Macray says keeping the farmers in business is the goal and sometimes that means
diversifying.
He recently found out how well it was working when he visited the mud hut of a Kenyan
farmer .
“In this case, the farmer was really proud of all the fruit and other vegetables that he had
on his farm. So he walked around and showed us how interspersed in-between the coffee
and providing shade for the coffee which is very important were a number of other crops
and fruits and things that he could either sell or his family could feed itself.”
Starbucks is among a growing list of multinational companies that are pouring money
into the developing world. Veteran international aid worker Carl Hammerdorfer says
working with big corporations made him pause at first.
“I’m a pretty skeptical, maybe even cynical, person about the motives of business. I
would have said 5 years ago that these Fortune 500 companies are only talking about
environmental and social concerns for marketing purposes, so they would improve their
image and sell more product.”
But he says global climate change prompted the companies to take their mission more
seriously. Any changes to the climate that shrink the rain forest, parch or flood land
would drastically affect their supplies of raw materials.
The former Peace Corps country director says his views have changed as he’s watched
companies such as McDonalds help farmers build more stable businesses.
“The evolution of their consciousness about social and environmental bottom lines is all
good. It’s a net gain for all of us who care about these enduring gaps.”
But there are concerns that the collapse of the economy will make the companies’
generosity shrivel up. There’s not a lot of evidence of that so far. While Starbucks is
closing 900 stores, the CAFÉ program is expanding. The company says it’s vital to its
long-term success to keep grinding on.
CAFÉ standards are based on fuel economy tests from the 1970s.
(Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)
Congress recently increased the Corporate Average
Fuel Economy standards, or CAFÉ standards. The new standard calls
for a car company’s entire fleet to average 35 miles per gallon
by 2020. But Mark Brush reports – there’s a problem with these
standards:
Transcript
Congress recently increased the Corporate Average
Fuel Economy standards, or CAFÉ standards. The new standard calls
for a car company’s entire fleet to average 35 miles per gallon
by 2020. But Mark Brush reports – there’s a problem with these
standards:
CAFÉ standards are based on fuel economy tests from the 1970s.
But the way people drive has changed a lot since then.
Engines are more powerful, people drive faster, and more cars use air conditioning.
That means these old tests don’t reflect the gas mileage we get today.
Experts say car companies are really averaging anywhere from 20 to 30% less than the
standards called for.
Jim Kliesch is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says the system should
change.
“If your representative is standing on Capitol Hill and telling you that they’ve raised
standards to 35 miles per gallon, you’d like to go out and buy a vehicle that can average
35 miles per gallon. Not one that averages 26, 27, 28 miles per gallon.”
There is a more accurate test available today.
Kliesch says it could be used to set CAFÉ standards if members of Congress require it.
Environmental groups have been critical of the White House for not going far enough in requiring the auto industry to make light duty trucks, such as SUV ’s, more fuel-efficient. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has this report:
Transcript
Environmental groups have been critical of the White House for not going far enough in
requiring the auto industry to make light duty trucks, such as SUV’s, more fuel-efficient.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Many of the big environmental groups said the Bush administration’s plans to increase
the fuel economy standards for SUV’s by a mile-and-a-half a gallon wasn’t enough. The
environmentalists say the proposed standards will do almost nothing to make the nation
less dependent on foreign oil. Chris Struve is a market analyst for Fitch Ratings. He says
if the environmental groups want real results, they should turn their attention from trying
to regulate the auto industry’s behavior and instead try to change public opinion:
“It all comes down to consumer preference and frankly the U.S. consumer has
not demonstrated that they have a concern for fuel economy and until the
environmentalists can demonstrate otherwise, I think, you know, you’ve got to be very
careful what you do.”
Struve says few environmental groups are willing to push the hot button issues that would
change consumers’ behavior, such as higher gasoline taxes to make drivers think before
they buy a gas-guzzling vehicle.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Automakers will have to get into the electric and hybrid vehicle business to meet the new requirements. (Photo courtesy of the Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory, Warren Gretz)
