The Change Mariner

China Plans to Impose Fuel-Economy Standards More Stringent Than US

Salon:
In just a few years, new cars in China, a developing nation that is not renowned for being a paragon of environmental virtue, will be required to be more fuel efficient than automobiles in the United States.

According to a story published in the New York Times on Tuesday, China plans to regulate fuel-economy standards for the first time, and the rules that it's imposing will be "significantly more stringent" than American standards. By 2005, says the report, new cars, vans and sports utility vehicles in China will be required to get about two miles better gas mileage than in the U.S., and five miles more a gallon by 2008.

The news came just as the U.S. House of Representatives sent the country's most sweeping energy bill since 1992 to the Senate, a bill which environmental groups blasted as a huge giveaway to the oil, coal and nuclear industries, doing little to curb pollution or improve greenhouse gas emissions.