Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barak Obama and Global Warming

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) for California to combat global warming by reducing automotive greenhouse gas emissions. Per the governor's website:

"By 2020, the LCFS will produce a 10 percent reduction in the carbon content of all passenger vehicle fuels sold in California. This is expected to replace 20 percent of our on-road gasoline consumption with lower-carbon fuels, more than triple the size of the state's renewable fuels market, and place on California's roads more than 7 million alternative fuel or hybrid vehicles (20 times more than on our roads today)."

Presidential candidate Barak Obama, announced on his 2008 campaign website that he endorses the California LCFS program. Per his campaign blog:

"The oil used in the U.S. transportation sector accounts for one-third of our nation's emissions of greenhouse gases. Barack Obama's plan will reduce carbon in our fuel supply by establishing a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The standard would require that all transportation fuels sold in the U.S. contain 5 percent less carbon by 2015 and 10 percent less carbon by 2020. The legislation would let market forces decide the most efficient way to reduce emissions and would spur significant investment in renewable fuels, such as corn and cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel made from plant oils such as soybeans. According to one estimate, Obama's legislation would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by about 180 million metric tons in 2020. This is the equivalent of taking over 30 million cars off the road in 2020."

The LCFS and NLCFS are surprisingly similar to the Twenty in Ten Initiative proposed by President Bush in his state of the union speech last January. Per the White House website:

"To Help America Reduce Its Dependence On Oil, The President Has Set The Goal Of Cutting U.S. Consumption Of Gasoline By 20 Percent In The Next Ten Years.

To meet this goal we must make progress on two fronts:

1. On the demand side, the President has proposed reforming fuel economy standards to make cars more energy efficient, just like we did for light trucks.

2. On the supply side, the President has proposed increasing the supply of alternative fuels by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and other alternative fuels in 2017, nearly five times the current target."

One difference in the proposals is that the Twenty in Ten Initiative target date is 2017 not 2020. When the Twenty in Ten was announced, many criticized the initiative as too little to late. But then would not the NLFCS or LCFS be to little too later?

Governor Schwarzenegger has notified the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that California will sue the federal government if the EPA does not grant a waiver for the California's LCFS program.

With strikingly similar proposals on the table it would seem that California could change the name of the LCFS program to the Twenty in Thirteen California Initiative or change the time frame to match the White House's Twenty in Ten Initiative. The latter should greatly simplify issuing California the waiver. Then want would Obama do?