Fred Upton’s EPA-blocking bill will put more of your money in oil industry pockets #p2 #tcot

Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Some politicians will say anything to gain from the pain Americans are feeling at the pump.

Anyone watching the news knows that pump prices are rising because world-wide demand is recovering after the recession, oil traders are speculating over turmoil in the Middle East, and U.S. oil companies are only too happy to charge consumers higher prices.

Yet in the fantasyland that passes for political debate in Washington, House Republicans are going all-out to blame high gas prices on—you guessed it—the Environmental Protection Agency. Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.) is hawking the gas price snake oil as House leadership rams through legislation to block EPA from curbing dangerous carbon pollution.

Thursday, Upton said his energy and power subcommittee "took a strong stand today in support of jobs and against higher gasoline and energy costs by approving H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011." In the full committee today, Republican members again claimed EPA's carbon safeguards will raise gas prices.

But facts are stubborn things. The most important thing EPA has done so far on carbon pollution is to set clean car standards. The actual effect of EPA's clean car standards will be to lower your gasoline bills. The actual effect of Upton's bill will be to block EPA's clean car standards and raise your gasoline bills.

Here's what EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Congress last week: "All told, nullifying this part of the Clean Air Act would forfeit many hundreds of millions of barrels of oil savings, at a time when gas prices are rising yet again. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you would vote to massively increase America's oil dependence."

EPA's clean car standards for 2012-2016 model cars will save so much gasoline that car buyers will save as much as $3,000 over the life of the car, while the country will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. A quarter of those savings will be lost if EPA's standards are blocked.

EPA's clean car standards for 2017-2025 will save even more—as much as another $7,400 per car, and cut national oil dependence by billions of barrels more.

And those calculations were based on gasoline costs starting at $2.61/gallon! At higher gas prices, the savings will be even greater.

rest at http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-15-fred-uptons-epa-blocking-bill-will-put-more-of-your-money-in-oil