Speier proposes national speed limit

Congress is searching for ways to address rising gas prices, and one Bay Area lawmaker thinks she's found one: Lower the speed limit on highways. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, in her first bill as a member of Congress, is proposing a national speed limit of 60 mph for freeways in urban areas and 65 mph in less populated areas. The Web site run by the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, www.fueleconomy.gov, states that "you can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional 30 cents per gallon for gas." David Friedman, research director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, estimates that by reducing speed from 70 to 60 mph, the owner of a midsize sedan would save about $200 a year and the owner of an SUV about $300, based on gas prices of about $4.50 per gallon. Speier isn't the only politician pushing the idea. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., sent a letter on July 3 to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, asking him to study what speed limit offers the best fuel efficiency and whether the administration would support an effort in Congress to lower speed limits. Warner cited a study by the Congressional Research Service that showed that the 1974 law - which set a national speed limit of 55 mph - saved 167,000 barrels of oil per day, 2 percent of U.S. highway fuel consumption.

[Renata]

If nothing else, isn't this a national security matter? After all, less foreign oil - doesn't that make use more secure?

And for those who would say, let's just drill offshore, the point is, even IF we did that, why not do this as well? The LESS the BETTER.

[MRLOUIS]

Welcome back Jimmy Carter!

[just had lunch]

it may not do all that much in the way of conserving, but, it WILL be a windfall for every state and local police departments "revenue enhancement" programs!

[Donna Atlanta GA]

Renata wrote:

If nothing else, isn't this a national security matter? After all, less foreign oil - doesn't that make use more secure?
And for those who would say, let's just drill offshore, the point is, even IF we did that, why not do this as well? The LESS the BETTER.

The Less the Better? How much 'less' is less? Should we all live like they do in Botswana, perhaps? Or some other 3rd world country where they most DEFINITELY have less.

The only people in America who will have less are those who are already doing without.

[Atta boy Luther]

just had lunch wrote:

it may not do all that much in the way of conserving, but, it WILL be a windfall for every state and local police departments "revenue enhancement" programs!

So true! I was gonna post the same thing.

[Jones]

Thank you Rep. Jackie Speier for being delusional liberal obstructionist that preventing oil production and for your reactionary idea to bring America back to the 1930’s with Model T when cars were driving slow because there were no roads.
Liberal Congressmen and Congresswomen that act like drunken sailors must be removed form political power for their support of the evil Islamic regimes and Russia and forcing the American people to send their paychecks to the Islamic terrorists of the Middle East.
It is time to drill in our back yards and convert our oil resources to low cost gasoline and cut our dependency on Putin, Ahmadinajad, King Abdullah and Chavez ‘that laugh all the way to the bank’ because of the liberal losers like Rep. Jackie Speier.
Alternative fuel like wind and sunshine energy, all the exotic fuels like Hydrogen and all the rest of the energy alternatives were explored since late 19th century and everyone knows that they failed to provide more than 13% of US energy consumption.
The reason is that the American soil and waters are ‘loaded’ with huge stocks of coal, oil, oil shale, natural gas and tar that were made during millions of years from green leaves, but there is no other source of fuel that liberals believe is hiding there.
There are 550,000,000 car, trucks, aircrafts, military vehicles and ships in US that use gasoline diesel and jet fuel that use 10,000,000,000 gallons of fuel every single day.
Electric car that use battery has about 7% of the power that a car with a full tank of gasoline has.
Other alternatives like hydrogen engine car can be easily used as explosion car by suicidal terrorists because it will explode with every small leakage of hydrogen.
The American people were blessed more than Saudi Arabia with abundant amounts of oil, oil shale, natural gas, tar, coal that can be converted to clean gasoline for less than $2/dollar for the next hundreds of years.
It is clearly a criminal act of the US Congress with 9% approval rating of the radical Islamic Americans to tie the hands of the American people behind their backs and force them to send their paychecks to Islamic terrorists for financing their missiles, nukes and dirty bombs that will be used against American interests. Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Clinton and Barack- free the American people from your vicious grip of US oil resources.
Let the American people solve the energy problem by oil production in house and in our back yards and become energy independent within two years!!!!

[Thomas]

Representative Speier has her head-up-her-ass! The ONLY TRUE WAY to address higher gas and diesel prices is to enact EMERGENCY PRICE CONTROLS. Set the price of unleaded regular at $2.00 per gallon and diesel at $2.50 per gallon.
The Federal Govt has the power to do this just like we did it before in the 70's and prices remained stable at those levels afterwards. The only reason we don't do this is we have two OILMEN in office named Bush and Cheney who are hell-bent to financially rape the working person before they leave office. Call up Representative Speier and tell her to get-her-head-out-of-her-ass and instead push a Bill for MANDATORY RETAIL ENERGY PRICE CONTROLS instead! Anything else is just more B-S.

[theTrue2]

...around major cities with all the traffic jams, people are driving below the speed limit already..this sounds like a public servant looking for bandaids instead of supporting a real solution to the problem of energy consumption.

[Renata]

Donna Atlanta GA wrote:

<quoted text>
The Less the Better? How much 'less' is less? Should we all live like they do in Botswana, perhaps? Or some other 3rd world country where they most DEFINITELY have less.
The only people in America who will have less are those who are already doing without.

Where the heck does that come from? Botswana? All I'm saying is to use less oil.

[Renata]

theTrue2 wrote:

...around major cities with all the traffic jams, people are driving below the speed limit already..this sounds like a public servant looking for bandaids instead of supporting a real solution to the problem of energy consumption.

Are you kidding? In the SF Bay Area, people drive 80 - 85 MPH most of the time.

As far as bandaids go, offshore drilling is a real bandaid. 200K barrels a day is nothing.

[just had lunch]

Donna Atlanta GA wrote:

<quoted text>
The Less the Better? How much 'less' is less? Should we all live like they do in Botswana, perhaps? Or some other 3rd world country where they most DEFINITELY have less.
The only people in America who will have less are those who are already doing without.

vote for obama...we'll ALL be doing with less!

[Saif]

Thomas wrote:

Representative Speier has her head-up-her-ass! The ONLY TRUE WAY to address higher gas and diesel prices is to enact EMERGENCY PRICE CONTROLS. Set the price of unleaded regular at $2.00 per gallon and diesel at $2.50 per gallon.
The Federal Govt has the power to do this just like we did it before in the 70's and prices remained stable at those levels afterwards. The only reason we don't do this is we have two OILMEN in office named Bush and Cheney who are hell-bent to financially rape the working person before they leave office. Call up Representative Speier and tell her to get-her-head-out-of-her-ass and instead push a Bill for MANDATORY RETAIL ENERGY PRICE CONTROLS instead! Anything else is just more B-S.

Price controls, eh? Well then the oil companies will just stop producing the gasoline, because it costs them more to produce then they will get.

It is very obvious to me that you don't even have the slightest understanding of economics, or you wouldn't have spouted off like this about enacting price controls.(this is the point where you tell me that you graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Business School and have 15 other advanced college degrees to show me how smart you are).

But you're not smart. You're crying to the government to help you out, when you should be helping yourself out. Get rid of the pickup truck and quit driving to the beer store 3 times a day to get another six-pack.

If price controls are enacted it won't help anyone. The supply will simply dry up, and no one will have any gas.

[Truepatriot_Luke 2236]

MRLOUIS wrote:

Welcome back Jimmy Carter!

I think you mean "Heeeey, Mr. Car-tare!" lol

[Truepatriot_Luke 2236]

Donna Atlanta GA wrote:

<quoted text>
The Less the Better? How much 'less' is less? Should we all live like they do in Botswana, perhaps? Or some other 3rd world country where they most DEFINITELY have less.
The only people in America who will have less are those who are already doing without.

Phil Graham is right, we are a bunch of whiners! I drive 60 if the speed limit is 55 or 65. It seems to be the optimum fuel efficiency for my car and I get 80 more miles per tank doing it. Reduce, reuse, recycle. REDUCE consumption is the first word for a reason.

[OneRyder]

I don't think any of us will like to do whats truly needed to do bring down our demand for oil. I for one push the max of any speed limits.

But it won't be painless to being in such need of what the others supply us with.

[Coolmind]

55 is good idea.. saves lives, reduces medical costs, saves fuel, reduces CO2 emissions... good all around ... and we are better without so much rat race

[Chicago]

Coolmind wrote:

55 is good idea.. saves lives, reduces medical costs, saves fuel, reduces CO2 emissions... good all around ... and we are better without so much rat race

55 is a good idea ... in theory.

But around here the offical highway speedlimits are all 55, but you NEVER see anybody goinging under 70+.

If someone actually went 55 they'd be run off the road.

[Guess who]

Another crock of shit...How about get rid off all the experts...

[Guess who]

How much is paid in grants for all the expert advice?

[Guess who]

That will be a away to get more ticket revenue...