efficiency .. standard?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/18/congress.energy.ap/index.html

I guess this is good news. 35mpg is somewhat better. But we don't have to have it for.. 12 years. I'm guessing we can produce that much ethanol as requested by Congress. But there's two issues I have with that. One corn ethanol isn't being shown to be any cleaner to use because it takes more energy to produce than sugar ethanol. And two, having the government require a certain amount of production smacks of a centralized economy. And we all know how that worked out. On the flip side of that though, it's certainly possible for American farming to grow that much corn. Considering we pay people not to grow stuff, it may work out that they get to grow something somewhat useful. The wood chips and switchgrass requirement I suppose is a wash, but again, it's still not energy efficient to convert those into fuels.
The plus side would be energy independence. Something that could have been addressed back in the 70s, 80s, 90s... Europe and Japan have made major strides for this by taxing the hell out of gasoline and other oil based products. I think this might have had the same effect as a weak mandate to improve fuel standards over a 12 year period. With a waiver included if it's 'implausible'.

Other matters. Oil companies essentially make less money (at least profit wise) on oil than the state and federal government do. So while they do get tax breaks, I'd like to see it reversed such that the oil company keeps the money for research and development (instead of the government). In other words, they get the tax breaks only if a percentage of profit is detailed for alternative energy or more fuel efficient products. Which would take care of the government attempts to fund such efforts themselves.

I'm not sure that new efficiency standards are needed for refrigerators and dishwashers, at least the newer ones. They seem to be moving in the efficient direction anyway. As a selling point if an appliance uses less energy/water to do it's function, a company can charge more for it up front, arguing that people will make up the difference later on. Thus such appliances which have met energy standards (like energy star) are encouraged already without any mandate that they do so. But on the other hand, undoubtedly public offices and buildings could use some efficiency updates. Though I'd dare say it's not the light bulbs that would be improved if it was up to me.