Obama Could Announce Fuel Efficiency Standards Tuesday

Top news outlets, including the Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal are reporting that the Obama administration is poised to announce, possibly as early as Tuesday, a one-size-fits-all standard for fuel efficiency for all cars and light trucks by 2016.The decision would not only greenlight California's request to increase its standards, but improve on and nationalize them, making tailpipe emissions at least 30 percent cleaner than they are now.Automakers have been grumbling about state-by-state standards, which they say make for some expensive manufacturing tweaks state by state. While this move should end their grumbling, it remains to be seen, even with the billions in federal loans they've received, whether there will be strong negative reaction from the industry to the cost of making more efficient cars.