Voting to reduce greenhouse gases from transportation, our misguided legislature has just made sure that the rule makers stay employed for a good many years.

Lawmakers have enacted HB 2186, which calls for a "low-carbon fuel standard for transportation fuels," in the words of the Oregon Environmental Council, which loves the bill.

Exactly what that means is foggy in the bill and in the reporting on it. What is clear, though, is that the bill entails a good deal of new activity in the departments of rule making and standard setting.

"This measure will reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline and diesel by 10 percent by 2020," the Environmental Council explains, not all that helpfully.

And it adds: "The bill also gives the state Environmental Quality Commission the authority to go through a rigorous rulemaking process to adopt several other measures to reduce global warming pollution from transportation."

That is the key: A rigorous and likely long process of writing regulations.

For instance, the Department of Environmental Quality is supposed to make sure that replacement parts for vehicle emission control systems perform as well as the original equipment. Lots of testing is likely to ensue.

The department is supposed to "require that automotive mechanics check tires and fill them as necessary" when servicing a vehicle. That's what service techs do already, especially if you ask. But with a law, we'll get regulations and eventually, maybe a system for making sure the tire-checking law is obeyed.

"Service stations without air compressors are exempted," the Environmental Council says. Are they trying to say the law would apply to "service stations"? Like gas stations? Good luck with that.

This law also will "restrict the idling of commercial ships." Unless of course the idling happens to be necessary. How would one determine whether ship engines must idle or can be safely shut off? No doubt this will require a lengthy process of establishing standards and regulations.

Originally the bill, also called on the hapless DEQ to "evaluate measures to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of heavy and medium-duty trucks."

This was too much even for the backers of the final bill. After all, the builders of trucks and the companies that operate them already know that certain configurations reduce fuel consumption. That's why in recent years the front of most big trucks has become almost sleek.

Maybe the sponsors had in mind that the back of truck trailers could become aerodynamic too. Then those big rigs could slip through the air the way whales slide through the sea.

It's hard to see any of this as either necessary or useful. All these things - engines burning less fuel or running on some alternative, and all kinds of measures to save on gas - people will take on their own, and without rules, as petroleum gets more expensive in the coming years. (hh)