But it got hijacked. By the time President Barack Obama signed the legislation into law, auto industry lobbyists and their congressional friends had watered it down. It is now so diluted that in some cases, buying a car or light truck offering an improvement of a mere one mile per gallon over your junked wheels will get you a $3,500 voucher.
So, you can take the money and use it to buy pickups, vans and SUVs. That's right: You really can use it to help pay for some of the largest automotive leviathans if you are junking a vehicle that gets even worse mileage.
That doesn't sound very green, does it?
But we Americans have a choice. We can take the program back from Detroit. Let's use the money to buy cars that will save us dollars at the pump and cut global warming pollution. If you've been thinking about buying a hybrid or some other truly green wheels, here comes Uncle Sam with the cash to help you make it happen.
That's not where the auto companies drove the program. But it is the original green idea: Get clunkers off the road and replace them with something better.
Let's take the wheel.
Dan Becker ( danbecker@safeclimatecampaign.org), an expert on the policy and politics of global warming, directs the Safe Climate Campaign. James Gerstenzang ( james.gerstenzang@gmail.com), the campaign's editorial director, covered the White House and the environment for the Los Angeles Times for 24 years.
