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clipped from thelede.blogs.nytimes.com “Clunker customers would like the option of going from a 15-year-old car to a 5-year-old car,” Mr. Benstock said. The government plan requires that the customer buy a new car that gets at least 4 more miles per gallon than the clunker; the dealers’ plan says only that the replacement car be more fuel-efficient, so it could get just one more mile per gallon. That may help sales, but is likely to do little for the environment. But experts said the government plan would do little for the environment either. Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law, said in a statement that the cash-for-clunker program is not a cost-effective way to reduce fuel use or greenhouse gas emissions. Any energy savings, he said, could take several years to realize, considering the time it takes the fuel savings from a new car to exceed the energy cost used to make it.