ruled that the speed reduction "'was in excess' of the commissioners' legal power," citing that a 1943 Texas Attorney General's opinion held that the legislature holds the power to set the statewide speed limit and the Commission's authority was limited to changing it in specific locales where safety factors required lower limits. As an emergency response to the 1973 oil crisis, on November 26, 1973, President Richard Nixon proposed a national speed limit for passenger vehicles and a 55 mph (90 km/h) speed limit for trucks and buses. Also proposed were a ban on ornamental lighting, no gasoline sales on Sunday, and a 15% cut in gasoline production to reduce total gas consumption by 200,000 barrels a day, representing a 2.2% drop from annualized 1973 gasoline consumption levels. Nixon partly based that on a belief that cars achieve maximum efficiency between and that trucks and buses were most efficient at . The California Trucking Association, the largest trucking association in the United States, opposed differential speed limits on grounds that they are "not wise from a safety standpoint." Enactment The Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act was a bill in the U.S. Congress that included the National Maximum Speed Limit. States had to agree to the limit if they desired to receive federal funding for highway repair. The uniform speed limit was signed into law by Nixon on January 2, 1974, and became effective 60 days later, by requiring the limit as a condition of each state receiving highway funds, a use of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The legislation required speed limits on all four-lane divided highways unless the road had a lower limit before November 1, 1973. In some cases, like the New York State Thruway, the speed limit had to be raised to comply with the law. The law capped speed limits at on all other roads. A survey by the Associated Press found that, as of Wednesday, January 2, 1974: 12 states already had maximum speed limits of . 9 states had maximum speed limits of . 29 states had to lower limits. That includes some states that voluntarily lowered their limits in advance of the federal requirement. On May 12, 1974, the United States Senate defeated a proposal by Senator Bob Dole to raise the speed limit to . The 55 mph (90 km/h) National Maximum Speed Limit was made permanent when Congress