White House Proposal Rolls Back Fuel Economy Standards, No Exception For California (npr.org) 607
The Trump administration has proposed a rollback of Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards, while simultaneously taking aim at California's unique ability to set more stringent rules. From a report: Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency called for the fuel economy standards for new vehicles to ratchet up over time. The increasingly strict standards were designed to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On Thursday, the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a new proposed rule that would instead freeze the standards at their 2020 levels for six years. "Cars and trucks are just part of the basic fiber of the American economy and the American experience, so we take what we're doing very, very seriously," Bill Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator, told reporters on Thursday. The agencies say that increasing fuel efficiency requirements contributes to an increase in the cost of new cars and trucks, which may discourage consumers from buying new vehicles. Because newer vehicles have advanced safety features, the administration argues, increasing fuel economy requirements therefore harms highway safety, as well as having economic effects.
"I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Insightful)
"...and oil wells."
Re:"I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to mod this "insightful" but it hardly qualifies.
It should be obvious to anybody with two braincells to rub together.
All those oil billionaires who financed Trump's campaign are getting their payback.
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:3)
Re:"I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how concepts like States' Rights lose their importance when you don't like what the States are doing - but are a useful cover when you want to, say, destroy unions - or pander to racist voters.
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Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Funny)
So you're smart, affluent, and you drive a Tesla.
You're so awesome. I wish I were you.
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:4, Informative)
Natural gas is still a fossil fuel of course but produces 50 to 60% less CO2 than an equivalent coal plant.
A lot of the coal plants in this country are old. Many have been taken off-line in recent years or are scheduled to come off line. They aren't being replaced with new coal plants, but with a combination of Gas and renewables. Both Wind and Natural Gas are cheaper sources of electricity than Coal in this state.
Nope. EVs are muuuch better. (Score:4, Informative)
>> It was years ago and the data might be obsolete but i suspect that now it is even worse.
Nope .
Average efficiency of a gasoline car is 15% small-tank-to-wheel
Average efficiency of a fossil powered electricity plant feeding EVs through the grid is 35%, big-tank-to-wheel
You burn over two times less fossil fuel by going 100% fossil electricity.
Germany today has 48% of fossil electricity. This figure decreases yearly.
So your typical EV in Germany is responsible today for only 20% of the emissions of the same gasoline powered car.
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Non-rich person says that rich people do not pay enough in taxes.
Ideological Troll says: "You are just envious of the rich! You could never get rich yourself! You just want OTHER PEOPLE to pay more taxes!"
Very, very rich person says that rich people do no pay enough in taxes.
Ideological Troll says: "Then why don't you just pay more yourself?"
To Ideological Troll no one ever has standing to say rich people should pay more in taxes. But oddly, anyone has standing to say they should pay less.
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a dumb argument. If Warren Buffet sends in a gift to reduce the debt, that will just be used as an excuse to borrow more, and they'll hand the money to corporations and/or the military. But if taxes are raised, then rich people who don't want their taxes spent that way will complain about how tax money is spent, and since only rich people really have a meaningful vote in our oligarchy, that may actually result in the money being spent more wisely.
Unfortunately, too many of the poor don't comprehend graduated taxation, so they don't support raising taxes on the rich. And so it goes.
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"...and oil wells."
Cute, but that has nothing to do with this. The price of oil is dropping already mostly due to supply side; consumption is actually quite high. The effect on oil supply and demand would be very small with these emissions standards, but it would increase the cost of the car.
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If new cars cost more, more people keep driving old cars. Would you prefer 5% of the old cars are upgraded to new cars getting 20% better emissions, or that 20% of the old cars are upgraded to new cars getting 10% better emissions? If you can get more of the less efficient cars off the road for smaller per car improvement, but bigger net improvement, isn't that better than the virtue of being able to say you forced better standards for less net gain?
Concentrating on the per unit improvement while ignorin
Re:"I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Interesting)
If new cars cost more, more people keep driving old cars. Would you prefer 5% of the old cars are upgraded to new cars getting 20% better emissions, or that 20% of the old cars are upgraded to new cars getting 10% better emissions? If you can get more of the less efficient cars off the road for smaller per car improvement, but bigger net improvement, isn't that better than the virtue of being able to say you forced better standards for less net gain?
Concentrating on the per unit improvement while ignoring the net is shortsighted. It gives a warm fuzzy feeling, but does not actually improve anything. Requiring less can actually achieve more. You need to be open minded enough to take economics in to consideration, not just the all or nothing approach of the green zealots.
Sure, but is there any data that shows that is the likely outcome? How much more will the fuel efficiency standards cost in terms of purchase price? What assumptions about gas prices do you make in calculating the payback? How price sensitive are consumers? If the economy is growing do more people buy cars than during a recession?
If the argument is serious, present the data and let people argue the calculations and assumptions. Otherwise it is just hand waving, like asserting that tax cuts pay for themselves by increasing growth - which if taken to its logical conclusion, suggests that you can maximize government revenue by decreasing the tax rate all the way to zero.
Why not both? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's called being civilized, something that trumptards and other conservatives don't seem to want to be.
Like it or not, a sizable segment of the country voted for him. Most did not vote for him because they like him, but because they hate the utter hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of the standard political class.
Your arguments and comments do nothing when you denigrate others' beliefs or opinions via name calling other than serve your own need for self-gratification through punching a straw man, and given the size of people who voted for Trump you actually hurt your ability for comments to have any me
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Insightful)
but because they hate the utter hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of the standard political class.
So they voted for the hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of Trump?
Remember his capacity for anything but rational arguments. He can't even admit when he makes things up from whole cloth.
Maybe you would do better to consider how other people see your behavior when you embrace and apologize for Trump.
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Interesting)
but because they hate the utter hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of the standard political class.
So they voted for the hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of Trump?
Remember his capacity for anything but rational arguments. He can't even admit when he makes things up from whole cloth.
Maybe you would do better to consider how other people see your behavior when you embrace and apologize for Trump.
I had a friend on Facebook post about how great Trump was because he was willing to give up a millionaire lifestyle to be President. Because apparently having people wait on your every need 24/7, having a private plane on standby just for you, spending almost every weekend at your own golf resort, and living in a 200 year old gated mansion isn't a millionaire lifestyle...
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:4, Interesting)
but because they hate the utter hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of the standard political class.
So they voted for the hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of Trump?
Remember his capacity for anything but rational arguments. He can't even admit when he makes things up from whole cloth.
Maybe you would do better to consider how other people see your behavior when you embrace and apologize for Trump.
Quit creating straw men. I didn't say I voted for Trump. I do know many who did, and they did so solely because they don't care if Trump is inefficient or corrupt, the point is that he's not one of the current political class which is out of touch with their voter base.
What I did say is that it is worthwhile to understand where they are coming from because those people have reasons for voting for Trump; in genera those reasons is a vote against the system. The Trump win is mostly a vote of no-confidence.
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only is he not one of the existing political class, he was also the only candidate with any hope of beating them...
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He ran for an elected office. He got elected. He's been conducting his re-election campaign since before he actually took office. He's a politician.
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Point taken, but don't forget the conservatives c
Re:"I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Your analogies don't hold up because it's a matter of degree, not yes or no. Yes sewers are important, but an absolutely immaculate, perfect sewer system that cleans absolutely everything at the cost of bankrupting a nation is not.
Cars have very good emissions control systems right now. Increasing standards will drive up cost, and will not necessarily result in improvements in air quality; rather it's a ratio of investment. If it reduced air pollution by .1% but increased the cost of cars by 100%, then that's inefficient, whereas if it reduced air pollution by 20% but increased the cost of the car by only 2%, that might be considered efficient.
Your analogies are useless given that they are absolutes when the topic at hand is a discussion of severity vs. increased cost.
Can we start preparing an indictment? (Score:2, Troll)
So that the main champions of thwarting and reversing attempts to combat greenhouse gas based global warming can be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in the future?
Many legal tests are based on "what a reasonable person should have known" and "what action a reasonable person would take, given this knowledge."
Criminal negligence, fraud (in communication about the issue), criminal conspiricy (between fossil fuel industry and corrupt politicians acting on their behalf). etc. etc.
Let's start this e
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: "I have friends who own coal mines..." (Score:5, Informative)
That means the USA cars have even less chance of being sold in the EU
Automakers do make "global" vehicles which are sold in multiple markets, but they also make regional vehicles which are only sold in specific markets. For example, Ford is discontinuing most of its cars here in the USA, but not elsewhere in the world, where people are still buying cars.
BS... (Score:5, Insightful)
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A 2018 Honda Civic is 500lbs heavier and gets worse mileage than a 1998 Civic.
Re:BS... (Score:4, Informative)
The EPA millage of an old car can't be compared directly with a new one as the EPA standards have changed.
As an example, I found that 1998 Honda Civic 1.6 L, 4 cyl, Automatic 4-spd Original combined EPA rating 32 mpg.
From this web site: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/comparempg.shtml
The new EPA rating is only 28mpg
New 2018 Civics get better than this.
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There were 3 models of civic in 98, only the hatch was anywhere close to a _sub_compact. A geo metro is a 'subcompact'. Civic no?
Midsize? No, still a compact.
You are forgetting the engine (Score:5, Interesting)
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The administration was not talking about the weight of the safety boxes. Instead they were saying that if the cost of vehicles increases due to improved fuel efficiency, new cars will cost more. It so happens that new cars have all these great new safety features, yet if they cost more, less people will buy them, and we will be stuck with more old-tech cars on the roads.
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Bullshit. Make a hybrid Fit... 80 mpg and under 20 grand.
If there was enough demand for such a vehicle and automakers could produce it without losing money, why do you suppose they're not voluntarily producing such a vehicle? OH! That's right, there isn't sufficient demand for such a vehicle! There is, however, demand for trucks, SUV's, and muscle cars because people exercise their economic free will and choose to purchase such vehicles.
We obviously can't have people deciding for themselves what they want, right? Far better for the government to tell them what
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Oooooooh. 25 MPG. That's great!
Talk to me when they make 50 mpg, similar to a 4-door hybrid sedan or station wagon.
305hp for hauling around some people and groceries? Do people really need that?
Yes, I get that people who work on construction or tow need pickups, but that's probably 5-10% of the population.
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Modern safety features like stability control, auto-braking, and collision warning add minimum weight and don't affect economy.
All wrong. Adding minimum weight does affect economy. However, once you have ABS (which does add weight... to the tune of maybe twenty pounds of pump/valve unit and longer lines, and five pounds or less of control box) it takes very little additional weight to implement ESC, or AEB. And you can do collision warning with the same hardware that does AEB.
This is a 1980s way of thinking -- build a safety-box that takes a hit well but doesn't prevent crashes.
AEB does prevent crashes, some of them anyway. So does ESC, since it helps drivers maintain control of vehicles in slippery conditions. You really got it comp
How can they be so fucking brain dead? (Score:2, Interesting)
"Because newer vehicles have advanced safety features, the administration argues, increasing fuel economy requirements therefore harms highway safety, as well as having economic effects."
Really now ?
Physics, you asshole (Score:3, Insightful)
The quest for better fuel economy ultimately comes down to physics.
To get even more economy, you need to reduce weight. Take away weight and you ultimately take away strength (unless you can afford a $500,000 carbon composite car.
CAFE (Score:3, Interesting)
When the first round of CAFE standards took effect, car makers managed to increase efficiency by improving engine efficiency.
When the second round happened, they started shrinking cars down to reduce weight. This is why a mid-size sedan from the early 2000's is about the same size, or larger, than most full size luxury cars these days.
Now car companies are skimping on seat fill, or leaving out spare tires, or using glue to hold components together instead of heavier rivets, to shave every possible ounce of
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When the second round happened, they started shrinking cars down to reduce weight.
And yet advances in packaging have permitted them to maintain their cabin room for quite some years now, in spite of shrinking vehicles. Who wouldn't want a smaller car with the same interior volume?
Now car companies are skimping on seat fill, or leaving out spare tires, or using glue to hold components together instead of heavier rivets, to shave every possible ounce of weight off of a car to get the MPG up.
They actually left out spare tires for packaging reasons as much as weight ones. Also, people use them less these days. If people cared, they'd still include full-size spares, but most people just call for roadside assistance. Hell, I just looked at a bus a band has been touring in for months, and they didn't ha
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First day of my first vacation this year was 800 miles. Yeah, people drive farther than 1 tank of gas.
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First day of my first vacation this year was 800 miles. Yeah, people drive farther than 1 tank of gas.
How DARE you! Don't you know you're supposed to constrain all your activities to within the range of the typical electric vehicle? Or build time into your travel schedule for hours of recharging along the way? You must want puppies to die, don't you! Puppies and baby seals! You monster!
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The problem is taking 8 hours to recharge the car. We can't fast-charge yet like we can fuel a car with gasoline. We need to be able to do that and we can't. So electric cars are not truly viable yet.
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That used to be true. You're a few years out of date on your stats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"... They take about 20 minutes to charge to 50%, 40 minutes to charge to 80%, and 75 minutes to 100% on the original 85 kWh Model S. "
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They unfortunately abandoned the real solution, changing out the depleted battery for a fully charged one. When they were promising that, I was interested. But the superchargers now do not fully charge the battery in that 1/2 hour, so you don't get your full 300 miles. I was pretty much at my limit at 800 miles, so if I had to throw 3 or 4 1/2 hour charge sessions in there, I'd have gotten maybe 600 - 650 miles instead of 800. That means an extra motel going to Tucson, which means another $100, maybe more.
I
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No one says everyone must have an electric car. If you live on a rural ranch then get a truck. But it's idiotic to get a gas guzzling truck for the highway commute.
If you need something for the once a year vacation that's 500 miles away, then you can rent a car for this and save money. That sort of thinking isn't new, it's common in parts of the world. My grand parents had a car for driving into town instead of taking the truck to get groceries.
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To get even more economy, you need to reduce weight.
Utterly false.
replace need to with can, and add , amongst other things. to the end.
Take away weight and you ultimately take away strength
Cars aren't about strength. They're about safety.
I'm thinking that you're part of the camp that believes a 4000 pound tank from the 60s is safer than a modern car.
Sure, one one hand, it has a whole lot of momentum to put into the argument of who's going to push who. On the other hand, 100% of that momentum is going to be transferred to you in that rigid ass body. Hope you enjoy being, well, dead.
HAW HAW! (Score:4, Informative)
oh. wait. crap...
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People will argue about this until it runs out, and then because there was no planning we will see major collapses in parts of civilization. But since people are stupid and short sighted, what can you do other than hope the extraterrestrials will invade?
To be honest, I haven't owned a car ever that would go 800 miles on a single fill up. But my current hybrid does have the longest range per fill up.
Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
while simultaneously taking aim at California's unique ability to set more stringent rules
Trump, his Republican cronies, and their voters, are such a collection of hypocrites.
For decades, all Republicans do is bleat "STATES' RIGHTS!" - But when those states actually exercise those rights (emissions / drug policy / guns) the Republicans do everything in their power to stomp all over them.
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For decades, all Republicans do is bleat "STATES' RIGHTS!" - But when those states actually exercise those rights (emissions / drug policy / guns) the Republicans do everything in their power to stomp all over them.
What? When has the federal government done anything to stomp on states' gun laws? Most states have unconstitutional limits on bearing arms, for example. The feds have done nothing substantive to attack California's various other gun laws, either. If California actually banned guns entirely, then yeah, they'd be upset, because their constituents (gun manufacturers) would lobby to have the problem addressed because we Californians actually buy a whole lot of guns, and that would cut into their profits. But Ca
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States rights are a dog whistle, it has nothing to do with the actual rights of the states.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that CA is a large enough market that the rules they've been creating essentially apply to all the other states. That means one state is dictating to 49 other states who are not represented by the California legislature.
California isn't dictating any laws to any other states. Companies are deciding that it's easier and cheaper to only make products that comply with California's laws, instead of having multiple different versions.
World Follower (Score:5, Interesting)
World standards do not follow US standards. All vehicle makers have to conform to worldwide standards, not just the US. Besides, California standards are not the most strict when compared to international standards. Also California standards have been ratified by 12 other states. Since this is a proposed bill, it will not get out of committee without providing states the ability to set their own limits.
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World standards do not follow US standards. All vehicle makers have to conform to worldwide standards, not just the US. Besides, California standards are not the most strict when compared to international standards. Also California standards have been ratified by 12 other states. Since this is a proposed bill, it will not get out of committee without providing states the ability to set their own limits.
Serious question (because I don't know): It really works as simply as that? All this grand posturing can be undone by a committee?
In all likelihood, yes.
Of course, even if they explicitly prevent states from setting stricter standards for sales of cars, California can still tweak its carpool lane laws slightly and effectively get the same results
What a load of horseshit. (Score:2)
"Cars and trucks are just part of the basic fiber of the American economy and the American experience, so we take what we're doing very, very seriously," Bill Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator, told reporters on Thursday
What does that have to do with your job at the EPA, Wehrum? You're not a cultural ambassador.
This is just "we don't want to have to change, whaaaa!" wrapped in a flag.
Robot Overlords (Score:2)
At this point, I'd really welcome some robot overlords.
Hello Malaise Era, we meet again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Soon the US could be building gas guzzlers nobody outside the US wants to buy...and then when gas prices go back up, nobody inside the US will want to buy them either...remember how awesome it was last time that happened around the OPEC oil crisis? #MAGA!
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I doubt that any manufacturer would remove fuel efficiency improvements from an existing car model. It's not worth investing R&D time just to make a car worse. The most that could happen is it could slow the pace of fuel efficiency improvements, or maybe result in a few low-end cars that are slightly less efficient.
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I also wouldn't expect a decrease, but rather a near-total lack of improvement, while the rest of the world continues to push ahead, including with EV models that get 3-digit MPGe.
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I doubt that any manufacturer would remove fuel efficiency improvements from an existing car model. It's not worth investing R&D time just to make a car worse. The most that could happen is it could slow the pace of fuel efficiency improvements, or maybe result in a few low-end cars that are slightly less efficient.
I'm guessing manufacturers will start to program car computers for power, instead of fuel efficiency. It's a cheap programming trick with no hardware changes required.
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I doubt that any manufacturer would remove fuel efficiency improvements from an existing car model.
As written, your statement is true, but nonsensical. First, as a sibling comment points out, you can simply reprogram cars to burn more fuel. This is a common thing to do now. Any electronically-fueled vehicle can typically be tuned to make more power, at the cost of emissions and efficiency. That means any gasoline engine since the late eighties, or pretty much any diesel since about 2003-ish, which is about the time they all went to electronic common-rail. But second, automakers already make a variety of
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Soon the US could be building gas guzzlers nobody outside the US wants to buy..
Soon? Ford has already said from now on they would only build pickups, Mustangs, and 1 EV. And these days even the small pickups are the same size as a full size pickup was 15 years ago.
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Soon the US could be building gas guzzlers nobody outside the US wants to buy...and then when gas prices go back up, nobody inside the US will want to buy them either...remember how awesome it was last time that happened around the OPEC oil crisis? #MAGA!
It could be argued that this is the case, right now. Dear Leader says we buy Europe's cars and that he doesn't want to see BMWs in New York, but he's misplacing the blame - the reason for the imbalance isn't some brutal Euro-tax on our cars, it's simply our cars still being huge, heavy, inefficient and ill-suited for life in europe.
Do WE make anything like a BMW? Or an Alfa Guilia? (small-ish, light-ish, rear-drive, fun to drive) No, we don't... the closest we have are Camaro, Mustang, Challenger / Charge
Tesla (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tesla (Score:5, Funny)
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I would not mind this stupidity ... (Score:5, Interesting)
if the extra air pollution that it will cause would, somehow, be kept within the borders of the USA. It does not: it follows the winds and ends up harming the rest of us. If it did stay within the USA then those who caused it would suffer the consequences; but pollution is a global problem, not a national one - so it upsets me to see those who seemingly put, what they see, as their interests first and do not act in global interests.
Please do not take this as an attack of most who live in the USA, I have friends who live there. Most are good guys who want to behave in a responsible way. It is unfortunate that your current president does not care about the planet, only making money for those who support him.
Executive power (Score:2)
Which aspects of fuel efficiency was an executive order to the EPA, and which ones are backed by legislation? Yesterday NPR was talking how Trump will extend the short-term insurance rule 3 months to 3 years. Is that possible because the ACA grants the executive the ability to set the maximum length of a short-term health care plan? It's funny to me what they put in the statutes and what they grant to various committees and offices.
Even bigger SUVs? Is it possible at all? (Score:3)
I mean, - could it be even worse standards than we had all these years, and which led to these monsters on the roads.
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I mean, - could it be even worse standards than we had all these years, and which led to these monsters on the roads.
Now that American consumers are used to buying them, it absolutely will lead to more and worse gas-guzzling SUVs, right up until the next time fuel prices skyrocket. It will happen sooner or later.
Profits The Future (Score:2)
'Human-caused global climate change' isn't good for profits, so it's ridiculed and ignored, officially. Screw the future, who cares about 100 years from now, that's someone else's problem, make The Rich richer, now, and to Hell with everyone and everything else.
Got lead or other toxic chemicals in your tap water or the air you breathe, giving you cancer, ruining your childrens' brains, and so on? Tough shit, it's your fault for being The
Unintended consequences? (Score:3)
How this will backfire on Trump (Score:4, Interesting)
Businesses and corporations, even in the energy sector, are already embracing solar and other renewables. You can't halt that without interfering in the free-market economy.
Meanwhile plug-in electric cars and hybrids are gaining more and more of a foothold in the United States, and they're becoming more affordable. More and more infrastructure to support them is being invested in and installed.
Oil prices won't stay low forever. They'll spike up, and driving gas-guzzlers around will become prohibitively expensive. Electrics will become more and more attractive in the face of that.
Clearly and objectively we need to move away from fossil fuel use anyway and everyone except apparently the Trump Administration sees this. Making ICEs less efficient will just help make electrics and renewables more attractive.
This is likely to worsen safety (Score:3)
Many car companies subsidize their small cars and make more profit on large vehicles. They do this to meet the fleet efficiency. If you reduce the required efficiency standards then they will be able to meet the efficiency standards with large vehicles and will stop subsidizing small vehicles. This will result in more bigger vehicles on the road. It will cause chain reaction since once you reach critical mass of big vehicles, people in small vehicles will feel less safe. A collision between two vehicles is more deadly than collision between two small vehicles. Collision between large and small vehicle is more deadly to small vehicle. Already America is lagging behind Europe in road fatality because it has more percentage of large vehicles. This will make it even worse.
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Can we drop the ethanol requirements now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Regular gas engines do better WITHOUT ethanol - I would say it was actually worse for the environment due to decreased efficiency and decreased life-span of other parts in regular gas engines. Also, gas doesn't keep as long with Ethanol. I have a big gas can for my lawn mower, I use it for a couple of months, then dump what's left in my car and go fill it up again. If it were just plain gas I could just keep it until I emptied it through the lawn mower - could take a couple of years.
I recently rented a flex-fuel vehicle, and I ran it with both E15 and E85. That vehicle probably did produce less pollution running E85, enough to justify the decrease in efficiency, but making us run it in our normal gas engines isn't helping anyone but the corn lobby.
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There are suggestions that ethanol produced from corn (as opposed to say swichgrass or hemp or even sugar cane) actually results in a net increase in overall harm to the planet due to how intensive the production process for corn ethanol is.
Re:Fuel economy doesn't equal less emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
... when lawn mowers, leaf blowers, construction vehicles, etc, all spew out a lot more pollutants per minute than the hugest SUV or pickup truck.
True... but how long do you run your leaf blower for? Purely in terms of hours per week, most cars run longer than the leaf blower by a huge factor.
Re:Fuel economy doesn't equal less emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
spew out a lot more pollutants per minute than the hugest SUV or pickup truck.
Don't forget that the big transition from cars to SUV's was a direct response to fuel economy standard increases, because they effectively banned family station wagons but "light trucks" were in a different class, so people who needed station wagons now needed SUV's, which got worse mileage.
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The real problem is all the loopholes in the definition of "light trucks" that allowed things like the Chrysler PT Cruiser and all those "crossovers" to meet the definition.
Re:Fuel economy doesn't equal less emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
How many leaf blowers, lawn mowers, construction vehicles, etc. are running simultaneously vs. cars/trucks?
Since the answer is orders of magnitude more, a 0.1% reduction in car emissions is much better for the total environment then if all emissions were eliminated from leaf blowers, lawn mowers, construction vehicles, etc.
A slight bit of critical thinking would do you a world of good.
To get less emissions, go after the worst emitters (Score:3)
A slight bit of critical thinking would do you a world of good.
A slight bit of researching the issue is also a great idea.
Motor scooters with 2-stroke engines pollute about three orders of magnitude more than a modern gasoline car. There are enough of these scooters that in many cities they are now a worse problem than gasoline cars y
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Or is it better to leave the standards alone, let the car makers get their factories well set up to make cars to that standard, and let the costs of new cars gradually fall over time?
Just like CD prices came down after all the music companies recouped the cost of switching from making cassettes?
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Just like CD prices came down after all the music companies recouped the cost of switching from making cassettes?
Why CDs are expensive [nytimes.com] Hint: the cost of the actual CD technology always was a small fraction of the record company costs.
Also, cars are not the same as CDs. Honda, Nissan, and Ford might all be selling a similar car at a similar price; but if you want the latest music by $ARTIST you don't have a choice of multiple companies selling that music. Only if music consumers said "I'm not loyal to $AR
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9578/why-are-cars-so-expensive [thedrive.com]
HTH, HAND.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think you understand the difference between CO2 and CO plus N2O.
Cars are the biggest problem (Score:2)
Because the science shows that the #1 factor in climate change are cars.
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-v... [ucsusa.org]
Re: (Score:2)
New cars regardless of mileage emit so little that I don't get why the focus is simply on that one factor. Emissions should be the primary factor.
Better fuel economy means less CO2 emissions, and worse fuel economy means more CO2 emissions. You're right when it comes to HCs or CO or even PPM, but not CO2.
And then there's the focus purely on cars when lawn mowers, leaf blowers, construction vehicles, etc, all spew out a lot more pollutants per minute than the hugest SUV or pickup truck.
California is trying to address the problem of emissions from that kind of equipment [ca.gov], as well. You can expect Trump to attack that, too.
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Informative)
The top income bracket (the 1%) pulls in about $2 trillion dollars [taxfoundation.org]. 0.001% of that gets you $20 million. On an average year, Americans purchase about 17 million vehicles [wsj.com], so your tax will save approximately $1.18 on the sticker price of each vehicle.
Now, if we expand to, say, the top 25% we get a figure of $6.7 trillion. 0.001% of that gets you $67 million, or about $3.94 per car.
"Screw that," you say, "I was just throwing out a number. Increase the tax by 1%". Now we're talking real numbers! A 1% surtax on the top 1% could (theoretically) pull in $20 billion dollars! Split among cars and you get... $1,180 per car. The average car in January 2018 was $36,270 [kbb.com], so you would drop that to $35,090.
Whoo hoo! That makes the car only... $180 more than the same car in January 2017. And that's not including the cost to hit the new emissions and safety targets your tax was supposed to cover.
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Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
It was unclear from your very seat-of-the-pants estimates whether you meant top income tax bracket (currently 37%, only collected at income above $500/600K single/married) or the top income bracket.
Fortunately, they are pretty much one and the same - approximately 1% of taxpayers reach the top tax bracket. And you were talking about a surtax - a tax on top of what they already pay.
I gave numbers for total income received by both the top 1% and top 25% - this is before deductions or other modifiers to a taxable amount. So my numbers were super conservative - I was essentially allowing 100% of their income to be subject to your 0.001% surtax. And it pulled in nothing.
Even bumping your percentage 1000 times over came up with numbers that barely move the needle when it comes to new cars. Under a higher CAFE standard, every average new car is better than any average old car, so nearly all cars would be subject to your refund.
I know quite a bit about tax law and income distribution in the US - maybe Germans aren't quite as knowledgeable. At any rate, a 0.001% estimate proves basic innumeracy.
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Unless the claimed cost overhead is less than $3.94 per vehicle, no version of your 0.001% surtax does a damn thing. The EPA and NHTSA estimated it would cost about $2,000 per vehicle, which is... a lot more than $3.94. This is super-basic math, here - your vaunted doctoral degree is meaningless and you have your own political bias blinder on.
FWIW, I am for higher CAFE standards or some sort of carbon tax. I'm not against fuel economy - I"m against innumeracy, which you have in spades.
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about $2,000 per vehicle, which is...
... what ...
The EPA and NHTSA estimated it would cost
Re:Trump 2020 (Score:5, Funny)
breath of fresh air
And now they're working on fixing that.
Re: (Score:3)
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Bawack Ubama Isn't godking anymore. That may come as a shock to California.
California had its own emissions standards before Obama. That may come as a shock to racists looking for a way to pin all America's problems on him.
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
California had its own emissions standards before Obama. That may come as a shock to racists looking for a way to pin all America's problems on him.
Yes, because people aren't allowed to have differing policy opinions anymore. If you don't like something Obama did you're RAAAAAAAAACIST!!!!
That's not what's happening here. What's happening is someone trying to pin something on Obama because Obama. And I can tell they're racist because their misspelling of his name in that particular way functions as a dog whistle.
Seriously, is this the best you can do in a debate? Namecalling? No need to be correct or have facts on your side or anything like that.
Seriously, the best you can do is ignore facts while shouting facts?