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EPA Gave Volkswagen a Free Pass On Emissions Ten Years Ago Due To Lack of Budget
An anonymous reader writes: A new report suggests that continuing cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget contributed to Volkswagen being able to cheat on its emissions tests. When the test scripts were developed the department — which can still only conduct 'spot tests' on 20% of all qualifying vehicles — was forced to concentrate on heavy machinery and truck manufacturers, which at the time had a far higher incidence of attempting to cheat on vehicle standards tests. Discounting inflation the EPA's 2015 budget is on a par with its 2002 budget (PDF), and has been cut by 21% since 2010.
Why do we assume that all government agencies need an endlessly increasing budget to do their job? Why do we accept endlessly increasing government budgets? We have a kneejerk belief that money fixes everything, but it seems only to bring more corruption, entitlement and fewer freedoms.
was forced to concentrate on heavy machinery and truck manufacturers
Forced? Budget cuts typically don't force things--the EPA reacted to the lack of funds.
Lastly blaming the gov't on this is a cop-out. The truth is VW took advantage of the situation and ran with it plain and simple. The gov't didn't force VW to choose their fate.
Why would they need more money now on an inflation adjusted basis then 2002?
love is just extroverted narcissism
I bought a VW diesel in 2005, the last year of the "old" line. When VW came back with their "clean diesel" a little over a year later, it came with a huge advertising campaign, and, as posters have noted in other forums, other car manufacturers publicly and privately wondered "how did VW do a clean diesel" without seeming to have changed their technology.
>> Byron Bunker, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s vehicle compliance program, says: “We can’t do a 100 percent check of every data point for every modelWe focus on new vehicles, new technologies or those where we have a concern.”
So...if that didn't raise a flag for "new vehicle or new technology" in the mid-2000's, one has to wonder what kind of dark place the EPA's head was in then.
I wonder if the EPA has any idea what percentage of all air pollution comes from car emissions. I wonder if they might notice that air pollution regulations for coal energy, cement plants, glass plants, paper mills, and shipping are constantly being violated, intentionally, because paying fines is cheaper than preventing air pollution. So now we are focused on scrutinizing VW and automakers, the bastards of successful industry, along with all the other already on the road cars in the world probably account for less than 1% of all air pollution sources. Consumer diesels do not matter to air pollution. But do slashdot posters even notice that they're being hoodwinked into caring about something that does not matter to our air quality? I haven't seen any evidence that anyone has noticed that this emissions thing doesn't mean anything. Its synthetially lowering stock prices that will soon rebound, allowing shrewd investors to make out like bandits. This whole story is... crap, start to finish.
It wouldn't be the first time that Congress told an agency to do something, provide no money and then complain that the agency wasn't doing the job. A fine example of that is U.S. soldiers using scrap metal to reinforce military vehicles against road bombs in the Iraq War. Took Congress awhile to pony up for that one.
The EPA should be punished. I suggest that we cut their budget to teach them a lesson.
This is starting to sound like the plot line to a mid nineties Hollywood movie.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
CUT TAXES! CUT TAXES!
No, see, really. See. If you cut taxes, you know, step 3, profit!
Every time I've been exposed to the operational aspects of a government agency (and, unfortunately, most large non-profits and even some large corporations) I see things being done in a way that costs around five times as much as we would do it in small- to mid-scale private industry, and even at that expense level the quality of work is outright appalling. When you start working with the management of these organizations, they simply don't care about setting appropriate standards for what they can achieve on a certain budget and then squeezing things to make do with what they have. Quite the contrary, their incentives are structured around having as much budget as possible. So bloat is everywhere, and the response to any additional "needs" is to demand more money. This is an endless cycle - giving them more money will never achieve their goals, because that would harm management's careers.
Privatizing these functions is its own can of worms - it's often far cheaper (see: SpaceX vs. NASA), but still a long way away from excellent, and rife with corruption and politics (see: Military-Industrial Complex, Prison-Industrail Complex, etc).
If I really wanted to have the EPA catch these things the best method I can think of would be to offer bounties paid on caught cheaters. This creates incentives to check everything everywhere, and retains the incentives to maximize efficiency.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
The question is, did they have enough money to fulfill their charter or did they just say screw it and do nothing because they didn't get what they asked for?
It can get even more complicated. Consider that there are always static costs - it takes a certain amount of money to just keep the lights on, the management staff paid and kept in offices, etc...
In short, if you cut a department's budget by 20%, without implementing additional measures to control FWA and/or otherwise reduce expenses, you should expect to see more than a 20% drop in performance.
I don't read AC A human right
To be fair, the EPA has been very busy cleaning up rivers in Colorado.
No, it wouldn't the first time. Nor the first hundredth time. This is one of Congress's favorite tricks. Can't get rid of an agency outright? Papercut it to death.
NASA, EPA, NRC and pretty much anything that doesn't blow things up or walk around in the dark....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
VW was not given a free pass by any means. VW cheated. Even with a larger budget you might not have caught this.
Gutting agencies like the EPA has been the aim of neoconservative politics since the Reagan Administration. This is exactly what they want, literally.
VW is a shining (well, maybe not shining) example of what happens when you allow industry to self-regulate.
Considering we've seen this with the government shutdown, reduced DMV hours, and now the EPA, is there a term for this? Something combining 'budget cuts' and (perhaps deservedly) 'passive aggression'?
We should be able to do this for free. Simply outsource it to a company in India. Tell them that we won't pay them and that we don't have any money for oversight or auditing either. They'll approve mostly any company who pays them enough to "pass" the testing. We'll get what we deserve - a bunch of polluting cars. Since we don't want to pay for the EPA to do their job, we won't have the job done.
It wasn't an inflation adjusted basis since 2002. The EPA has a smaller budget than in 2002 as they are DISCOUNTING (not even counting) inflation. If it was to be actually equal to the 2002 budget it would need to raise by ~1.02^13 (29%). If the budget hadn't been cut in 2010, then the EPA's budget would actually be on par with the 2002 figures.
That's the essence of the Republican "shrink [government] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" strategy.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
and where are "private independent companies" going to get their funding? You do realize that the "free market" doesn't just print more money, right?
Its really strange that you go from "don't bash the EPA for congress not funding them" to "EPA has proved that they are useless" with an even more extraneous "yet again" (as you don't mention any previous EPA failures).
I'm just trying to understand your jump from facts to fiction.
I see things being done in a way that costs around five times as much as we would do it in small- to mid-scale private industry, and even at that expense level the quality of work is outright appalling.
I recall a story that conveys this rather poignantly.
It can get even more complicated. Consider that there are always static costs - it takes a certain amount of money to just keep the lights on, the management staff paid and kept in offices, etc...
In short, if you cut a department's budget by 20%, without implementing additional measures to control FWA and/or otherwise reduce expenses, you should expect to see more than a 20% drop in performance.
To be fair, the 2010 budget was higher because of specific requests that year for the clean water state revolving fund, drinking water state revolving fund, and the great lakes restoration initiative). Comparing against that year is not apples-to-apples, since that wasn't supposed to set a new baseline.
On average, the budget has increased over the years. Picking those two as comparisons is great for a headline, though!
But this is the kind of thing where someone in Congress will stand up and say "This is why we need to get rid of the EPA."
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The extreme right wants to prove that any government regulations are wasteful and ineffectual. To make certain that all programs fail they insist on severely under funding the programs at which point they do become wasteful and ineffectual. There followers are so stupid that they can't even see what is actually going on.
Never mind that the legislation for the EPA was created by "congresscritters making the laws and rules" and signed by America's greatest environmentalist, President Richard Nixon.
Could they not simply charge the auto manufacturers for the testing? Also, are there any ways to automate the testing process,to increase throughput, or is there a market for consumer operated testing equipment?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I have the capacity to process more than one thing at a time.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
But is that what happened in this case? Could they have still done the job with the funds provided? (And no, no I don't want the political answer. I guess I'd almost accept a GAO answer though. FWIW)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Right, especially since we just found out that Coca-Cola has been found to be paying the Nutionists Association to look the other way on sugary drinks.
Yea, he had you with the "don't bash" bit. Then he took the mask off.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Ah. Thank you for the information. Much appreciated.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'm thinking "neo-con antics" might suffice.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I admit I didn't RTFA, but the headline is even inconsistent with the summary.
Even if the EPA did *NO* testing/verification, that doesn't mean that any company, including VW, had a "free pass". It didn't have a right to violate the rules.
Well, leaving aside your lack of substantiation for your accusations about the EPA, why not tell us what you do want in the way of reform?
And in case you don't know, Congress still has authority that overrides the EPA, which is why those reforms and regulations the EPA proposes have been altered.
No, no... I have no racial connotations with that as I've seen neo-conservatives come in a variety of flavors. In fact, I happen to like Jewish people as a general rule. I can even sort of, almost, understand (albeit not accept) Israel's recent behavior.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
No but I'd blame the company for not funding testers properly and a bug getting through QA.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Brought to you by GOP and self-fulfilling prophecies - if we don't like something we can always cut their funding and 'prove' they can't do the job.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Blame Obama.
No, really. Blame Obama. Who signs off on the budget?
And what do we think of the unbiased reporting here on Slashdot? 21% cut since 2010? That's after a $2.5 billion boost from the previous year, probably stimulus money. The budget is still higher than in 2009, and more than just inflation adjusted.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes, all libertarians I know love lawsuits, and truly believe this country would be better off with fewer clearly defined rules, and more lawsuits.
Hold on, my sarcasm meter just broke down.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Yes don't prevent spills, Just clean them up.
Then the EPA cleans up your mess at Government expense?
the department of telling you you can't put your land to productive use".
Like toxic waste dumps, sand mine, Pig Farms.
You relive these companies then distribute the cash, then go out of business.
Google "EPA Superfund"
Cleaning up after Corporate America for decades.
Maybe the insurance industry would like to help.
Is this supposed to shock anyone? Republicans know the deal with Nixon. Conservatives realize he wasn't. And libertarians don't like any of your policies.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
A neo-con is, in modern times, a conservative who believes in a strong US presence in the Middle-East to defend Israel. "Many early neoconservative thinkers were Zionist and published articles in Commentary, published by the American Jewish Committee"
The term, while sometimes used legitimately, has become a way to be openly anti-Semitic while slipping that past the censors. People have picked up it being associated with criticisms of Bush and used it as a pejorative without realizing the implications. Please do realize.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I don't know the people you know but some links for references.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://mises.org/library/libe...
https://www.lp.org/issues/envi...
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Who signs off on the budget?
The 535 members of Congress who voted for or against the 12 appropriation bills that make up the budget before sending it to the president for his signatures. AFAIK, the House Republicans haven't written a single appropriation bill that was due at the end of the fiscal year two days ago. This is why the Congress voted on a Continuing Resolution to maintain government funding at existing levels and the president signed to keep the government open until mid-December. If blaming Obama makes you feel good, by all means blame Obama.
While I can't really say that I'm anti-Zionist I can say that I'm none too pleased with their behavior but, at the same time, I kind of understand why they are the way they are. However, it's certainly meant as a pejorative, in it's current meaning, in my usage but I was unaware of the history. An interesting read.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I heard the story in Economics class. Expect our Prof added on... "Now let me show you show the private contracting business works. A congressman sees that this Scrap yard watchman project is $900k over budget (or whatever the figure in the story was) and recommends that the private sector be brought in to manage it. His largest donor bids only $700k for the project and both congressman and business get to play the saving-the-taxpayers-money card to the press. But have they actually saved anything at all?"
you're commenting under a story in which the EPA is underfunded and as a result is unable to do it's job, and so a corporation got away with polluting on a massive scale
and your response is: disband them, and only *clean up* messes, instead of *prevent* them
seriously? you're not trolling or making a sarcastic joke?
profoundly, amazingly stupid
i always wondered at the source of this form of idiocy: "government isn't doing it's job, so destroy it" rather than gee, i dunno, fix the fucking problem preventing them from doing their fucking job?
because if no one does the job government is supposed to do, the world will be better? how does that work? no need to regulate markets. no need to prevent pollution, no need to police the food or drug supply? because as history clearly shows, nevermind current fucking events like bp oil spill, this volkswagen story, the peanut salmonella case x1,000,000 other examples: when corporations can get away with crime, *they do*
why are there so many morons like you in this world who see government as the problem, and not the corporations doing all the actual, criminal wrong?
look at the comments under this story
1. industry cheated na dpolluted
2. government is underfunded so it fucked up
and what do we have... criticisms of govt, no criticisms of industry, and calls to disband the very agency tasked with policing the scumbags in industry fucking up
how... the... fuck
"corporation {xyz} did horrible thing dumping pollution... but that's not the problem, the epa screwed up the clean up, that's the real problem!"
really?
seriously, how can people be so fucking stupid on this point?
how can this incredible blindness about the repeated malfeasance and ineptitude in business escape your attention or derision, but only government, which you fucking need to prevent and control and punish these corporate assholes, is always the culprit?
this guy:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
he's real
he exists. he'll poison your children, he'll kill you, he'll render vast areas uninhabitable. all to make $10 more
time and time and time again throughout history, there's millions of examples of this
but no, he's not the problem: government screwed up the investigation, the cleanup, the prevention. therefore, let's focus all our rage there and ignore the criminals out there screwing up your lives and your communities
WTF?
why are you morons and assholes so blind to this?
you rage at government and give industry a pass: why???
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And libertarians don't like any of your policies.
What policies do you think I represent?
Cut the budget to zero and we can all be free of government organizations ran but unelected bureaucrats interfering with the noble purpose of free enterprise. *cough,cough*.
Cough, cough is right.
The problem with that libertarian idea is that many harms, especially environmental harms are only obvious in the compilations of statistics and it's difficult if not impossible for an individual to show the harms apply to them directly and it's difficult in many cases to assign the harm to a specific cause. The only way to address those sorts of problems is collectively whether you like it or not.
I'm sorry but EPA not having enough money is bullshit. They "only" have enough money to test 20% of new cars, therefore Volkswagon was able to cheat, so give us more money?
IRS tests (audits) less than one percent of income tax returns. Yet tax compliance is quite high in the United States, relatively to other countries. Why is that? Because IRS has teeth and people know if you get caught flagrantly cheating on your taxes, they can seize your bank accounts and your house and put you in jail.
Testing 20% is more than enough, you just gotta give EPA some teeth. Start by putting VW CEO in jail and seizing $8 billion from their bank account. That's still less than a year worth of profit for them, it won't make them go out of business. But it's enough that people will get the message quick.
Car companies have brazenly cheated emissions because the price of getting caught (nobody goes to prison, a few million dollars in fines) was far less than the money saved by cheating on emissions. If the price goes up, the equation changes.
Except the current congress is very much pro-pollution. Having independent agencies can be a good thing as you don't get politicians mucking with them.
If only there was some sort of lawsuit that a large class of people could use to take action in such circumstances.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Nixon was very much conservative. However the definitions change over time. The meanings today are almost the reverse of what they were a century ago. Reagan would not be considered conservative enough by today's Tea Party for example.
Nixon was also very practical. And being practical is anathema to idealogues who think that compromising is traitorous. Lowering the voting age should not have been a conservative vs liberal issue, it's just plain fair and practical to extend voting age to those we were drafting to fight and die for us. Negotiating with China may not have been the Goldwater approach, but to accuse Nixon of being pro-communist is ridiculous, the negotiation was practical and good for the country and the president's FIRST job is to govern. He created the EPA but the environment at that time was an utter shambles and the EPA was needed. Some of the most conservative people I know are very staunch environmentalists, though they'd never use that word - they hate garbage on the side of the road, they don't want pollution runoff onto their lands, the love national parks, and to use a Christian idea they want to be good stewards of the land. Back when Nixon was president, the environment was not a conversative vs liberal litmus test like it is today. Ballistic missile treaties is about wanting peace and safety, and any good liberal or conservative should want those.
Remember, Nixon helped to get the segregationist southern Democrats to switch ranks and become Republicans, which caused a strongly conservative change of direction in the party. Nixon was the ultimate authoritarian figure to the younger free speech movement and anti Vietnam war protesters, more so than any of the Democratic leadership. Nixon was for the New Federalism to give more power to local governments, an idea embraced by conservatives.
It will however be impossible to convince some people of that, especially those who think John Boehner was not conservative and secretly a democrat in disguise. Those people are a hopeless cause because they'd rather rant than think.
They should be allowed to prevent people from putting their land into productive use IF this harms other people, or the land of other people, or the land of neighboring public lands, or causes multigenerational destruction of the land, etc. There is no ingrained natural or moral right to destroy land that you "own". The only reason people own the land is because at some point in history someone stole it from someone else and the government defended this stealing. Thus the landowners should acknowledge that they wouldn't even have this land without the government's support.
That seems to be a large goal of some far right conservatives - utterly destroy all government. Neo-anarchists. They think local government will work better, but then they revoke local rights if the state government ends up being more conservative than the locals. They're stuck in a fantasy world where everything can go back to the good old days as long as the government stops doing stuff to screw it up. We can be the 50s nuclear family and watch Father Knows Best forever and ever, the kids never grow up and leave, the lawn never turns brown, and the wife never gets old.
Except that they want to grow the portion of the government that consumes the largest amount of the federal budget, the military.
I don't think Obama's had an actual budget to sign since he was inaugurated. I'd blame Congress myself, since they're the ones who send a budget for the President.
it is, it's insanity and low intelligence
we live in a democracy, but what is the defense against beliefs which are based on fantasy rather than simple reality?
why must society continue to suffer with corruption and crime because a number of loud ignorants continue to obstruct the simple and obvious based on ridiculous moronic crap?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. EPA is trying to ban wood burning stoves. With that type of trend, in thirty years you will end-up in jail for having a barbecue in your backyard.
2. EPA actually polluted rivers by letting industrial waste/poison to them. 1 million gallons... http://www.denverpost.com/envi...
3. EPA is a money stealing organization, waste of taxpayer's funds. http://www2.epa.gov/sites/prod...
4. And lastly, EPA is cool with fracking. I am not. But because EPA is cool, you are also ok.
EPA is completely incompetent agency, 100% wast of taxpayer's funds, should have been closed. All they do is pretend to be working. And you must be one of those who says more government and more taxes is the best answer to every issue. Perhaps you should leave to North Korea.
Seriously, the neo-cons have been gutting EPA and any form of gov that they hate.
HOWEVER, that does not give VW, Audi, Mercedes, Samsung, etc license to cheat at will.
I prefer that we block these companies from selling in the states, but next up, would be fines so large that they can fund these groups.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And all that pollution vomited into the air thanks to the far right's love of cutting an oversight agency's funding until it can't do its job properly.
Think about it
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Even so, the IRS' budget should be expanded:
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
(Oh, to be young and idealistic again.)
I'd go with "this is why we need to get rid of Congress"....
Yes, yes, I get it, "property is theft" and all that. It's an old song. Funny thing is, any productive use of land can be construed as damaging to someone else, if you try hard enough. If the goal is to prevent economic growth, there's always a way to succeed.
How about instead we form an agency to enable you to do anything reasonable with your land, by providing you a reasonable way to go about it? Its no wonder we've had economic stagnation for so long, with a generation or two raised to believe that "the only reason people own the land is because at some point in history someone stole it" and that "profit" is a bad word and so on. Sheesh.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"totalitarian statist"
it's like talking to social retards who think socialism is the same as gulags and toilet paper lines communism
even though actual socialist countries: canada, denmark, norway, etc., are richer, healthier, happier, and *freer* than the usa: no financial parasites funneling money out of their society via cozy relationships paid for by corrupt elections, for nothing in return, because regulating corporations and plutocrats is "against freedom". aw, those poor abused corporations and rich people
you think in a simpleton's moronic binaries, when the truth is a range of thousands of government types exist. a democracy being one of the better forms
but the act of me accepting government exists and must be worked with, becomes exactly like being a complete authoritarian dictator, in your mind. because your mind can only understand complete anarchy or complete subjugation. because you're a moron. objectively, as demonstrated in the quality of your comments. any intelligent commentary on this concept lies in between anarchy or totalitariansm, government where only necessary, such as with corporations who pollute when not policed, as demonstrated by the fucking subject you are commenting under
stop talking about what you don't understand
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, we've had generations and generations who've been taught to believe that profit is the only virtue and it's your land so you can do whatever you want. Maybe it's time to realize that there may be things other than economic growth to consider when deciding what to do with land. Sure, you maximize profits by strip mining an entire mountain but it's also probably that it is more beneficial for everyone as a whole, now and in the future, to leave the mountain standing.
The EPA didn't just start as a hippie liberal idea. Many conservatives were pissed off at other people polluting their land, air, and water, and harming their families, crops, and livestock. Conservatives also enjoy seeing wildlife and visiting parks and monuments. It was later that the environment was rebranded as a liberal concept, and in two-party America where every issue must be phrased as a battle between us and them.
Nice flamebait from a kid who still hasn't mastered the "Shift" key, but you present no actual argument as to why we couldn't replace the EPA with a new agency more focused on it's actual mission, and less on power-for-the-sake-of-power.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
rather than fix the problems, burn the whole thing down and replace it with something that is exactly the same but with the tiny problems fixed
ok, got it retard
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ask the Pentagon, which destroyed A-10's to make sure we gave them the hundreds of billions for the F-35 POS.
Or ask the Prisons, which let life prisoners go when they didn't get the RAISE they wanted.
Or ask NASA.
No, as usual, starving America for what we want and need while buying more war toys and cutting taxes for the top 1% (who got 45% of the tax savings) is more important than Americans breathing.
whose air is finally breathable for 9 months a year in L.A. THANKS TO THE EPA
America tried De-REgulation.
What we got was less service, lower wages, higher prices and a nation dependent on foreign investment
Monopolism simply is not an answer
what we call "conservatives" are actually radical regressives. They want to roll us back to the 1800s when capitalists were kings. They don't really try to hide this, they just say it'll be better for us all.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I see things being done in a way that costs around five times as much as we would do it in small- to mid-scale private industry, and even at that expense level the quality of work is outright appalling.
Having worked on both sides of the fence, most of the cost saving I have seen so far in the small-to-mid-scale industry comes from cutting corners on things seen as "uncool" (to be honest, that also applies to large industry). Like, for example, compliance with the laws and regulations. I have worked in education, in the automotive industry, in the banking industry, in the risk management industry, in investment banks, in the cloud hosting industry and in local/national/international administrations. I honestly can say I haven't seen as much difference as people claim to see.
I have seen CTOs playing Farmville 8h a days in their startup while complaining about the ton of work they had and I have seen civil servants clocking 80+ hours a week to fix issues (without any hope of overtime compensation). I have seen automotive engineers write books on the evolution of money from the Roman times to modern day during their work hours, then clocking extra time to actually do their work. I have seen systems administrator actively sabotaging servers to get extra money through on-call.
In the interests of truth could someone either find some proof that VW was cheating and post it, OR refrain from the "VW cheating" meme. You guys know something about screw ups in software. Isn't it much more likely that the engineers at VW took the software that they bought from Bosch and then added a big list of "features " that the pointy headed bosses thought would "add value". Then the software broke because they had changed the logic without knowing it. It seemed to work, so no one checked, they didn't have a budget for it. After all a logical proof would have taken decades and cost X times the German GDP. Below is the only link I can find to the so called "smoking gun". "It appears they did this with the intent of clearly making the emissions performance different on the test cycle, which I think is the most surprising,” Anair said in an interview. http://www.scientificamerican.... Note the humble technician says 'It appears that.........", he doesn't say "I have proof", and if he did have, he would have said so. The EPA has accidentally fooled the world's media. Remember that Toyota got scammed for billions because someone put a rubber mat over the throttle pedal of their car, and now GM is being scammed for more billions because people hung heavy weights on their key chains. The search for truth depends on intelligent scepticism. At the moment all we can say for certain is that VW is about to be scammed for billions. You guys can do better than this.
Oh, I see, you think the problems are "tiny", which means you've never actually interacted with the FDA, you just know that it's Orthodox Leftist Creed to support it unto death, as with every government program except the military.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
ah yes, that orthodox leftist creed of keeping drugs safe
there's no need for it, it's a severe authoritarian need to control people, right? like a cartoon movie script: "ooh, i'm a lefty, i'm here to destroy your rights {insert manaical laugh}. why? i dunno. it's just what we do since central casting by joe mccarthy in the 1950s"
you need a cartoon villain to have your cartoon belief system
because these problems don't exist:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...
http://time.com/4043511/peanut...
http://www.timesfreepress.com/...
that's just from last week
how many millions of more examples do you want you ignorant asshole before you try matching your beliefs to reality?
that is the actual threat. that is why we have government regulations like the FDA: to protect us from the actual fucking real threat: industry
meanwhile, you want to whine about "orthodox leftist creeds"
that's not the actual threat, that's your uneducated delusion you ignorant piece of shit
did i make up executives who will kill you and poison you to make $1 more? am i making that shit up? do you read the fucking news? there's 3 links above from last week. do you want some more you shitbag before you try the slightest bit of intellectual honesty for the first time in your low iq life?
you imagine regulation as the threat, when the fucking story you are commenting under shows the real threat is industry. reality
why do you persist with a belief that fucking contradicts simple facts and simple reality around you
what the fuck is the source of your colossal ignorance you useless propagandized piece of shit?
you're a zombie. walking through the world blind, unable to see or understand anything. just regurgitating the same tired wrong ignorance, without the slightest effort to accept facts. prideful ignorance
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It coincides with the radical shift to the conservative right. The EPA is too hippie for the right-wingers and thus gets its funding cut in favor of supporting coal power plants or big industry polluters who happen to write out big campaign checks.