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Trump Administration Plans To Freeze Obama-Era Fuel Standards (theverge.com)
The Trump administration plans to freeze Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards starting in 2021, according to a report from The Washington Post. The report says the Trump administration "would go even further by restricting a state's ability to set its own fuel standards, which would be a strike against California and its strict state-specific emissions rules," reports The Verge. From the report: The proposal has been reportedly drafted by the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, and the plan right now is to freeze standards for cars and light trucks at levels set for the year 2021 and keep them their for five years. The Obama administration's rules, which involved a partnership with California and car makers, set standards at 50 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks by 2025. Obama also, through the Clean Air Act, granted California a waiver to set its own, higher standards. That way, if automobile manufacturers wanted to maintain a presence in the lucrative California market, they'd have to abide by the new rules. The Trump administration now says a separate law overrules that arrangement, The Washington Post reports.
Different states have different environmental issues due to geography, water availability, climate, etc. Why not let the people of those states set stricter rules than Federal if they feel it's appropriate and necessary?
> Ford just mostly pulled out of the North American car market, leaving the US/Canada with a bunch of tippy little trucklets and bigger trucks.
You know why? Cars have stricter fuel-efficiency standards than light trucks. That makes sense. However it creates the perverse incentive that in order to meet fuel efficiency standards, manufacturers need to make bigger, heavier, less-efficient vehicles - trucks.
Actually, if you are a scientist with credentials, getting funding to study how global warming doesn't exist is really easy. Just like it used to be really easy to get funding to study how smoking doesn't cause cancer. There's a lot of money to be made proving that carbon pollution isn't a problem. Would that it were so.
Hence the "sweet spot" for non-city commuter cars is about 500 miles.
? I've lived in very rural areas most of my life and never had a ICE car that could do more than 325 miles on a tank while living there. I never noticed a problem.
My last truck, an F150, could do 500 if I let it suck fumes. But that was because it had a 26 gallon tank. When gas broke $4 a gallon, filling that damn thing hurt bad. I did break $100 a couple of times.
I'm in a suburban environment now, but would have loved having a 200 mile or better BEV when I lived in the country. My electric was via a natural gas generator fed by free wellhead gas. I'd have been driving for free.
Let other countries march in. If they want to spend their blood and treasure in the mess that's the present-day Middle East, better them than us.
As far as Afghanistan, it was better off as a Soviet puppet state than as a fundamentalist hellhole created with US training and Saudi money. We'd have been better off if we'd have let the Soviets win in the 80s.