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California Leads States In Suing the EPA For Attacking Vehicle Emissions Standards (theverge.com)
California, along with seventeen other states, announced a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency today over its recent rollback of Obama-era vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards. The states argue that the EPA "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in overturning the previous administration's decision. The Verge reports: The standards in question were drawn up in 2009 and adopted in 2012. They laid out a path for automakers to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by reaching an average fleet fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2024. Since the program was charting a course that stretched out more than a decade into the future, it was written into the rules that the EPA would have to perform a "mid-term evaluation" before April 1st, 2018. This review would serve two purposes: assess whether automakers were on track, and then use that information to determine if the last section of the standards (which apply to model year 2022-2025 cars) were still feasible.
The EPA, under Barack Obama, kicked off this review process ahead of schedule in the summer of 2016 when it published an extensive 1,200-page technical assessment that analyzed whether the standards were working. In January 2017, the outgoing EPA wrapped this evaluation and determined that the bar was not set too high. In fact, it argued, automakers were overwhelmingly compliant. The Trump EPA's decision in April did not set new standards -- it simply argued that there were problems with the existing standards. In the meantime, the agency and the Department of Transportation are currently working together to craft and officially propose new standards. But the previous standards that the EPA said were inappropriate will technically remain in place until that happens.
The EPA, under Barack Obama, kicked off this review process ahead of schedule in the summer of 2016 when it published an extensive 1,200-page technical assessment that analyzed whether the standards were working. In January 2017, the outgoing EPA wrapped this evaluation and determined that the bar was not set too high. In fact, it argued, automakers were overwhelmingly compliant. The Trump EPA's decision in April did not set new standards -- it simply argued that there were problems with the existing standards. In the meantime, the agency and the Department of Transportation are currently working together to craft and officially propose new standards. But the previous standards that the EPA said were inappropriate will technically remain in place until that happens.
with no skin in the game.
Who are you accusing of not having any skin the game? People who actually breathe air? They don't have any 'skin' in the game?
Not to let the facts get in the way of hyperbolic partisanship, but...
(1) The Obama decision was made with input from (and the endorsement of) car manufacturers.
(2) Long term plans and regulations, as a matter of both law and public policy, are not subject to the chief executive's whims. This makes sense, because how would business proceed if regulations were substantially overhauled every 4 years?
(2a) Just because someone doesn't like a deal, doesn't mean it wasn't accomplished and cannot be backtracked on.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
That whole state can fucking burn.
It often does.
California politicians have that "If you believe it enough, it will come true" mentality. These are the folks who would require auto makers to build a four door sedan that can get 80 mpg city and 110 mpg highway. And if they can't break the laws of physics...
"Hop in, Smithers!"
1. California politicians have pushed the rest of us towards sane environmental standards.
2. 80 Mpg isn't that hard. Tesla is getting Zero MPG.
3. Break the laws of physics? Guess, just guess who is giving them numbers - the real ones not the above AC's hyperbolic ones.
I have a LOT of criticisms about Tesla and Musk - and they are only criticisms - but the end game he has - I'm on board baby! (As well as Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, Mercedes, GM, Ferrari, etc ...)
The ICE should die - it's 19th century tech (that alone should be a death sentence!) - it's polluting and inefficient! At best only 20% of the energy of the gas you burn makes it to the wheels. In a electric car, 40% makes it to the wheels.
California- bully the rest of the country to sanity!!
Actually, if you've driven Bay Area highways, you'd know that regenerative braking makes the most difference on the highways. :-D
But seriously, the main problem with electrics is that the major automakers have limited interest beyond doing the bare minimum required by law. As clean air standards get more and more strict, it forces them to invest in driving the cost of electric vehicles down and removing barriers to adoption (e.g. by improving the charging networks, increasing battery capacity, increasing battery longevity, etc.), which makes them more marketable.
The alternative, should they choose not to do so, is that they can instead buy credits sold by companies whose vehicles produce lower emissions. This, in turn, means that companies like Tesla can sell those credits and use them to fund innovation that drives down the cost of electric vehicles and removes barriers to adoption, thus making EVs more marketable.
Either approach clearly benefits both the environment and national security (by making us less dependent on foreign oil), and as an added bonus, it drives technology forward and increases innovation. If the only impact is that your ICE car costs a few extra bucks, I'd call that a win.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Life's a trade-off. You can have good mileage, good safety, good cargo capacity, good reliability, low emissions, and low cost, but you can't have all of them at once. I am accusing the people who dismiss as unimportant many of those performance metrics when they write the regulations of having no skin in the game.
Good slave. Well said.
> start and stop
My boss bought a new Buick with that "feature." Unlike every car since I know at least the late 1930s Pontiac my parents had when I was growing up that had a starter directly connected to the engine with a gear and would engage with a solenoid, the Buick uses a huge starter connected to the serpentine belt. He even drove it up a hill to a gas station after we ran out of gas, and the start was hot to touch but wasn't that hot. The problem is that he went through three expensive serpentine belts in the two years he's had it. The belt in it now is fraying, and the Buick dealer told him they'd have to charge for a new harmonic balancer. All just to save a few seconds of gas when we stop at a red light.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Total number of executive orders:
G W Bush: 291
B. Obama: 276
R. Reagan: 381
Avg number of executive orders/per year:
G W Bush: 36.4
B. Obama: 34.6
D. Trump: 55
Everyone should think about this every time the Trump administration 'rolls back' some rule or regulation.
Someone got hurt, was poisoned, sold a shoddy product, swindled, defrauded, or otherwise injured by some one else, and in the course of remedying the situation, a rule or regulation was enacted to prevent another person from being injured in the same way by the same negligence or willful act that caused that injury.
At the time the rule or regulation was enacted, it seemed like a good idea. Just remember that, at the time, it seemed like a good idea. And someone or many someone were probably hurt that gave rise to the rule or regulation.
Good old socialist intransigence. Always insisting that the next time you'll get right.
The EPA set overly high emissions standards to begin with, the EPA now is just settling on a more realistic goal and letting that sit for a few years so companies can adjust
Nope. Electric cars are the future because they don't put out any pollution. Get with it, you rube.
It was the original goals that were an attack on the auto industry,
LOL! Who needs to attack the auto industry when they needed to be bailed out by a democratic congress and president?
The only thing being attacked here is people who profit from polluting the environment.
You're super when it comes to bullshit but not so much with common sense.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The Church of Carbontology now sues EPA for survival (they need state power to make their moral misery a monopoly, like any church)...instead of dreaming up new ways to sue Exxon et al for an endless sinecure by said fiat.
You mean the Exxon that acknowledges AGW? Congratulations, son. That was the hardest failure I've ever seen on Slashdot, and I've seen a lot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
another way is that they're pushing the real cost of driving onto the driver. Right now we've got heavily subsidized gasoline. And not just from direct subsidies or even tax breaks. We haven't been in Iraq and Afghanistan for over a decade just to make democracies. We're over there because they have oil and we want it. Our military empire is basically the biggest subsidy in human history. Reducing our dependency on oil imports is how we get away from all that.
This tired old lie? Again?
As another poster points out, we EXPORT oil these days and most of the imported oil we use doesn't come from over there. Could it be that we *like* stable oil prices and that's a benefit for the whole world? Naw, that might be seen as a noble intent for the USA to do things like toss Iraq out of Kuwait...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You are left improving energy consumed in other ways like making the vehicle lighter (and weaker),
Or we could just stop making 3 ton SUVs with huge V8s. Just a thought.
Why? So my family of six has to take two vehicles when we go someplace?
What's wrong with letting the market decide what sells and what doesn't? Why do we have a default setting that says "Make a federal law!" for things like this? IF somebody wants to have a huge SUV with 8 seats and 8 cylinders, why does the government need to have a say in this?
Are we free people or are we regulated into oblivion "for our own good?" There comes a point when we will have to stop regulating stupid stuff like soda cup sizes sold by 7-11 or we might as well just toss the constitution out and go full communalist manifesto. Maybe we've gone too far with cars now? I think so.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101