Slashdot Mirror
White House Proposal Rolls Back Fuel Economy Standards, No Exception For California (npr.org)
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.
"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 ?
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.
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 weight off of a car to get the MPG up.
There isn't much left to do. Electric cars are great for short haul, but sometimes people need to drive farther. Small cars are fine for a lot of people, but try jamming a rear-facing car seat in one and you'll find the front seat is nearly unusable.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
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.
Go right ahead, Trump, play into the hands of the Dominionists if you like. But it won't have the long term effect you think it will. You think you can just roll back the calendar to the 1940's or something? LOL, you're living in a fantasy world, Trump.
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.
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.
I've got a damn doctoral position at university, you can fuck off with you claims of innumeracy. Your political bias prevents you from understanding the basic need here isn't to cover the total cost of purchase but only and exclusively that claimed cost increase from fuel efficiency improvements - the added cost from the additional equipment and design changes, as overhead on prices for the cars sold.
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...
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
A 1998 basic civic got you 107 hp and 103 lb ft of torque. A 2018 basic civic gets you 158 hp and 138 lb ft of torque. The 2018 does push around a heavier can and the result of almost 50% better power and a slightly bigger and heavier car is the same fuel economy. For the most part we've made HUGE gains in fuel economy. We've just wasted them on more power and bigger cars.
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.
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.
There is a bit of sense in this. We should have made it an across the board cut. I've been in a few big vehicles with 4 cylinder engines and they are fine for family use. The aggressive driving of people with too much power probably costs a lot of lives too.
We are soon to start hitting another problem with what has happened. For those of us in lower spending levels, the 35 mpg used cars we were able to afford to purchase as the higher level spenders tired of them are starting to age out. Not only were those affordable to purchase after 10+ years and 150K or so miles (thankfully, most after 2000 or so are making over 200K miles!), they are affordable to drive.
The problem we face now is that the used market is starting to fill up with these gas hogs with massive, expensive tires. Even if we can find something for the $3K or so we may have, we can't afford to use them.
I can afford no more than about $0.10 / mile of vehicle cost including maintenance and repair and hopefully around $0.08 / mile on fuel for my 8K miles or so a year. That means I'm looking for something that I can hope to put about 5 years and 40K miles on with a total of $4K of purchase price + maintenance price. That is no trouble with a lot of used cars in the market, but is becoming more difficult as we have to push them further and further due to the low volume of car sales in recent years.
Not only is he not one of the existing political class, he was also the only candidate with any hope of beating them...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!