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The Oil Industry's Covert Campaign To Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules (nytimes.com)
When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them. But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation's oil industry. From an investigation by The New York Times: In Congress, on Facebook and in statehouses nationwide, Marathon Petroleum, the country's largest refiner, worked with powerful oil-industry groups and a conservative policy network financed by the billionaire industrialist Charles G. Koch to run a stealth campaign to roll back car emissions standards, a New York Times investigation has found. The campaign's main argument for significantly easing fuel efficiency standards -- that the United States is so awash in oil it no longer needs to worry about energy conservation -- clashed with decades of federal energy and environmental policy.
"With oil scarcity no longer a concern," Americans should be given a "choice in vehicles that best fit their needs," read a draft of a letter that Marathon helped to circulate to members of Congress over the summer. Official correspondence later sent to regulators by more than a dozen lawmakers included phrases or sentences from the industry talking points, and the Trump administration's proposed rules incorporate similar logic. The industry had reason to urge the rollback of higher fuel efficiency standards proposed by former President Barack Obama. A quarter of the world's oil is used to power cars, and less-thirsty vehicles mean lower gasoline sales.
"With oil scarcity no longer a concern," Americans should be given a "choice in vehicles that best fit their needs," read a draft of a letter that Marathon helped to circulate to members of Congress over the summer. Official correspondence later sent to regulators by more than a dozen lawmakers included phrases or sentences from the industry talking points, and the Trump administration's proposed rules incorporate similar logic. The industry had reason to urge the rollback of higher fuel efficiency standards proposed by former President Barack Obama. A quarter of the world's oil is used to power cars, and less-thirsty vehicles mean lower gasoline sales.
The Obama administration set way too harsh goals for emissions in the coming decades, Trump is just rolling them back a little bit (not even to what they were before).
In the end it will not matter as electric car adoption will more than make up for any extra emissions from rolling back the rules.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them."
Sorry lying Kendal, we know you're not QUITE illiterate and this is just more of your patented head-up-ass dishonesty. You cried too much wolf, even for a known traitor. Blow.
Your grandchildren live in a wonderful world thanks to Oil. If you want to live like it was in the pre industrial era. Your life would be a living hell. Your life expectancy would be terribly lower. Your children most likely would die at a very early age. It was a tough and grueling life.
If you are *truly* an environmentalist you wouldn't want to risk further environmental damage from continuing to try and force other people into behaving environmentally responsible. The reason is because this clearly doesn't work. Big government or UN action has mostly failed. The last decent bit of legislation that made any real difference was the Clean Air Act in 1970. It's technology that has the best chance of preventing or mitigating negative effects of climate change. I'm an environmentalist, but I feel like I keep company with a bunch of idiots and facists who can only see one way to fix the problem: forced government coercion. Why not convince folks to switch to greener tech because it's *better*, rather than trying to ram it down their throats as a tax? The latter has a legacy of 40+ years of failure and division. Isn't it time to try something new? Just going by success/failure it appears conservation and green-research would be money and effort much better spent.
So if automakers think it goes too far what is the problem? They will just make vehicles according the to the spec they see fit. No issue then making the standards low if automakers plan to exceed them.
The reason the automakers said that, is because they have bought a little too deeply into the kool-aid that emissions in the U.S. must be reduced, while ignoring what the rest of the world is doing. So they are just upset at thought someone MIGHT go lower then they had planned..
In the end, the real collusion is auto-makers trying to hamstring competition by crafting regulations that newer companies cannot follow. too bad for them Tesla figured out a way around that plan.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"With oil scarcity no longer a concern," Americans should be given a "choice in vehicles that best fit their needs," read a draft of a letter that Marathon helped to circulate to members of Congress over the summer
And?
Of course those who sell oil have the most incentive to make arguments. Doesn't automatically make the arguments invalid.
For ever electric car I see, I install a bigger cam in one of my V8s!
The cats are long gone.
The tire smoke will be the main thing you notice. Fuck traction control.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
1 Billion people out of poverty in the last 20 years.
Socialism is great in _only_ the future tense. Funny how that works.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If true (who would be motivated to tell such an obvious lie?), that reflects their financial stupidity. The majority paid that same amount in cable TV bills in the last year.
The economy is _global_. The global middle class is thriving, thanks capitalism!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'