Slashdot Mirror
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.
You know, it's one thing for Republicans to lie to our faces about this stuff, fraud and treason etc, but when a trusted business sector like Big Oil lies, that kind of betrayal is truly inexcusable. (Unless well-paid to excuse it, of course.)
You are making a wonderful world for my grandchildren.
But, but what about "enhancing shareholder value", that is what Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have taught our business leaders is their ONLY ethical concern.
Could it be that our entire business educational system has been corrupted by people who do not care if "people" live or die?
Maybe, Milton Friedman was the real Terminator
Conveniently omitting to mention pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as remaining concerns.
If that's true then the rules are not too harsh.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
The American auto industry is barely moving forward on EVs -- not that they're the be all to end all, but c'mon. The tech has been around longer than gas-powered vehicles and yet, even with modern lithium-ion batteries, car companies don't offer more than two models each -- most only offer one.
It's going to take regulation to force their hand; that seems obvious. With the current administration kowtowing to big business, though, we won't be seeing any movement on this for at least another two years.
And just think of the increased revenue from gas taxes! That ought to soothe any ruffled liberal feathers.
Hey, gotta cover the shortfall from the Republican's trillion dollars added to the deficit.
Consider that automakers would have to make an entirely different set of vehicles for Paris accord countries (like Canada) and the U.S.
Then consider automakers would have to make different cars for states with strict standards and cars violating those standards would not be allowed in the state as they would not be grandfather claused.
Then consider that if automakers were to have 6 years to bring new fuel guzzling designs to market before (worst case scenario) Trump leaves office. And since almost universally, republican president = Democrat Congress and vise versa. So, within 6 years, either the executive or the legislative branches will be in opposition to the new regulations.
So, any car company who would take advantage of this opportunity would be run by idiots with no foresight. This would be corporate suicide. I mean I am sitting here laughing my ass off wondering who would invest years of R&D in a new drive train that would almost certainly be made illegal within weeks of it reaching market and could not be sold or operated in more than a small region.
Any leasing company willing to back these cars would be criminally incompetent and any banks willing to finance these vehicles would be suicidal.
I mean, who thinks these things up?
I am going to call bullshit on this. The proposed regulations were still on a path that was behind China, India, the EU, Japan, Korea, etc. The Obama regulations were still pretty weak compared to the world. Trump has knocked us down from being a C- student to a straight F. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
Even if you don't care about CO2 and global climate change, there's still the localized issue of actual air pollution in cities especially which kills. I drive a plugin electric and notice gas fumes and other nasty things in the air from cars.
Implying that "oil scarcity" is the reason behind these regulations seems like such an obvious straw man that at first I figured everyone would see through it immediately... but then I realized this letter was targeted at Congress.
#DeleteChrome
We have a culture where we tolerate lying when someone is trying to make a quick buck.
Businesses should tell the truth? Why do you hate capitalism? insert other facetious arguments here, etc
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Boy are you going to get it...
My personal perspective is that we need to work on Fusion reactors for electric power generation. It would produce nearly unlimited power for very little environmental impacts and nearly zero CO2 emissions. All we need is more R&D dollars... We KNOW it can be done, we just haven't fully figured out the engineering to make it happen. Also, why are we not shoving up Nuclear power plants as fast as mini-malls until then....
I'm guessing that the idea here is to control folks, not actually fix the stated issue, and THAT's why we are not really serious..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The choice isn't between oil and no oil. There is a middle ground where we regulate industry, control pollution, and use resources in a way that compensates everyone for the damage it causes. Wild west, zero responsibility bullshit isn't a serious business model even if idiots are serious about defending it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Congress does CAFE because they are cowards. A car with higher efficiency can be driven more on the same gas. It does not reduce consumption by existing cars. If you genuinely believe in the cause, the only thing to advocate is taxation of fuel. A tax increase for the social cost of gasoline is something like $3.80 a gallon, more than doubling the current price. C'mon true believes, don't put off saving the planet for decades, bite the bullet and advocate that tax increase.
Nice drive-by there! But the "Obama" standards are trivial to meet. But now we overtly let the industry run the government. Unfortunately it is politically incorrect to place the blame where it belongs. Introspection is not a thing to be discussed in mixed company.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”