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I don't get it. Emission regulations are market friendly. All competitors play on a level playing field. Less emissions improve quality of life enormously. To m

I don't get it. Emission regulations are market friendly. All competitors play on a level playing field. Less emissions improve quality of life enormously. To me rolling back environmental rules is plain evil and extremely shortsighted. "Make America dirty again"?

crooked-v 9y ago
The goals of the Republican party have been reduced to "do whatever makes liberals angry, even if it means shooting yourself in the foot".
- petre 9y ago
  How is tight regulation "liberal"?
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    In USA "liberal" means both "progressive" and "libertarian", because we are dumb at politics. Sorry.
    - nl 9y ago
      liberal doesn't mean libertarian in the US.
  - unchocked 9y ago
    It means something different in American political culture. The American right has successfully framed liberalism as illiberalism, and illiberalism as "freedom". Classical liberals of course do not believe in positive rights. The American right started calling progressives who believe in positive rights "liberal" because unconditional access to social services seems permissive to an authoritarian. Ignorance and spite then ran unchecked for a few generations and authoritarians now use liberal as a pejorative for anyone not on their spectrum, raising hope that the term may boomerang into correct usage. Authoritarians currently refer to authoritarianism as "freedom".
brobdingnagians 9y ago
Here are several thoughts, you may disagree with them, but they attempt to convey why some people would oppose these sorts of regulations: An easier to see example is with dishwashers and toilets. The new generation of toilets created by EPA regulations has made toilets that don't really flush very well and are more expensive than before; people end up flushing multiple times which then wastes water. You pay a premium for the privilege of a less effective toilet. Same thing happens with dishwashers; politicians aren't always very good at engineering constraints. Just because a law applies to all people in your country's market doesn't mean it is market friendly. You may be handicapping everyone equally, but still handicapping the engineering with regards to reality and physical constraints. If the US regulates itself into having a difficult time making or using working/economical cars, then other countries can more economically create better cars (which people would argue already happens; American cars have a terrible reputation) or having better transportation networks using better transportation. You could end up having really clean cars and horrifically expensive logistics. Maybe, maybe not, but just letting the market be more adaptive is usually a good course.
- bpp 9y ago
  Your toilet analogy is partially true but is incomplete. Toilets manufactured immediately after the regulations went into effect are in fact less effective. However, the industry innovated, improving previously inefficient bowl designs and creating other inventions that improve performance. Toilets manufactured today are at least as effective as those created before the regulations, and consume fewer natural resources (no small matter here in California where we're staring at drought again). Regulations may impose a cost, but they can often spur innovation and economic growth as well.
  - coolso 9y ago
    > Toilets manufactured today are at least as effective as those created before the regulations I replaced my toilet with a new model 2 years ago. Was it the best of the best, no, but neither was my old one. Use of any amount of toilet paper with the new one = a mandatory double flush, every single time. Every so often a #1 with no TP will require a double flush as well. Yes I'm serious.
lend000 9y ago
The regulations were plain dumb -- a classic attempt by a bureaucratic working group signed off by the higher ups who have no idea how economic incentives work. The goal was to capture externalities -- so target the SOURCE of the externality (with a fuel tax). Raise the tax on emissions-producing fuel and provide rebates for validating certain standards regarding how efficient the fuel is burned. This way the tax applies equally to all polluters and doesn't create any unintended consequences in the market due to misaligned incentives. A higher fuel tax incentivizes not only fuel efficient vehicles but electric vehicles and renewable energy -- whichever is the most economically efficient. Instead, we have a misaligned incentive that will further prolong our dependence on hydrocarbon-burning cars. But of course, raising gas prices wouldn't be very politically expedient... Note: I am not defending the administration's decision as it was made for the wrong reasons and there is no replacement.
- trendia 9y ago
  Two different cars with the same mpg can have wildly different emissions. A fuel tax wouldn't discourage higher emissions, only lower mpg!
  - tankerdude 9y ago
    True, but the super efficient ones must burn more cleanly, and realistically, they are trying to reduce CO2. And that is all dependent on how much fuel you burn. NOx emissions as well will differ as well but for the most part, a 20 mpg car will be much dirtier than a 50 mpg car.
    - davidgould 9y ago
      This is not quite right, one of the big tensions in designing combustion systems is the trade off of thermal efficiency (increased at higher combustion temperatures) against NOx generation (also increased at higher combustion temperatures).
    - falcolas 9y ago
      If this were true, motorcycles would be cleaner than every car out there. But tests have shown that - due to the reduced clean emissions tech in motorcycles - even though they consume the least fuel, they produce on the order of 10 to 1000x some of the nastier tail-pipe emissions.
kw71 9y ago
I personally don't really agree with regression in this area but more than one automotive engineer has told me that things have gotten to where the exhaust must be cleaner than the air taken in by the engine.
- smileysteve 9y ago
  This hyperbole doesn't really withstand the thought process; There is little reason that the exhaust shouldn't be cleaner than the air it is taking in. 1. There is an air filter that immediately takes out large particles (dust, dirt, mites, etc) 2. Emissions systems use hot wires to detect airflow precisely 3. O2 sensors readily adjusting fuel on the fly to ensure a complete burn. 4. A catalytic process using space metals that further ensures a clean burn Effectively, whether it's dusty, a cow has farted around you, or a chicken farm is producing ammonia; the modern ICE has the ability to detect this scenario and adjust faster that 8k times a second.
  - headmelted 9y ago
    I know you have some solid points here, but all I can think about now is that we live in a world where a sensor exists that can detect cow farts at a rate of 8k per second.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    "here is little reason that the exhaust shouldn't be cleaner than the air it is taking in." And it isn't anyway. Just stand next to a running engine in a badly ventilated area for a while and you'll know that engine doesn't make things better.
    - kw71 9y ago
      Actually, if you run a modern engine in a closed garage now, your eyes won't burn, you won't choke and it won't kill you. While this is a stupid thing to do, the bad stuff is only coming out before it's warmed up (meaning closed loop and catalyst warm enough to function) and if you back your car into the garage you can tell the difference the first time you do a cold start.
brownbat 9y ago
I'm generally in favor of emissions regulations, but I think the devil's advocate is that: * raising the costs across the board for transportation may be neutral for competitors in that industry, but not for people who are consumers of transportation or employees in industries that rely on it * the rural poor spend a far larger percentage of their income on transportation than anyone else, and, * the rural poor are far more likely to hold jobs that are dominated by transportation costs So emissions regs could be seen as regressive. Of course we could counter that environmental harms are pretty regressive too--the health consequences are going to be the most extreme for the poor, especially given disparities in end of life care in the US. But improved health outcomes over decades are a tough consolation to someone on the edge of losing their home. Maybe the risk of lost jobs is incredibly small, but if someone's on the bubble, they are going to be more risk averse than you or me, and might push for policymakers to set the bar back a few steps just to be sure. What's the answer? I don't know. We want both clean air and good jobs, even in distressed areas. Programs that explicitly work towards both at the same time are going to be more hardened, more resilient against politicization.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  The answer is to give rural poor free bus tickets to join civilizations
  - brownbat 9y ago
    In some sense "more urbanization faster" does solve some of the problems here. But keep in mind you'd be transplanting people away from their social support networks into a higher cost of living area with a different economic composition, and there are costs (and risks) to all of that, especially if families are involved. If we paid for moving, housing, childcare, retraining, job placement, and frequent travel expenses back to keep up connections between children and extended family it'd make it trivial. Though you could probably just UBI people where they stand and it'd be cheaper.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  How does making cars less efficient help the rural poor?
squarefoot 9y ago
"Make America dirty again"? In due time possibly the entire world since air knows no borders.
reacweb 9y ago
Introduction of new regulations is a common strategy to favor old players against newcomers for two reasons: newcomers are less informed about future regulation changes and often have less R&D and budget to evolve quickly. Politics are happy because old players will give them money to pass these regulations and it is easy to pretend that they are good for the people.
- patentatt 9y ago
  Exactly! This is a ploy by them sneaky liberals of the democrat party to pay back their wealthy donors in the fossil fuel industry and shield incumbent carmakers like GM and Ford from the existential threat that is Tesla. It’s genius!
- dexterdog 9y ago
  I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this kind of sensibility on HN.
spodek 9y ago
The atmosphere is a commons and this situation is the tragedy of the commons. In the language of the classic sheep-grazing commons, each player has incentive to put an extra sheep in the commons -- that is, to defect. Everyone loses, but that player benefits in the short term. With cars, by defecting -- that is, allowing its car makers to sell less-regulated cars -- the U.S. gets to sell more profitable cars, despite polluting the atmosphere for everyone else (and, shortsightedly, us too).

crooked-v 9y ago

The goals of the Republican party have been reduced to "do whatever makes liberals angry, even if it means shooting yourself in the foot".

petre 9y ago
How is tight regulation "liberal"?
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  In USA "liberal" means both "progressive" and "libertarian", because we are dumb at politics. Sorry.
  - nl 9y ago
    liberal doesn't mean libertarian in the US.
- unchocked 9y ago
  It means something different in American political culture. The American right has successfully framed liberalism as illiberalism, and illiberalism as "freedom". Classical liberals of course do not believe in positive rights. The American right started calling progressives who believe in positive rights "liberal" because unconditional access to social services seems permissive to an authoritarian. Ignorance and spite then ran unchecked for a few generations and authoritarians now use liberal as a pejorative for anyone not on their spectrum, raising hope that the term may boomerang into correct usage. Authoritarians currently refer to authoritarianism as "freedom".

brobdingnagians 9y ago

Here are several thoughts, you may disagree with them, but they attempt to convey why some people would oppose these sorts of regulations: An easier to see example is with dishwashers and toilets. The new generation of toilets created by EPA regulations has made toilets that don't really flush very well and are more expensive than before; people end up flushing multiple times which then wastes water. You pay a premium for the privilege of a less effective toilet. Same thing happens with dishwashers; politicians aren't always very good at engineering constraints. Just because a law applies to all people in your country's market doesn't mean it is market friendly. You may be handicapping everyone equally, but still handicapping the engineering with regards to reality and physical constraints. If the US regulates itself into having a difficult time making or using working/economical cars, then other countries can more economically create better cars (which people would argue already happens; American cars have a terrible reputation) or having better transportation networks using better transportation. You could end up having really clean cars and horrifically expensive logistics. Maybe, maybe not, but just letting the market be more adaptive is usually a good course.

bpp 9y ago
Your toilet analogy is partially true but is incomplete. Toilets manufactured immediately after the regulations went into effect are in fact less effective. However, the industry innovated, improving previously inefficient bowl designs and creating other inventions that improve performance. Toilets manufactured today are at least as effective as those created before the regulations, and consume fewer natural resources (no small matter here in California where we're staring at drought again). Regulations may impose a cost, but they can often spur innovation and economic growth as well.
- coolso 9y ago
  > Toilets manufactured today are at least as effective as those created before the regulations I replaced my toilet with a new model 2 years ago. Was it the best of the best, no, but neither was my old one. Use of any amount of toilet paper with the new one = a mandatory double flush, every single time. Every so often a #1 with no TP will require a double flush as well. Yes I'm serious.

lend000 9y ago

The regulations were plain dumb -- a classic attempt by a bureaucratic working group signed off by the higher ups who have no idea how economic incentives work. The goal was to capture externalities -- so target the SOURCE of the externality (with a fuel tax). Raise the tax on emissions-producing fuel and provide rebates for validating certain standards regarding how efficient the fuel is burned. This way the tax applies equally to all polluters and doesn't create any unintended consequences in the market due to misaligned incentives. A higher fuel tax incentivizes not only fuel efficient vehicles but electric vehicles and renewable energy -- whichever is the most economically efficient. Instead, we have a misaligned incentive that will further prolong our dependence on hydrocarbon-burning cars. But of course, raising gas prices wouldn't be very politically expedient... Note: I am not defending the administration's decision as it was made for the wrong reasons and there is no replacement.

trendia 9y ago
Two different cars with the same mpg can have wildly different emissions. A fuel tax wouldn't discourage higher emissions, only lower mpg!
- tankerdude 9y ago
  True, but the super efficient ones must burn more cleanly, and realistically, they are trying to reduce CO2. And that is all dependent on how much fuel you burn. NOx emissions as well will differ as well but for the most part, a 20 mpg car will be much dirtier than a 50 mpg car.
  - davidgould 9y ago
    This is not quite right, one of the big tensions in designing combustion systems is the trade off of thermal efficiency (increased at higher combustion temperatures) against NOx generation (also increased at higher combustion temperatures).
  - falcolas 9y ago
    If this were true, motorcycles would be cleaner than every car out there. But tests have shown that - due to the reduced clean emissions tech in motorcycles - even though they consume the least fuel, they produce on the order of 10 to 1000x some of the nastier tail-pipe emissions.

kw71 9y ago

I personally don't really agree with regression in this area but more than one automotive engineer has told me that things have gotten to where the exhaust must be cleaner than the air taken in by the engine.

smileysteve 9y ago
This hyperbole doesn't really withstand the thought process; There is little reason that the exhaust shouldn't be cleaner than the air it is taking in. 1. There is an air filter that immediately takes out large particles (dust, dirt, mites, etc) 2. Emissions systems use hot wires to detect airflow precisely 3. O2 sensors readily adjusting fuel on the fly to ensure a complete burn. 4. A catalytic process using space metals that further ensures a clean burn Effectively, whether it's dusty, a cow has farted around you, or a chicken farm is producing ammonia; the modern ICE has the ability to detect this scenario and adjust faster that 8k times a second.
- headmelted 9y ago
  I know you have some solid points here, but all I can think about now is that we live in a world where a sensor exists that can detect cow farts at a rate of 8k per second.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  "here is little reason that the exhaust shouldn't be cleaner than the air it is taking in." And it isn't anyway. Just stand next to a running engine in a badly ventilated area for a while and you'll know that engine doesn't make things better.
  - kw71 9y ago
    Actually, if you run a modern engine in a closed garage now, your eyes won't burn, you won't choke and it won't kill you. While this is a stupid thing to do, the bad stuff is only coming out before it's warmed up (meaning closed loop and catalyst warm enough to function) and if you back your car into the garage you can tell the difference the first time you do a cold start.

brownbat 9y ago

I'm generally in favor of emissions regulations, but I think the devil's advocate is that: * raising the costs across the board for transportation may be neutral for competitors in that industry, but not for people who are consumers of transportation or employees in industries that rely on it * the rural poor spend a far larger percentage of their income on transportation than anyone else, and, * the rural poor are far more likely to hold jobs that are dominated by transportation costs So emissions regs could be seen as regressive. Of course we could counter that environmental harms are pretty regressive too--the health consequences are going to be the most extreme for the poor, especially given disparities in end of life care in the US. But improved health outcomes over decades are a tough consolation to someone on the edge of losing their home. Maybe the risk of lost jobs is incredibly small, but if someone's on the bubble, they are going to be more risk averse than you or me, and might push for policymakers to set the bar back a few steps just to be sure. What's the answer? I don't know. We want both clean air and good jobs, even in distressed areas. Programs that explicitly work towards both at the same time are going to be more hardened, more resilient against politicization.

fjsolwmv 9y ago
The answer is to give rural poor free bus tickets to join civilizations
- brownbat 9y ago
  In some sense "more urbanization faster" does solve some of the problems here. But keep in mind you'd be transplanting people away from their social support networks into a higher cost of living area with a different economic composition, and there are costs (and risks) to all of that, especially if families are involved. If we paid for moving, housing, childcare, retraining, job placement, and frequent travel expenses back to keep up connections between children and extended family it'd make it trivial. Though you could probably just UBI people where they stand and it'd be cheaper.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
How does making cars less efficient help the rural poor?

squarefoot 9y ago

"Make America dirty again"? In due time possibly the entire world since air knows no borders.

reacweb 9y ago

Introduction of new regulations is a common strategy to favor old players against newcomers for two reasons: newcomers are less informed about future regulation changes and often have less R&D and budget to evolve quickly. Politics are happy because old players will give them money to pass these regulations and it is easy to pretend that they are good for the people.

patentatt 9y ago
Exactly! This is a ploy by them sneaky liberals of the democrat party to pay back their wealthy donors in the fossil fuel industry and shield incumbent carmakers like GM and Ford from the existential threat that is Tesla. It’s genius!
dexterdog 9y ago
I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this kind of sensibility on HN.

spodek 9y ago

The atmosphere is a commons and this situation is the tragedy of the commons. In the language of the classic sheep-grazing commons, each player has incentive to put an extra sheep in the commons -- that is, to defect. Everyone loses, but that player benefits in the short term. With cars, by defecting -- that is, allowing its car makers to sell less-regulated cars -- the U.S. gets to sell more profitable cars, despite polluting the atmosphere for everyone else (and, shortsightedly, us too).