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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.
by 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 agoTwo different cars with the same mpg can have wildly different emissions. A fuel tax wouldn't discourage higher emissions, only lower mpg!
- tankerdude 9y agoTrue, 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 agoThis 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 agoIf 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.
- trendia 9y agoThe same is true for lawnmowers, leafblowers, and snowblowers.
- lend000 9y agoHence the part about rebates for efficient emissions -- the base fuel tax should cover the maximum economic impact.
- brownbat 9y agoAgree in part, but note that tailpipes are only responsible for a small fraction of vehicular PM10 and PM2.5.[0] Tailpipes provide the greenhouse gases, but the EPA regs were about local pollution, which is driven by tire breakdown, road surface breakdown, brake pads, and overwhelmingly, an interesting process called "resuspension." Resuspension is related to vehicle weight, traffic flow patterns, and city road treatments. So agree the regs were "dumb," and agree we might want a pigouvian tax on underlying sources, but if we want to solve for local pollution, we also need some different set of regs that work on "total emissions" instead of "tailpipe emissions." [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223101630187X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223101...
- KozmoNau7 9y agoFuel taxes are very regressive, as are all other consumption taxes. They hit the poor and underprivileged disproportionately hard.