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Trump Unveils His Plan to Weaken Car Pollution Rules

40 points by okket 8y ago

pandasun 8y ago
Good, this environmental thing is getting out of control. When banning/taxing straws is the main concern for a political party you know it's not actually about the original issue anymore.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- talltimtom 8y ago
  The thing about the environment is that we have two interwoven battles. One for the minds of the people (in which banning draws is absolutely essential) and one for effective solutions (where straws don’t matter). It’s like fighting for tougher laws in hate crimes even if you know with certainty that it won’t lower the rate of offenses. It still has the effect of signaling to the wider population that the crime is serious and should be taken serious. So sure, savings some straws won’t save the environment. But we will never ever get anywhere if we stay in a world where people don’t even care about needlessly throwing out plastic every time they get a drink “just caus”. That mentality needs to change and laws in that direction are sorely needed.
nottorp 8y ago
I guess they want to make it illegal to sell anything but F-150s (with a shotgun included courtesy of the dealership).
hsljekskfh 8y ago
at this point all i can do is laugh.
josefresco 8y ago
This is "the argument" against fuel efficient cars. Although I think we all know what this is really about: "First, people who buy fuel-efficient vehicles will end up driving more, increasing the odds that they will get into a crash. Second, the fuel-efficient vehicles will themselves will be more expensive, slowing the rate at which people buy newer vehicles with advanced safety features. Third, automakers will have to make their cars lighter in response to rising standards, slightly hurting safety."
- carry_bit 8y ago
  VW made some really fuel efficient cars, but there was a scandal when it was discovered that they were too fuel efficient... /s
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I don't really understand why people of a certain political leaning take comfort in burning as much fossil fuel as possible and find all kinds of excuses to justify burning more fuel. I really don't get it.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    A huge chunk of the American electorate has given up on principles and is now in a sports mentality where the only goal is to beat the opposing team. This has been driven to extremes by eight years of a non-white President from that team. The opposing team is against pollution and favors fuel efficiency, thus they are for pollution and against fuel efficiency. That’s really all there is to it. Look up “rolling coal” for the purest expression of this sentiment.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      And the same people would nornally be shouting how more safety features are "job killing" but now that they can use them to burn more fuel they are all for them.
    - onyva 8y ago
      The “wining” team, this time, didn’t really win, now did they? They lost by 3 million votes. Without going into what Russia did to tip this elections, which were won by mere 70,000 votes in the 3 key states. This is for sure not your usual right vs left style of governing. It’s the right not accepting that they’ve lost. It’s the self righteousness of people who think they have the right to govern, no matter what.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        They won according to the rules of the game. Normal politics might say that they ought to govern from the middle given how narrowly they won. But with a team mentality, that makes no sense. It’s like saying the Super Bowl winners should share the trophy because they only won by one point and the other team ran the ball more yards. Does not compute.
ajmurmann 8y ago
It's incredibly hard to stay calm and reasonable in a discussion if someone is actively moving the entirety of mankind to the brink of destruction.
- gravis7777 8y ago
  Not for me. These rules are a welcome break from overregulation.
- hackerman9932 8y ago
  It's hard to be reasonable when discussing solutions for climate change with environmental alarmists as well.
rpiguy 8y ago
It is great news for the US car industry, as all of the big three are highly dependent upon the sale of trucks, SUVs, and larger cars. Glad to see this the 2012 rules were ridiculously stringent and burdensome and could ultimately put larger vehicles out of the consumers reach. A lot of people's jobs are at stake and the rust belt can't afford much more pain.
- 24gttghh 8y ago
  Good! We don't need those monstrosities on the road threatening everyone else, and pumping more pollution into our air.
24gttghh 8y ago
>The Trump administration contends that, by promoting the manufacture and sale of lighter cars, the Obama standards could lead to nearly 13,000 more auto fatalities. What is this madness‽ Light does not automatically equate to being unsafe. Edit: From: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-fuel-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-fuel-econom... ""This can potentially affect road safety in two big ways: On average, smaller, lighter vehicles can be worse at protecting their occupants in an accident. But lighter vehicles also cause less damage to other cars on the road. The big question is which effect dominates. Experts who have looked at this question have developed a rule of thumb: If automakers are mainly reducing the weight of their largest vehicles, like S.U.V.s and pickup trucks, then that makes the roads safer overall. But if manufacturers were to focus more on reducing the weight of their smallest passenger cars, that could be worse for overall auto safety, since those cars would be more vulnerable in crashes with bigger vehicles.""
- rpiguy 8y ago
  It does not, but in the past the calculations to derive these numbers take into account what happens when a small light car impacts a larger, heavier car as well as the probability of this kind of crash happening. Numbers like this are easily fungible too, the worst kind of statistics.
sandworm101 8y ago
It isnt as bad as a had thought. I had expected them to enforce a maximum, to insist that the average be kept lower and penalties applied to cars that didnt burn enough fuel. Those voices are out there.
0xcafecafe 8y ago
This was a good link in the article as well. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-cli...
tzs 8y ago
Question: if they succeed in stopping California from having more stringent pollution rules, could California partly work around that by making the annual registration fee for cars depend on their emissions so that high pollution cars would be penalized?

40 points by okket 8y ago

Good, this environmental thing is getting out of control. When banning/taxing straws is the main concern for a political party you know it's not actually about the original issue anymore.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
talltimtom 8y ago
The thing about the environment is that we have two interwoven battles. One for the minds of the people (in which banning draws is absolutely essential) and one for effective solutions (where straws don’t matter). It’s like fighting for tougher laws in hate crimes even if you know with certainty that it won’t lower the rate of offenses. It still has the effect of signaling to the wider population that the crime is serious and should be taken serious. So sure, savings some straws won’t save the environment. But we will never ever get anywhere if we stay in a world where people don’t even care about needlessly throwing out plastic every time they get a drink “just caus”. That mentality needs to change and laws in that direction are sorely needed.

nottorp 8y ago

I guess they want to make it illegal to sell anything but F-150s (with a shotgun included courtesy of the dealership).

hsljekskfh 8y ago

at this point all i can do is laugh.

josefresco 8y ago

This is "the argument" against fuel efficient cars. Although I think we all know what this is really about: "First, people who buy fuel-efficient vehicles will end up driving more, increasing the odds that they will get into a crash. Second, the fuel-efficient vehicles will themselves will be more expensive, slowing the rate at which people buy newer vehicles with advanced safety features. Third, automakers will have to make their cars lighter in response to rising standards, slightly hurting safety."

carry_bit 8y ago
VW made some really fuel efficient cars, but there was a scandal when it was discovered that they were too fuel efficient... /s
maxxxxx 8y ago
I don't really understand why people of a certain political leaning take comfort in burning as much fossil fuel as possible and find all kinds of excuses to justify burning more fuel. I really don't get it.
- mikeash 8y ago
  A huge chunk of the American electorate has given up on principles and is now in a sports mentality where the only goal is to beat the opposing team. This has been driven to extremes by eight years of a non-white President from that team. The opposing team is against pollution and favors fuel efficiency, thus they are for pollution and against fuel efficiency. That’s really all there is to it. Look up “rolling coal” for the purest expression of this sentiment.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    And the same people would nornally be shouting how more safety features are "job killing" but now that they can use them to burn more fuel they are all for them.
  - onyva 8y ago
    The “wining” team, this time, didn’t really win, now did they? They lost by 3 million votes. Without going into what Russia did to tip this elections, which were won by mere 70,000 votes in the 3 key states. This is for sure not your usual right vs left style of governing. It’s the right not accepting that they’ve lost. It’s the self righteousness of people who think they have the right to govern, no matter what.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      They won according to the rules of the game. Normal politics might say that they ought to govern from the middle given how narrowly they won. But with a team mentality, that makes no sense. It’s like saying the Super Bowl winners should share the trophy because they only won by one point and the other team ran the ball more yards. Does not compute.

ajmurmann 8y ago

It's incredibly hard to stay calm and reasonable in a discussion if someone is actively moving the entirety of mankind to the brink of destruction.

gravis7777 8y ago
Not for me. These rules are a welcome break from overregulation.
hackerman9932 8y ago
It's hard to be reasonable when discussing solutions for climate change with environmental alarmists as well.

rpiguy 8y ago

It is great news for the US car industry, as all of the big three are highly dependent upon the sale of trucks, SUVs, and larger cars. Glad to see this the 2012 rules were ridiculously stringent and burdensome and could ultimately put larger vehicles out of the consumers reach. A lot of people's jobs are at stake and the rust belt can't afford much more pain.

24gttghh 8y ago
Good! We don't need those monstrosities on the road threatening everyone else, and pumping more pollution into our air.

24gttghh 8y ago

>The Trump administration contends that, by promoting the manufacture and sale of lighter cars, the Obama standards could lead to nearly 13,000 more auto fatalities. What is this madness‽ Light does not automatically equate to being unsafe. Edit: From: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-fuel-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-fuel-econom... ""This can potentially affect road safety in two big ways: On average, smaller, lighter vehicles can be worse at protecting their occupants in an accident. But lighter vehicles also cause less damage to other cars on the road. The big question is which effect dominates. Experts who have looked at this question have developed a rule of thumb: If automakers are mainly reducing the weight of their largest vehicles, like S.U.V.s and pickup trucks, then that makes the roads safer overall. But if manufacturers were to focus more on reducing the weight of their smallest passenger cars, that could be worse for overall auto safety, since those cars would be more vulnerable in crashes with bigger vehicles.""

rpiguy 8y ago
It does not, but in the past the calculations to derive these numbers take into account what happens when a small light car impacts a larger, heavier car as well as the probability of this kind of crash happening. Numbers like this are easily fungible too, the worst kind of statistics.

sandworm101 8y ago

It isnt as bad as a had thought. I had expected them to enforce a maximum, to insist that the average be kept lower and penalties applied to cars that didnt burn enough fuel. Those voices are out there.

0xcafecafe 8y ago

This was a good link in the article as well. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-cli...

tzs 8y ago

Question: if they succeed in stopping California from having more stringent pollution rules, could California partly work around that by making the annual registration fee for cars depend on their emissions so that high pollution cars would be penalized?