Auto makers and car dealers, emboldened by rising profits and a more business-friendly Congress, say they will fight the Obama administration’s proposal to boost average new-car fuel economy to as much as 62 miles a gallon by 2025.
The auto makers’ main trade group accused regulators in documents filed last week of understating the costs by billions of dollars and suggested the industry might go to court over the issue.
It’s a fresh sign that the “go along to get along” approach some industries took during the first two years of the Obama administration is over.
Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry’s main trade group, said he expects the new Republican-controlled House to review “regulations and policies that they would deem harmful to the overall business environment.” He noted that the auto industry is the only sector currently regulated for carbon-dioxide emissions.
Less than two years ago, the heads of the Detroit Three auto makers— General Motors, Chrysler Group and Ford Motor— pleaded before Congress for immediate government aid to prevent an industry collapse. Months later, in the middle of the government’s bailout efforts for GM and Chrysler, industry executives signed a deal with the White House and California agreeing to boost fuel-economy standards nearly 35% by 2016 in return for California’s agreement not to develop its own, separate fuel-economy rules.
[…]
The battle over long-term fuel-economy standards could be the most intense yet.
Industry officials have recoiled from a White House proposal that the average fuel-economy standards for new vehicle fleets rise by between 3% and 6% annually from 35.5 mpg in 2016.
That could put the fleet-average standard at as high as 62 mpg in 2025.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department said that the new rules could raise the price of a model-year 2025 car by between $770 and $3,500 but that consumers would buy them because they would recoup that added expense through fuel savings.
The Auto Alliance says the administration’s assumptions are based on faulty methods for predicting oil prices, the costs of electric-vehicle battery technology, consumer preferences and other factors.
The Alliance also pointed to recent U.S. sales patterns, which suggest that relatively affordable gasoline has encouraged consumers to buy pickups, sport-utility vehicles and larger cars and to walk past a new crop of high-mileage compacts from Detroit brands.
“If the economics for high fuel-economy vehicles is so overwhelming, why do so few consumers today choose to buy high fuel-economy vehicles?” the letter asks.
The alliance added that at the very least, the price of a car would increase $4,448 under the 62-mpg rule.
The National Automobile Dealers Association warned that the “economic risks associated with such speculation are simply too great,” and that the proposal could lead to job losses.
The EPA said in a statement that it agreed with the auto industry on the need for a single national standard and that it welcomed input on the 62-mpg proposal.
Cap and trade is effectively dead as a legislative action, but don’t think for a moment that means the progressives don’t plan on attempting backdoor implementation through bureaucratic agencies, most notably the EPA, and most likely through the Clean Air Act (with the “science” suddenly arguing that CO2 — what we exhale and what plants live on — is a pollutant). In fact, the President continues to hint at such a plan.
Al Gore must have a tingle up his leg.
Fortunately, the GOP in the House should now be able to block such an attempt by stripping the EPA of authority, or else defunding the agency — forcing the Senate to block them, or the President to veto.
I look forward to those hearings. The ones where the science is shown to be “settled.”
That the auto industry is sensing that it now has the power to defend itself against Obama’s imperial presidency is a small sign that businesses might be willing to poke their heads out of the ground and check around for their shadows.
This would be the first tiny step on the road to recovery — and dialing back the environmental regulation bureaucracy that has been used by progressives to justify the debilitation of US industry, is an important step to beating back Cloward-Piven, and thwarting at least one avenue of assault the left is using to try to crash the US economy in advance of a move to democratic socialism.
Obama, though, is a true believer, so he might not go down without a solid fight.
Which is why we’re watching, GOP. Especially that group of you who like so much to “compromise” — because to you, there’s no compromise at all: just some horsetrading over interests and favors. Hardly surprising when one frees himself from principles.
Those just complicate matters, and demand the kind of fidelity that people like Princess Lindsey and Maverick John simply don’t have time for. They’re too busy leading, after all…
(thanks to TerryH)
California is a pioneer in the use of environmental regulation bureaucracy to effect the debilitation of industry.
America should remember this when California comes a begging.
I love it when legislatures legislate/mandate something that is not currently in existence, and will not be in the foreseeable future.
All the same, they caved in to get a bailout. I’m tempted to think they should be told, that’s the price paid for all the freebies. Then exempt everyone else.
I actually welcome these changes.
I drive a Tundra with a 5.7 L engine that just sucks up the fuel. I want you bitches in your little tiny care to conserve so gasoline prices stay low. Plus I can more easily intimidate you on the highways.
Win win.
Start stockpiling spare parts Joe.
Related. Sorta.
ba ahhh ahhhhaaa hhaaaa
California is a pioneer in the use of environmental regulation bureaucracy to effect the debilitation of industry.
America should remember this when California comes a begging.
Peshaw. Look what “green jobs” have done for Michigan.
green jobs green jobs what you gonna do
what you gonna do when they come for you
up in the morning and out to school
the teacher is teaching the green rule
American history and practical math
u study hard, hoping to pass
working ur fingers down to the bone
and the guy behind u wont leave u alone
Ring Ring goes the bell!
America should remember this when California comes a begging.
You’re of course talking about our ever-stoned slut-whore of a daughter who takes all comers and takes them all. And then comes back home, her cooter so reamed out she can keep her one change of clothes in it, begging for another $20 so she can get a hit of meth and then back to tender and generous sex with the next illegal immigrant. That California?
to live in die in l.a.
great movie!
I love it when government idiots try to mandate technological marvels through legislation. In fact, not just marvels, but impossibilities. To get that kind of mileage a car would have to be very light, and it would never pass government safety standards as they currently exist.
Here’s a thought: if you want to stop being dependent on foreign oil, drill a lot more here where we have a shitload of it, and build nuke plants until the whole country glows. I won’t believe they’re serious until then.
It’s not about foreign oil or pollution or any of the other dozen reasons they’ve given over the years — it’s about making cars so very crappy and unsafe and unsexy and unfun that we stupid blinkered hilljack suburbanite squares stop loving ’em so much. It’s about making trains look good by comparison.
Think I’m kidding?
Cranky – there is a state that is trying to mandate 12-15 year insured warranties on some of our products, when their expected life span is only 8-10 years. It is insane. So we will just quit offering products in that state, or at least double the price to cover for the likelihood of a warranty claim in the 10-15 year window.
Stimulus makes you get green jobs! Just look what half a billion does: Solyndra scrapping expansion plans
What a difference a year makes.
Squid – they are probably angry that cars have gotten so powerful and fast and still pass pollution standards. There are 500 hp cars that get over 20 mpg on the highway. My 428 Mustang was lucky to get 15.
JD – I wonder if you can charge more just in a given State, or if you have to charge everyone more to cover the warranty cost. It might make more sense to just not sell in that State. Whatever happened to “let the buyer beware?” Ralph Nader needs to be beaten within an inch of his life.
So, “green” technology that is state-subsidized isn’t sustainable in a free market? Get outta here!
Not that we have any free markets left in this country, but you know what I mean.
Cranky – I suspect that since our jobs are priced accord to a variety of factors, it would be hard for it to be tagged just to one state. However, the bids going out this week are crazy high, and are in line with our competition, from what I have seen. Nobody will likely walk away from the market altogether, too many projects. But the pricing will reflect the risk.
Having said that, the same people that are putting these mandates in place are the same people that would impose price controls, and wail and gnashing teeth and rend garments over the unfair treatment. See, Sebelius.
Heartening, but I’m still not going to buy a Lada/GM or a Yugo/Chrysler.
Increasingly you’ll see business leaders willing to stand up to the Obamites. But, as SSgt RTO noted, most were all too willing to roll over previously; a reminder of how they were so easily able to be extorted by big labor over all those years. Too much of an “Eff the future, do what need to be done for the bottom line right now!11!1!” mentality.
As many have noted, the idea that one can legislate innovation is ridiculous. And Pablo’s link underscores the “green jobs” connivance that Carin alluded to as well; I’m thinking that Solyndra need to pay back some of the free money they got if they’re not going through with what they promised-although in fairness to them they never entered any binding agreements or anything. Tt was a grant; so their “promises” only gave preening politicians something to ballyhoo for a moment in time.
And demonstrates what can go on when government picks the winners and losers.
There was an article in the local rag this weekend about the comissioning into service of a new solar farm outside of San Antonio. They did a comparison of the cost to produce a MW by different technology from Coal to wind to solar. I think solar costs about $300/MWH to produce about 5 times more than coal not to mention natural gas which is even cheaper. However what they ALWYAYS leave out is Nuclear, which on an energy conversion ratio is thousands of times cheaper than even natural gas. Far outstripping the cost of spent fuel storage.
So how about nuclear powered cars? HOw about congress incentive that? Has anyone seen the ads for Virgin Galactic yet? I have.
[…] Visit link: “Mileage Rules Prompt Backlash” […]
Economics by decree.
I case you haven’t noticed in order to get better mileage cars have become smaller and lighter.
Engineering has wrung just about all the economy from the internal combustion engine that can be done with todays materials. They are about as small and light now as they’re going to get and still be safe. I say safe guardedly because there are some little two seat econocoffins out there that just lack pall bearer handles.
Direct injection of fuel into the combustion chamber (as is done with diesels, though with gasoline a spark plug is still used to ignite the fuel) is the next Big Thing for gasoline engines. It will squeeze some more mileage out of gasoline engines, as will improvement in the technology that shuts down cylinders under light loads, but I agree that we’re getting pretty close to the limit.
The lightweight and high-revving diesels coming out of Europe will increase the average mileage as well. However, the mileage points they want to achieve pretty much violate the second law of thermodynamics for cars as they are now. Most motorcycles don’t get mileage of that order, except for those with very small displacement, and they don’t carry around a protective shell like a car does. If you want motorcycles with lightweight bodies that keep off the rain and wind, and that’s about it, it can be done, but the death toll will rise quite a bit.
speaking of the oil and the Cloward and the Piven, this morning on propaganda whore Viv Schiller’s National Soros Radio we were witness to a spectacular propaganda fail… it was awful.
We were a lot assured in gravely dulcet dulcetly grave National Soros Radio propaganda whore tones…
But David Uhlmann, a former environmental crimes prosecutor who now teaches at the University of Michigan Law School, is closely following the oil spill investigation.
“Proving that there was negligence on the criminal side, proving that there was an oil spill on the civil side, these are relatively easy matters for them to prove, based on what we already know,” Uhlmann said.
Uhlmann says criminal charges against BP and Transocean, which operated the rig, could be a foregone conclusion. The only real issue, he says, is how much the companies will pay to settle allegations they released oil into the Gulf.*
Holy Erf Crimes Baman!
Not so fast there, Robin.
and Transocean stock – the company for which NPR assured us “criminal charges” were a “foregone conclusion?”
+4.85%, which is many… and I ask you, if you can’t trust propaganda from propaganda whore Viv Schiller’s National Soros Radio, whose propaganda can you trust?
oh. par 3-5 were supposed to be blockquotey
Not to mention their carrying capacity is, shall we say, limited.
Actually, a high-mpg “car” would have to be three-wheelers because riding a two-wheeler requires a lot of attention to keep from getting yourself killed, but they still wouldn’t be much more than a lightweight frame to hold the engine/transmission and the seats, and to mount the body. They would also be noisy, and like Jim says, you won’t be hauling anything in it beyond groceries. And, of course, lots more people would die.
However, to please our nanny-state overlords, it might be worth it!
On the plus side, it’s going to be fun to watch people load bags of concrete and sheets of 3/4″ plywood into them at Home Depot.
I wish they would mandate really cheap 72″ 4D television sets for taxpayers.
4D TV?
Sounds like something out of a Twighlight Zone episode.
Fat fingers … Regardless, since they are mandating things, they should at least do something worthwhile.
JD-I wasn’t sure if it was a typo or intended to be illustrative of the technological difficulties of the mpg regs. I mean, we might as well have flying cars and four dimensional TV.
Why stop at 62 mpg? Why not 100? And raise the minimum wage to $100/hr. And we’ll all be farting through silk!
Hell yeah! And let’s have some free Bubble-Up and rainbow stew while we’re at it!