{"id":22622,"date":"2010-11-08T09:13:54","date_gmt":"2010-11-08T16:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=22622"},"modified":"2010-11-08T09:13:54","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T16:13:54","slug":"mileage-rules-prompt-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=22622","title":{"rendered":""Mileage Rules Prompt Backlash""},"content":{"rendered":"

Baby steps<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Less than two years ago, the heads of the Detroit Three auto makers\u2014 General Motors, Chrysler Group and Ford Motor\u2014 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.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The battle over long-term fuel-economy standards could be the most intense yet.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

That could put the fleet-average standard at as high as 62 mpg in 2025.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

The alliance added that at the very least, the price of a car would increase $4,448 under the 62-mpg rule.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> through bureaucratic agencies, most notably the EPA<\/a>, and most likely through the Clean Air Act<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n

Al Gore must have a tingle up his leg.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the GOP in the House should now be able to block such an attempt by stripping the EPA of authority<\/a>, or else defunding the agency — forcing the Senate to block them, or the President to veto.<\/p>\n

I look forward to those<\/em> hearings. The ones where the science is shown to be “settled.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Obama, though, is a true believer, so he might not go down without a solid fight.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> at all: just some horsetrading over interests and favors. Hardly surprising when one frees himself from principles.<\/p>\n

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<\/i>, after all…<\/p>\n

(thanks to TerryH)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baby steps: 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<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9196393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}