Yesterday, president Obama announced emission standards which he said would raise the cost of automobiles by $1300.
While the new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks will save billions of barrels of oil, they are expected to cost consumers an extra 1,300 US dollars per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016. Mr Obama said the fuel cost savings would offset the higher price of vehicles in three years.
His remarkable comment caught my attention, because one of the primary purposes of Obama’s “cap and trade” plan is to massively raise the cost of fuel. There aren’t going to be any fuel cost savings. In fact, Mr. Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle last year that he actually intends to bankrupt coal fired power plants using cap and trade:
You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.
Two automobile companies are already going bankrupt, so I think we should take Mr. Obama’s words seriously.
I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax, not any of your taxes.
WASHINGTON – Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.
Audacity indeed. The assumption seems to be that no one remembers what was said last week.
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Smokey: small point: the BMW plant is in South Carolina. Spartanburg. They built my little Z3 (34 mpg hwy). 12 years ago, and still going. (take that, pink bunny)
Governments can mandate anything. They can repeal the law of gravity.
Not that it will change anything. If you have a toy car with a zillion airbags and you get hit by a big ol’ truck going the opposite direction, you die. F=MA (for the non-math types, you get a huge amount of -A. You have less M than the truck, so you get a boatload of -F, taking you through the airbag, steering wheel, windshield, etc.)
Since the administration has already spent the revenue from Cap & Trade (look at the budget projections), there will be no benefit to the folks paying for it. Everything will get more expensive. It all uses fuel at some point, if only to get it from There to Here.
I gave up on defensive driving years ago. Now: Paranoid Driving. They are crazy and they are out to get you. It will only get worse. And inflation to make us long for the days when Jimmy was president.
I don’t need times quite this interesting.
Aron (08:46:39) :
Watch Britain’s idiot brainwashed youth..
I agree with the general sentiment, but I think it’s a bit hard on the children who, after all, are meant to absorb what their teachers tell them! The idiots are the brainwashers…
jon (09:30:34) :
“I don’t put much faith in the role of AGW with respect to climate but I DO believe in conservation … oil supplies are rapidly dwindling … it is crazy and totally irresponsible to treat oil as if it were a renewable resource! I think Obama is on the right track here. It seems a shame that some people on this site are more concerned about the cost of gas than they are about future generations!”
jon,
I understand why you would believe that myth since the MSM and certain politicians continually push this mis-information as part of their anti oil agenda. I agree with your support for conservation, but the oil is not running out.
Others have provided references documenting that oil peak predictions have been historically totally wrong and continue to be wrong. In the past, even the oil companies thought oil was going to run out and they spent fortunes looking for alternative energies. I worked on coal conversion technologies in the 80’s and this is viable technology. Cheap oil from the middle east killed these projects. Today it would not pass the artificial “carbon” test.
I also worked on the Alberta tar sands in the late 70’s and there are still massive oil reserves in Canada, some say equivalent to Saudi. Did you know that congress is trying to restrict use of oil from the tar sands because of carbon restrictions? This will impact importing oil from friendly Canada and force increased use of oil from unfriendly nations. How stupid is congress to treat our largest oil supplier this way!! The Chinese will move in.
For the USA, the current dependence on foreign oil is created by the politicians refusal to allow us to exploit our own resources. There are huge untapped resources in AMWR, offshore and other locations. Salazar recently cancelled exploration leases approved by Bush. No other country imposes such restrictions. The CO2 emissions control has become the mantra, and often this given as the reason not to allow oil and gas exploration in the US mainland or offshore. However, would it not make sense for us to at least replace foreign oil from unfriendly countries with our own oil? In effect the politicians and the environmental folks have artifically created a shortage which negatively affects our economy/lifestyle and may have caused the current recession. If you believe in AGW this might be justified, but I am a skeptic. In fact while in the Senate, Obama sponsored a bill to restrict the use of latest technologies to determine and map out the potential for finding oil throughout promising areas of the US including offshore. That tells the story for me.
Finally, as an engineer, I am appalled at the claim by the Pols and the MSM that ethanol and liquid fuels from other cellulosic materials will supply us with a meaningful amount of motor fuels. While I have been enjoying a stimulus consulting on these projects, it is irresponsible and suicidial to depend on this costly and unproven technology. From what I have seen, these technologies are years away and most of the taxpayers money is not being spent wisely. The Department of Energy does not have the in house skills to select viable research projects. The money is just being shoveled out!!
I am concerned about future generations and believe those who place their faith in unproven renewable energies (except for Nuclear) are risking the future of my children and grandchildren. The chemistry, thermodynamics, or economics just don’t add up. Study the Ethanol from corn facts and see the mess that the politicians have created.
“I don’t need times quite this interesting”
LOL! Me neither.. 🙂
John Galt (11:47:36) said :
As I understand, this really isn’t a tax increase because you will be reimbursed for the cost through increased government services.
ROFLMAO!
I am from the government, I am here to partly undo what we just did, due to the fact that you are in a Targeted Group. Minus a service charge, of course, plus we keep the accumulated “interest”, oh, and there’s a User’s Fee on that (NOT A TAX!).
To paraphrase Dutch Reagan, the best and the brightest have never worked for government; if they did, the private sector would steal them.
[snip]
Reply: While I don’t necessarily disagree with your sentiment here, that kind of talk is really endless fuel for critics of this blog and I’d rather not give them that kind of present on a silver platter. ~ charles the moderator
‘Roads’ must be one of those 16 years olds who aren’t aware of anything about the economy more than 4 years ago because he was climbing trees and playing lego at the time. Take it easy on him. Lots of kids think everything from thunder to flu is Bush’s fault.
A Note To Our Brethren Across The Pond.
Please take notice of what is happening to the country, the United Kingdom (!) which basically gave birth to yours. We are bankrupt; our politicians have been exposed as irredeemably corrupt and our Socialist government, whilst on its knees, is still prepared to pour money it does not have into schemes such as this:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8046002.stm
The ‘changes’ to the government budget were made to pour BILLIONS of pounds of tax-payer’s money into a European mega-corporation which is 40% owned by Abu Dhabi.
Presently on a 9-5 working day I labour until 1:37pm just to pay tax. This is going to rise (without a fiscal miracle) to my having to work until almost 3:00pm before I start to earn any money for myself. Why? Because of our Socialist government’s infatuation with insane schemes such as the one I pointed out above.
Their infatuation does not end with the wind, far from it. The Severn River tidal bore is recognised as a natural wonder. We are going to destroy it (as well as large areas upon which vast amounts of wild-life depend) in order to generate vote-earning ‘green’ power. The Planning Commission has said “No” to this scheme but that has no binding effect on the government.
Our ‘cap-and-trade’ system has been shown to be a total market failure so the government is now prepared to designate an artificial price on a per-ton-of-CO2 permit in order to try and make the failed scheme miraculously come to life in an economic cycle which has a long way to go before it touches bottom.
Please would the USA do something to stop this juggernaut of insanity from destroying our relatively civilised way of life? The British voter can’t help, we have been rendered superfluous to the decision-making process.
You voters in the USA could find yourselves in a very similar situation much faster than you think.
GM for years has been making cars which are comparatively crap compared to Toyota, Mazda, Nissan: companies who basically have the compact/midsize market sewn up.
GMs ‘competence’ is in big vehicles. But, because of government regulations a company, any company, cannot solely make such vehicles for consumers. They are covered under the CAFE standards (there are some exceptions). Additionally, GM has strived to not pay any fines for not meeting the CAFE regulations. BMW, Porsche, and a few others consistently pay fines (totaling millions of dollars) each year because they do not meet the CAFE standards. Ironically, these companies are reasonably healthy. It’s the cost of doing business.
GM should have gone into bankruptcy years ago. GM should go into bankruptcy NOW instead of this idiocy we are experiencing. This will allow people who have no vested interest in the company to simply determine the best financial future for the company – it’d be a cruel harsh cut, but is far more preferable to this slow lingering death by a blunt and rusty spoon.
Forcing people to buy new cars? Give me a break! Even with a ’97 Suburban (arguably one of the least fuel efficient cars), changing it out for a ’09 Prius (arguably one of the most fuel efficient cars), it’d be over 10 years just to break even. The economics just doesn’t make sense.
You also have to think: who is taking advantage of this $1300 ‘savings in gas’? Those that can afford to do so. That is, the ‘rich’ get a loop hole (which it isn’t), while the poor, *sigh*, once again get nothing.
If the energy company is pushed with fees, they are, quite obviously passed onto consumers. Only when the fees plus the cost of running a coal plant exceeds the cost of implementing an alternative energy source, will the energy company transfer over to that source. Regardless, the cost is borne by the consumer and will never go down. Once again, those who have the finances to invest in higher efficiency will do so, lessening their ‘penalty tax’; those that can’t will bear the full brunt.
James P (13:09:23) said :
As for cars, the same rules apply – a 10-year old large car will carry on working for much longer than a 10-year old small one, yet paradoxically will be cheaper (I’m assuming this is the same in the US).
Yup. Sure is. Our cheapest car is a 1994 Mercedes E-420 (nice 4-cam V8, thanks). Only 20-21 mpg, but no deprecitaion to speak-of, and I ain’t afraid of any stinkin’ Prius. In fact, I make an effort to downshift when I pull up along side one, just so they can hear what a well balanced V8 in full throat is supposed to sound like.
Back during the OPEC-driven oil crunch in the ’70’s, Lee Iacocca famously said “Americans want fuel economy, and will pay anything to get it.”
The underlying truth is that people are increasing INNUMERATE, that is, incapable of understanding NUMBERS. Not “maths” as the Brits like to say, such as calculus, or differential equations or even the the quadratic equation.
ARITHMETIC!
If folks COULD have done the maths, half the subprime mortgages would never have been issued, folks wouldn’t be buying cars every couple of years, and MAYBE a few more folks would be skeptical of AGW.
Could GE’s interest in wind-power technology have something to do with Immelt’s support for AGW?
Rhetorical question, I know.
(Apologies if already posted above; haven’t had time to read whole thread yet.)
/Mr Lynn
Obama is not responsible for the two automakers going bankrupt; he’s responsible for them not going bankrupt. Bankruptcy is the market’s way of correcting particularly stupid and egregious behaviours by companies. Bankruptcy clears the financial air, allows restructuring, punishes investors who guessed wrong, spreads the cost of the failure among those who had intended to profit and moves the situation forward. GM executives, particularly, were wrong to sell out to the UAW, beginning many years ago. It’s going to be interesting, but costly, to watch the union run GM with Obama-in-chief at the wheel.
The mendacity of hope
Aron (08:46:39) :
“Watch Britain’s idiot brainwashed youth.”
Presumably the winners of the “What’s Global Warming Mean to You?” contest will be *walking* to Copenhagen.
And this is an excellent example of the term “parroting.”
There are a few south american political formulas you have not yet tried 🙂
The U.S. is heading toward the same place that the formerly Great Britain is already at:
Can you imagine telling someone twenty years ago that by 2009, it would be illegal to smoke at a bus shelter or in your own vehicle? Or that there would be £80 fines for dropping a cigarette butt? Or that using the words “tequila slammer” would be illegal? Or that the government would mandate at what precise angle a drinker’s head in an advertisement could be tipped at? Or that it would be illegal to criticise religions, or homosexuality, or to rewire your own house even with inspections? Or that having sex after a few drinks would be presumed to be rape? Or that the State would be confiscating children for being overweight? Imagine telling someone twenty years ago that in 20 years the government would be proposing ration cards for fuel, and even for food, and that every citizen would be required to carry an ID card filled with private information, and the card could be confiscated and read at the State’s whim. They’d have thought you were paranoid.
But that’s the Great Britain of today. And that’s where the new president and Congress are taking the U.S.
Obama didn’t win the election in a landslide. It was a fairly close election, even though there could not have been a weaker opponent than old John McCain. Yet the inexperienced Obama acts like an arrogant bully who has been given the right to do whatever he pleases, whether the citizens like it or not. He should recall Thomas Jefferson’s dictum: “Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.”
Don S,
Obama spent September through February telling the world that the US was “in the worst shape since the Great Depression.” During that time, the stock market lost 45% of it’s value.
What impact might the loss of several trillion dollars worth of market capitalization and consumer confidence have had on the automakers?
“Honey, the President says the economy is falling apart, let’s go buy a car.”
Mike Bryant (10:28:27) :
/sarc on/ From New Orleans:
Many states are starting to look at secession.
Been there, done that. Didn’t turn out so hot for the ones that tried it first, regardless of their motivations. I would predict similar results for future attempts. Imagine, if you will, one side allied with China, the other Russia, doing the ‘breaking things and killing people’ thing here, in this country. Good environment to develop new weapons, etc. Assuming of course that nuclear arms stay in the arsenals.
Not saying that would happen, but it is one scenario.
Kind of puts you in another frame of mind, considering how bad it might be in that kind of a twilight zone.
“Skeptic Tank (09:45:28) :
They can only go so far?!! … That is what Saddam thought… That pretty much covers everything.”
/sarc off/
Lots of outrage and pessimism expressed above for Crap and Charade. Oh, excuse me, I meant Cap and Trade.
But let’s not forget the good news about America: (a) We have an election every two years, (b) Laws can be changed, and (c) 50% of our population has above-average intelligence. These dark days need not last forever.
Our efforts toward a better tomorrow probably should include trying to influence our friends, families, and aqaintances, whether we (or they) like it or not.
Paul Revere (08:30:40) :
Welcome to the U.S.S.A
Oh, yes! Illustrations here as usual. 🙂
For younger generation – what Stalin said was prompty implemented. Or fiering squad was looming ahead…
In Yevrosoyuz called sometimes UESR (Union of Europe Socialist Republics) aka EU, the so called Commissioners were involved in setting length of cucumbers allowable to sell on European markets and in defining allowable banana’s curvature. No kidding! Presidet Obama will be soon absorbed in equally important matters concerning American people. Welcome in Commie Club and greetings from Poland (still deeply rooted in socialism).
Regards
Does anybody know how the Big 3, especially GM, made all those big trucks and SUVs while being regulated by the present CAFE rules?
Simple, the CAFE rules give ‘flexible fuel’ vehicles extra credit! All those big GM trucks and SUVs are E85-capable (‘green vehicles’) so they can get really bad gas mileage but still not put GM in violation of CAFE. BMW doesn’t have any flex-fuel vehicles, so they pay a fine every year.
So here’s one more reason to reject any more regulation. Each new regulation is just another opportunity for lobbyists and Congress to buy and sell favors.
If anybody really wants to cut down on oil consumption, the easiest and most direct way is a tax. Just keep the price of gasoline at the pump artificially high. Some experts suggest a retail floor price for gasoline, which means the tax varies in order to keep the average price at the pump stable.
BTW: I am not advocating any new or increased taxes.
——
@ur momisugly hareynolds (13:54:27) :
I wish I was joking about that, but I’m not.
Anyone remember what the unions supposedly added to the cost of a US car? Wasn’t it about $1,400? Wasn’t that added cost one of the “back breakers” of the US car industry?
How will adding another $1,400/car not simply add to the problem?
It looks like President Obama never saw a tax he didn’t like.
Didn’t he say he was just going to raise taxes on the rich? It must be just the rich that smoke, drive, and buy things.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/20/obama.economic.recovery/
Uh, you know … skyrocketing energy costs will definitely create a lot of jobs.
John Galt,
A direct tax would have to be really huge to raise the revenue that Obama’s proposals require, and if gas taxes pushed the price up to $8.00+ per gallon, people would certainly use much less. So the anticipated tax revenues would be less than expected.
Cap & Trade is a tax every step of the way, on every process that emits any CO2. Companies — and eventually individuals — will have to pay the government to emit a completely harmless, natural and beneficial substance that occurrs everywhere.
Cap & Trade covers all manufacturing, all transportation, and almost all services [maybe psychic card readers might escape Al Gore’s carbon credit scheme. If they don’t own a motor vehicle].
A direct tax at the well head or the gas pump would hit the citizenry too hard. But C&T is insidious; the frog won’t realize that the water’s getting hotter until it’s too late.
From Icecap.us
May 20, 2009
Global Warming Myth – A Call to Action
Dr. Edward F Blick, Retired Prof of Engineering and Meteorology, Univ. of Oklahoma
Waxman and the Dims are in a “full court press” to pass “Cap and Tax” in the next few days. They need to read the attached paper. It proves Global Warming is a Rotten Egg hatched by the UN, using Al Gore as their Joseph Goebbles. (if you tell a lie long enough and often enough, people start to believe it!)
Charts at the end of the paper, show that most of the high temperature records of all seven continents and Oceania were made before 1940! Between 1880 and 2000 the temperature in the U.S. rose about 0.3 deg. C. For this Waxman and his friends have got their “underwear in a wad” and want to waste trillions of dollars that will turn off the lights in America? Unbelievable!
The evidence of the warming we had in the 2Oth Century was because we were coming out of the Little Ice Age, which lasted from 1300 Ad until the early 1800s. Our Sun was more active in the 20th Century than it had been for thousands of years. There is no man-made global warming! Unfortunely during this past 9 years our Sun has done a 180, and we have entered a cooling phase. All sorts of snow and ice records have set. Glaciers have started growing a gain in Alaska! There has been a drastic reduction in sun spots and solar magnetic storms. The sun seems to be mimicking what occurred in The Little Ice Age. How long will this global cooling last. Some Solar weather experts are predicting the cooling phase may last a decade, or a half century or more. In any event, our government should be listening to real experts and start planning in the event this global cooling continues. More people die from cold than from heat! During The Little Ice Age millions died from famines and diseases. It doesn’t take much cooling to kill off croplands in Canada, northern U.S. and northern Europe.
Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant, as some members of our government claim. It is aerial fertilizer for plants. CO2 is presently about 385 ppm, but it was up to 450 ppm in the 1940s and the early 1800s. If CO2 drops to 200 ppm, plants get sick, and if it drops to 160 ppm, the plants die. Humans can tolerate CO2 levels up to 50,000 ppm . Sailors in US submarines live and work in 8000 -1000 ppm CO2 levels. Greenhouse growers for 100 years have been enriching greenhouse atmospheres with 1000 ppm CO2 levels to increase their yield. The increase atmospheric CO2 levels in the 20th Century greatly increased crop yields and tree growth. If congress decides to sequester CO2 (pump it into old oil or gas wells) they will lose the farmers votes and consumers, when crops fail and food prices skyrocket!
CO2 is being used as a phony excuse to kill off the use of coal and oil. Oil was discovered in 1859. at about the same time we started using coal. In 70 years America went from living like “Little house on the Prairie”, (horse and buggy, outhouses no electricity) to planes, trains and automobiles, electricity and indoor plumbing! In just 70 years we built the most highly developed civilization that ever existed.! Why…because we discovered an extremely high concentration of energy in a small package, oil and coal. Folks we can’t run our civilization on windmills. solar panels or biofuels! windmill can hardly make enough energy to make a windmill. I know about windmills, having developed a new type of windmills back in the 1970s. I’ve also built my own solar panels. These thing are useful in some very restricted, isolated areas, but they are never going to replace coal and oil. Any politician who says otherwise is a snake oil salesman and is planning on destroying civilization as we know it. We will be back using horses for transportation, Will the CO2 emanating from trillions of tons of horse dung on our streets cause global warming?Scientific illiteracy is part of the problem with Waxman and friends, but we know the big reason for their campaign to control carbon is….”If you control Carbon you Control the World”. (Richard Lindzen. Climatology Professor, MIT). Years ago Baltimore newsman H. L. Mencken wrote about Politics 101; “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by scaring them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Folks, we can stop this Trillion dollar bank robbery if enough of us contact our congressmen and inform them if they vote with Waxman on this bill we will work to get them defeated in the next election.