The EPA accused FCA of using software that can affect emissions test results. 104,000 Grand Cherokees and RAMs from 2014, 2015 and 2016 with diesels are involved. FCA says “Not us!” I guess we will see how this plays out.
and . . just by virtue of software being capable of such things . .
I’ll wager that . . .
EVERYONE has it in there in some manner.
they just haven’t been caught yet.
1 Like
The EPA will not be happy until all car manufacturers are gone.
I’m inclined to agree. Perhaps not happy until all HUMANS are gone! As long as we exist, we’ll have SOME impact on the environment.
I don’t think there is any merit to that belief. I happen to know that EPA employees own and drive cars. They’re not the tree-huggers they’re often portrayed as. They’re engineers and scientists enforcing laws, not granola crunching social warriors.
1 Like
OK, maybe your friends weren’t the ones that brought us the non-functional gas cans then either. You know, the ones that won’t leak fumes in the atmosphere, but also don’t allow filling a gas tank without spilling. But if they were engineers, they should go back and check their work.
3 Likes
I think it’s safe to surmise that the two different sides of this discussion will, as always, never reach a comfortable compromise. If allowed to by the contestants, it will as always become another multi-hundred post argument with no end.
This dance has been danced before… on more than one occasion. I think I’ll bow out of it. 
Do you have a malfunctioning gas can, fuel tank, or charcoal canister?
Year, make, and model, please. 
Seriously, I’ve never had a problem with the emissions systems in any of my cars or motorcycles, aside from a cracked exhaust manifold that happened to also be the catalytic converter on my Civic, and I blame Honda for that, not the EPA.
I own three 5 gallon Blitz gas cans that have nozzles that are supposed to prevent spilling. They also prevent any gas from being dispensed and if you keep trying to fill a car with them, the only gas that comes out goes on the ground instead of in the car.
When I tried to contact the company to see if they had an improved nozzle I found out they had gone out of business because of large trial awards because of people being burned by pouring gasoline on a fire. Idiots!
I now use the nozzles as caps ant take them off and pour into a funnel to fill things. I also ordered pop in plastic vents for these cans online so the will pour decently.
If anyone knows of a source for regular nozzles that will fit these cans I would be glad to hear of it.
1 Like
Why blame the EPA for a cheating company? We’ll see if FCA actually did something wrong, but VW sure did.
I got a new spout for a 2 gallon can at Menards. I forget what they called the package but something different than a gas spout I believe. Otherwise I think its sprucing up on junior high metal working skills to make a new spout.
I wasn’t looking for it at all but just by coincidence I saw a report tonight by a judge who has ordered the EPA to comply with their own legislation. Something like rule 321 that requires them to determine the impact of their rulings on jobs. It was in regard to the coal industry but the EPA has evidently been ignoring this legislative requirement for years. The judge gave them 14 days to comply but the EPA said it would take them two years or more to determine the methodology. The judgement is over 50 pages and not being a lawyer, prefer others to summarize it.
At any rate I wonder, if before the EPA can legitimately go after Chrysler now, whether or not they need to do a labor impact statement on possible lost jobs. You know, what’s good for the goose . . .
OK, here’s the link: https://ecf.wvnd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2014cv0039-293
I think just reading the background on page 2 give the gist of the deal.
The reason that we need agencies like the EPA is exactly the scenario that FCA, Volkswagen, and likely others to be announced soon have demonstrated. Huge companies, especially publicly traded ones, only care about profits. They do not care if their products poison the earth, kill you, or endanger your family. You may not like government regulation but you likely benefit from it everyday if you drive, fly, or eat. Long after us crusty old guys (and gals) are gone our children and grand children will live with our legacy of consumption and pollution. We should all support efforts to make this world better for all and stop being so cranky.
For what it’s worth, in all my years and millions of miles of travel, the only emissions failures I have had are one catalytic converter and four O2 sensors. If that is my cost of making the air we breath a better place then I can live with it.
4 Likes
Yeah, we need the EPA, but that’s not the same as saying we need to unquestioningly accept whatever edicts they hand down. It’s the “all or nothing fallacy”: if I don’t support every single goofy environmental edict offered…why, then I must want to dump Agent Orange in to the drinking water!
Right now, the EPA has passed increasingly draconian pollution laws that are putting people in my community out of work, and they refuse to perform any “cost/benefit analysis” to show if the costs of compliance exceed the objective benefits. I could see such a “gung-ho” mentality if there truly WERE a “crisis” of polluted air in the USA…but our air quality is better today that it’s ever been–we have the cleanest urban air since before the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
Here’s the local library, getting the soot cleaned off of it. It USED to be the case that stone work quickly got soot-stained: these days, it’s a solved problem: clean it off; it stays clean! I think it’s past time to ask ourselves why we are going to such extremes, acting as if the Law of Diminishing Returns wasn’t operative.
At some point, you need to say “good enough,” and ponder whether we could do more good for society by focusing our efforts elsewhere.
2 Likes
Congress enacts laws and the agencies put them into action. Any interpretations are subject to executive branch oversight, and ultimately congressional oversight. So many people beat on the lowly government workers when they just do what congress and the President tell them to do.
1 Like
What angered me most about what VW did was the lobbying. They tried hard to lie and tell us that diesel was “Clean diesel.” There are lobbyist and PR folks still trying to work that angle (even some writers) - they still put out press releases. Many auto writers reported what they thought were true facts about diesel only to find out later the clean part was based on lies. RAM has made a lot of noise about its 2WD truck having the best fuel “economy” in the market. If they cheated, and it is too soon to tell if that is the case yet, I hope they are punished to the full extent of the law - which is daunting if you read the Clean Air Act. I think it is fair to debate how much emissions we allow. However, once make that determination, companies that cheat should be shunned by consumers on top of the fines and other legal actions. Just my $0.02.
2 Likes
The only problem I’ve ever had with a piece of emissions equipment is when some jerk cut my cat off when I was parked away from home. I find it hard to blame the EPA for that.
Meanwhile, this picture of New York city:
And this picture of a factory in Houston burning old car batteries and belching the smoke into the air:
probably wouldn’t be able to be taken today in the USA because of the EPA. I’m more than OK with that.
However, if you still want to experience environments like that, off to Beijing with you, where lack of environmental regulations allowed this picture to be taken 3 years ago:
So, what kind of environment would you rather live in?
5 Likes
What a shame that the EPA is going to force a company to actually NOT break the law. How dare they!! Let’s just abolish ALL environmental laws so that there won’t be anyone breaking them.
3 Likes
When it comes to the EPA, that isn’t exactly accurate. When it comes to laws, there are three kinds: statutes (which are passed in the legislature), stare decisis (case law determined by the courts), and administrative laws (which are created by government agencies).
When Congress creates an agency, they often empower it to create administrative laws, and that’s why agencies like the EPA, OSHA, and the IRS can enact new rules or laws without approval from Congress. Congress (with the cooperation of the President, or with a veto-proof majority) can repeal the agencies’ administrative law-making powers anytime they want to, so it’s not as if these agencies are overstepping their constitutional authority, but federal agencies do often enact new laws of their own.
That picture from Beijing could be 3 days old.
2 Likes
Meanjoe, IMHO you’ve written an excellent and articulate argument clarifying a position that I’ve been trying to state for a very long time. I thank you and sincerely congratulate you on your post.
I know this statement will be controversial. As long as everything stated is focused on the issue at hand and don’t degrade into personal attacks, I accept that.
I believe the Clean Air and Waters Act of 1970, the enforcement of which the EPA was created to promulgate the necessary regulations and enforcement mechanisms for, was absolutely necessary at that time. Industry in particular was dumping billions of tons of very damaging pollutants into the air and water unchecked. I flew into and out of the LA area a number of times in '71, 72, and 73, (military) and the air was so thick with crap you could butter it on bread.
However, the situation has changed dramatically and current regulatory levels are making the air and waters cleaner every year. Constantly “jacking up” the standards to the levels the EPA is currently doing (I offer 54+ MPG by 2025 CAFE mandates as an example) have, I believe, become counterproductive. The “science” being used is, I believe, generated by special interest groups whose business, profitability, and political power are promulgated on using whatever they can to continue driving environmental regulations to stricter and stricter standards without regard for the consequences, even if that “science” is junk science. In the '70s we were warned to prepare for another ice age by 1990. It didn’t happen. In the 1990s we were warned that the polar icecaps would be gone by 2010 and my house 45 miles from the ocean would be oceanfront property. In 2006 “An Inconvenient Truth” was released allegedly “proving” it… but it never happened. It’s all now referred to as “climate change” because the previous predictions didn’t come true.
I could go on, but I’d simply be repeating arguments that I’ve been making for years. This thread,
like all those previous threads debating the subject, will probably go on indefinitely, neither side swaying the other.
Meanjoe, thank you. I know none of it will do a scintilla of good, but I was very impressed with your post. 