Gee, I think we can all agree that many mandates have saved lives, made cars last longer, became cheaper to maintain and most importantly, made a ton of money for manufacturers.
Or there’s people here who don’t believe that ANY mandate helped ANYONE at ANYTIME.
There are people (Libertarians), who don’t care that safety mandates have saved lives. To a Libertarian, freedom to drive a POS death trap is worth more than those lives saved.
Where does it say this is a Government Mandate???
Its the same as a mandate because it is driven by the new CAFE requirements, not consumer driven simple as that. While there are good mandates for health and safety, they also often don’t know when to stop and exceed common sense or consumer needs and wants. Light bulbs?
You could say that since we live in a democracy where we get to vote for our government leaders, EPA fuel economy standards are voter-driven. Otherwise, how do we end up with a president and congressional representatives who support higher fuel economy standards?
Most gas powered Golf carts have functioned perfectly doing this a gazillion times a day. Given how many strokes the average player takes to get around 18 holes, year after year with restarts at least at each one, car restarts should be an easy do. Obviously…just a tad bigger…
Its the same as a mandate because it is driven by the new CAFE requirements, not consumer driven simple as that
HUH??? No where does it say a company has to use this method to meet the Cafe requirements. So it is NOT mandated. I know that blows your government conspiracy theory.
@Whitey: “Democracy” isn’t the word that springs to mind when discussing the EPA (or DEA, or…) The concept of establishment of a (deliberately?) ill-defined act such as the Clean Air/Water act, then granting open-ended authority to enforce, makes a mockery of the concept of accountability in government. If the EPA ticks me off, who do I extract my electoral vengeance upon? The “authors” (yeah, right) of the act are (almost?) all retired by now. As we speak, the C.A.A. is being used (with supporting EPA Amicus brief) as pretext to enforce a CA retrofit ordinance on class 8 diesels engaged in “interstate commerce.”
How do I “elect my friends and punish my enemies” there? I don’t live in CA!
Yes, I am a libertarian…
@Bing, first I’d echo MikeinNH. Second, what evidence do you have - exactly - that its government rather than consumers? Have you been asleep the last 10 years? Consumers are very interested in fuel economy.
@meanjoe75fan, to call the Clean Air/Water Act “ill-defined” and attack is really to announce the fact that you must be very young. Do you think that these things came from nowhere? And have done nothing? And to think that the EPA is actually all that powerful is to choose to be ideological rather than pragmatic. The fact is that the EPA is quite weak - much weaker than most of the industries it is supposed to regulate. And for the record, I like the EPA and wish it was stronger - and I’d and also like to be a Libertarian, but to be a Libertarian after about the 19th century is also to go by ideology rather than a basic, practical understanding of the world.
cigroller
–to call the Clean Air/Water Act “ill-defined” and attack is really to announce the fact that you (meanjoe75fan) must be very young.–
But um, how young could a Mean Joe fan possibly be?
@meanjoe75fan
You don’t like the EPA ?
Is this from personal experience ?
Cause the EPA has no reason to incite fear in the hearts of individuals.
As a matter of fact, through their sponsorship and directed through our state DEP we have received training to be certified to do work on our water ways, get matching funds to do the work and reduced costs for materials along with legal advice and education on the proper way to protect our water ways and ground water. I have had nothing but great experiences with them. But of course, I want to protect our water ways from polution…polution from corporate dumping that for years have polluted our waterways that we are now just turning the corner on cleaning up.
I want to maintain my property value by doing it too. So, if you are a corporate head, they should tick you off. If you get your drinking water from a well or you fish in a lake or swim or breath the air down wind of a plant, you might be happy they do something and only be POd that not enough is being done.
I just don’t get people who are old enough to remember when raw sewerage was dumped in our rivers and now feel bad about them being cleaned up because some conservative host talking head sponsored by a corporation who was held accountable…tells us to.
"cigroller
–to call the Clean Air/Water Act “ill-defined” and attack is really to announce the fact that you (meanjoe75fan) must be very young.–
But um, how young could a Mean Joe fan possibly be? "
Assuming Mean Joe Green - born in the 70s and 40-ish or less. That means someone whose lifetime has been spent unknowingly living under the benefits of those acts rather than one who came of age earlier with not only the raw sewage (as dagosa noted), but raw toxic sludges being pumped into water and air. The early 70s environmental laws were not some weird government power grab. They came about in response to very very real and pressing problems.
…and have outlived their usefulness.
Our air today is orders of magnitude cleaner than anyone could’ve expected in the 50s-70s. I can still remember the Carnegie library having the soot power-washed off it…(building in “Flashdance” for out-of-towners)…I had no idea that stone construction was’t naturally black.
Recently, my home state has been hit by losses in coal mining and burning, due to NPRM in re: power plants. I think, any pol who aims to put hard-working brothers and sisters out of a job should at least have the [intestitudinal fortitude] to likewise put their own on the line, not hide behind a non-elected regulatory agency’s apron strings.
@Cigroller: you really are “OK” with the state of CA passing RETROACTIVE emissions controls, applicable to out-of-state rigs engaged in interstate commerce? Including Canadian rigs…passing foreign policy? And the EPA’s Amicus brief in support? Blood, and beverages, have been spilt over less…
I would agree there were some very real pollution issues back in the 70’s that needed to be dealt with, but like organizations do, they simply grow and grow beyond their original intent. Try to buy oil stain for your house in five years. I fail to see how this is a pressing issue for 90% of the country.
And like I said before, Congressmembers do not sit down and write draft after draft of new regulations or laws. They are written and proposed by staffers and paid federal workers, not elected officials. So it is absurd to suggest that anything done by the federal agencies is with the blessings of the elected officials. Often they don’t even read or fully comprehend what they pass. And the statute is just the small portion of it. The real restrictions are done by regulations which are created by non-elected folks and never voted on by anyone elected. Whole carreers are devoted to these issues and it becomes their life to move their particular agendas ahead.
Yeah, not to mention a [censored] light bulb that’ll work in an unheated root cellar!
And yes, I’m old enough to remember the “old ways” (barely). Went on vacation two years ago to Hawaii (big island). Toured an active volcano; remarked, “Damn, smells like Homestead, back in the day.”
Air s a “won” battle…I’d argue we have the cleanest urban air since the Industrial Revolution…possibly since the Egyptian Empire. CO2, OTOH, is unwinnable. Want an eco cause worth fighting for, how about knocking down McMansions and restoring some habitat! (Of course this would tend to T.O. all those bourgeois environmentalists out there…)
I would have to agree there are still some real polution problems. We got rid (still working on) of the polution we see but ground water is a real problem. When everyone who disses the EPA and succeeds in removing it from relevance, don’t complain when all your drinking (and bathing and washing) water for major cities is piped down from Canada…for a real big fee. A ton of those things we used to indiscriminately throw around is coming back to haunt our ground water supply. Fresh water is not inexhaustible. It could be a huge problem. The EPA shouldn’t be just asked to deal with problems that do exist but some that will.
EPA regulations on two stroke motors has shown dramatic results in water purity in places that suffered from oil polution with weakened fish stocks. We whined and complained about the transition…but it worked and is working.
Where ever the environment improves, the economy tends to thrive. It makes economic sense to have a healthy environment…not a convenient one we can just use as a dumping ground. We would like to think private industry would police themselves and everyone would be smart enough to use biodegradable materials and 4 strokes…but give me a break. The world is too selfish, nearsighted and in some cases, myself included, too dumb to get it at times.
@dag: leveling McMansions would improve aquifer quality…silt, pesticides, fertilizer.
Outsourcing industry to less-regulated countries is just being a NIMBY. The DEMAND remains; is met by some other country: using third-world infrastructure, probably emits MORE CO2 to globally alter weather.
C’Mon…don’t you think we’re smart enough to protect the earth AND honor the US Constitution simultaneously? I do…
C’Mon…don’t you think we’re smart enough to protect the earth AND honor the US Constitution simultaneously? I do…
“We” are, but you’ll have to give up on being a Libertarian.
I’m not familiar the specifics of what you are referring to in CA, but I’m not sure what it has to do with the EPA. I’m sure lots of organizations submitted various kinds of briefs and such. CA has long been much harsher about things. But I’ll pose this - IF heavy handed environmental protection in CA has been so consistent, then it must be because there is some degree of ongoing resonance with the people who populate it. (Not all of them - obviously). What you seem concerned about is CA regulating out of state and out of country based rigs - and you seem mad about it. So I guess you are opposed to the idea that locals should be able to have a say in what goes on in their own areas? I doubt that you are. But I’m just saying - that kind of thinking will simply move regulation up a level to federal and ultimately international. Then everyone complains about that. So, you know what? Let the people of CA do what they want where they live.
Honor the Constitution my good @mean ?? I thought we honored the constitution when we actually used our constitutional authority to form govt. appointed agencies whose authority was granted by congress using it’s constitutional authority. It has never been declared unconstitutional by the supreme court whose constitutional knowledge far exceeds that of anyone I know who deplores the EPA. Like…what, some socialist republican president who signed the agency into existence was a a closet anarchist? . Good grief my dear Charley Brown…the Unconstitutionality of any thing that govt. fearing people raise is beyound understanding. It’s unconstitutional to say that the EPA by it’s existence does not honor the constitution. If it does by deed, the supreme court will intervene.
And NO, we are not smart enough to protect the earth without a constitutionally authorized central government agency. We show are smarts by using the authority of the central govt. to do things that any one state cannot do for it’s own good or for the good of all. If we think pollution across state lines can be handle by the benevolence of the polluter, we are living in the 19 th century…oops, Libertareans do. I apologize, I know where some are coming from my friend. HG Wells’s study. All in fun…;=)
@Cigroller: the Cliffs Notes version.
Cali has passed a law requiring all diesel OTR trucks to upgrade to 2010 emissions, either by repowering or soot scrubbers. Year of manufacture irrelevant…pay up or stay out.
Reg applies to in-state, out-of-state, and out-of-country rigs operating in or through CA.
A challenge to the law was put forth, stating regulating non-CA vehicles engaged in interstate commerce was a violation of the Commerce Clause of the USC. (IIRC, before the Circuit court ATM.)
EPA issued an Amicus brief stating, in effect, it ceded authority to the state…that “CA emissions” is a federal law, passed by people I have no voting authority to reward or punish.
Our Founding Fathers have got to be spinning in their graves.
Our founding fathers knew nothing of diesel motors !