New Jersey, California and 12 other states were approved to enact new emissions standards for motor vehicles by the EPA today. The waiver had been sitting at the EPA since December 2005, and which was denied in March 2008. The idea is to reduce emissions levels to 1990 levels by 2020.
EPA Director Lisa Jackson (former NJ flunky for Gov. Jon Corzine) says that this is a victory for law and science. Really?
How is it a victory for the science given that the EPA has been playing games with the science? Science has been politicized at the EPA pretty much since the EPA came into existence, and the Obama Administration is pushing in this direction without regard to the cost to taxpayers and the economy on unsettled science.
More to the point, what will all of this cost? There is a cost associated with this since nothing the government does is without cost. The EPA estimates that it will add another $1,300 to the cost of every vehicle. That's an optimistic view, since the government isn't exactly good in the prediction business.
No one is saying what this would do to the car makers and whether people are going to want to pay that much more for these vehicles since it means the automakers will have to choose what items have to be sacrificed to maintain pricing points. Will people simply choose to forgo buying new cars and opt for used cars? Will they delay purchases, further compounding the difficulties in the business sector (and which could mean that older gas guzzlers and less efficient vehicles stay on the road longer)?
These higher costs can't come at a worse time for an industry already reeling from sagging sales, and yet the government expects people to happily accept a vehicle that now $1,300 more than previously.
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