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EPA to Seek Public Comment on Emissions
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5,934 Posts
One more example of the regulations in the US hurting our global competiveness.
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1,080 Posts
does canada's opinion matter to the epa? we buy american cars, and even build them here. i know we already adopt usa regulations.
did anyone catch the related article, "EPA asks auto makers to end horsepower war"? they neglect to mention the zr1 gets 24 mpg highway, or that corvettes represent only 2% of gm sales. they also 'forget' to mention that while transportation is 1/3 of human oil consumption and CO2 production, transportation as a whole accounts for only 0.1% of total global CO2 emissions. so targeting the auto industry is trying to move CO2 emissions by regulating the SMALLEST fraction of an insignificant source of CO2. they'd be better off planting a tree for every car sold! imho, the EPA, NHTSA, and DOE are all in a big circle jerk.
did anyone catch the related article, "EPA asks auto makers to end horsepower war"? they neglect to mention the zr1 gets 24 mpg highway, or that corvettes represent only 2% of gm sales. they also 'forget' to mention that while transportation is 1/3 of human oil consumption and CO2 production, transportation as a whole accounts for only 0.1% of total global CO2 emissions. so targeting the auto industry is trying to move CO2 emissions by regulating the SMALLEST fraction of an insignificant source of CO2. they'd be better off planting a tree for every car sold! imho, the EPA, NHTSA, and DOE are all in a big circle jerk.
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4,034 Posts
Define 'suffer', please.
P.S., don't take that as support for this, just asking a question.
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5,424 Posts
'Suffer' in this case means having to share the burden of whatever knee-jerk legislation comes out of California's protests, no matter whether one drives a Prius in Ohio, a Suburban in Texas, or a Malibu in Nebraska.
Is there any other state or region that has environmental problems (Smog, primarily) on the same scale as California? And, if so, are politicians from those states leading the charge for similar legislation?
The last time I checked, Barbara Boxer represented California and California only.....her laws and proposals shouldn't interfere with the decisions I or anyone else outside that state make.
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586 Posts
What needs to happen is a state based registration tax(fee, duty, levy, fine whatever). In the states that are emmiting excessive CO2 as measured by the EPA, then the tax can be assesed on vehicles based on their tested CO2 rating. Why should the people of North Dakota ( both of them) not have 4x4's available in their state to meet an arbitrary CO2 number when the vast majority is created in California?
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5,424 Posts
Exactly.
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6,455 Posts
Two thirds of total oil consumption...
US = 20.5 million bbl/day Total of which 14 million bbl / day go toward transportation.
Agreed on the tree planting.. it's a good tradeoff just taking pollution inot account.
I'm afraid there is too much greenhouse gas phobia right now to get a fair shake in such discussions... one side dominates and it makes it hard for the other to be heard. If the popular view of the day prevails, we get more regulation and more pain for car enthusiasts and car makers... regardless of reality.
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863 Posts
These people hurt the reputation of the average Californians who are not environmental zealots. I know we have a lot of outspoken environmental douche bags here but I personally don't know (or ever wish to associate with) them, nor do many of the people that I know.
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Greenhouse gasses don't have anything to do with smog, at least in my understanding, but here's a list (lotta rustbelt towns on there):
http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=50752
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44,802 Posts
Oh Baloney!
Nebraska only has a 1.7M population. The Bay Area alone has 6x GREATER population than your state.... in an area 1/10th the size of Nebraska.
Let's multiply the population by 6 and decrease its size by 10. Let's see if Nebraska develops a smog problem.
All you naysayers just don't comprehend the needs of California because you don't live in an area like California. And to judge a state for needing tougher standards because of its needs are different than what are used to is myopic and narrowminded.
New York. New Jersey. Hawaii too has tougher regulations and more specialized regulations specifically for their needs.
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I live 40 miles from Omaha. Trust me, when I drive into work in the summer, there's a haze over the city...looks a lot like the smog I've seen in LA. Typical Midwest mindset; nothing exists beyond my driveway, all of their problems are their problems and don't affect me. Because everyone knows that the air in California stays in California, it doesn't travel across the country, it doesn't touch our air back here.
I say, make California air standards American air standards. Why have different emissions standards for all 50 States (and Puerto Rico!), make all cars California emissions certified, that way we avoid having Iowa Emissions Standards or Nebraska Emissions Standards and the car companies only have to build one car instead of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont or California emissions compliant cars. Who's next? Illinois?
Yes, because the smog stops at the California State Line.
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I agree. The US should adopt California Clean Air Standards.
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6,105 Posts
i dont. there are bigger factors than cars. there are many other things that pollute more than cars do, those factors should be the ones being attacked- not cars just because its an easy target.
everytime i drive home from school, on I 95 in CT i pass this huge factory that churns out this huge plume of smoke day and night. i drive by at 10 pm and its going, i drive by at 5 in the afternoon, its still churning. that factory alone spits out more crap in a day than my truck (which is CA compliant because i live in NY) does in a year- and where is the regulation on that?
everytime i drive home from school, on I 95 in CT i pass this huge factory that churns out this huge plume of smoke day and night. i drive by at 10 pm and its going, i drive by at 5 in the afternoon, its still churning. that factory alone spits out more crap in a day than my truck (which is CA compliant because i live in NY) does in a year- and where is the regulation on that?
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4,034 Posts
You sure it's smoke and not steam? Cars aren't a 'target', there are just a lot more cars than, say, coal-burning electrical plants. Refineries pollute quite a bit, as well. Should we shut them down? That would make all of this moot.
Cars are about as clean as they're going to get, they barely pollute as it is. Coal-burning plants are being attacked, they have to install CO2 scrubbers and various other things to clean their emissions. If it weren't for some of these rules, the Northeast would suffer from even more acid rain than it does already. Can you imagine what the Los Angeles basin would look like now if the Clean Air Act had never been created? The implementation of clean air standards in this country has done more good than harm, although I suppose you'll never be able to convince all of the kooks that. The Clean Air Act has, well, kept the air cleaner and allowed us to drive higher horsepower cars faster and farther due to increased engine efficiency and fuel mileage. Those are good things. Yes, the price might have gone up, but I don't hear anyone complaining about the price of a car going up when they add some unnecessary feature such as Nav or power seats. Why isn't it a good thing to, by making the engine operate more cleanly, give us a more efficient vehicle? Is using less gas somehow, un-American? Is it an American virtue to waste our resources just because we can? That's stupid.
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6,105 Posts
eh, it could be steam, but it looked darker than steam from the road. even with things such as that, cars still get all the attention. you never hear anyone talking about pollution unless its coming out of a cars exhaust. thats what bothers me. you have all these people saying how we need 35 mpg cars and whatnot, but you dont hear anything about anything else, when there are other problems, not only cars. what im saying is, dont focus on one aspect of it, look at the big picture. more things pollute than cars, and they pollute more and well.
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Part of that problem is the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that comes with electricity. No one gives a hoot how it's made as long as the lights come on when they flick the switch.
Yes, it's stupid to blame it all on cars, no one said we were the smartest bunch on the planet.
It's easier to target cars than it is a power plant, although I don't understand why. I'm in favor of more nuclear power plants, passive solar shingles on homes and wind power. Here in Iowa, along the I-35 corridor, we have quite a few wind farms, we're actually 4th in the Nation for the number of turbines at 1,273 MW, and we're putting up more. Here's what we have so far:
Nuclear Generating Plant
Duane Arnold Energy Center..............Palo
Hydroelectric PlantsFive-In-One Dam........Cedar Rapids
Iowa Falls Mill............Iowa Falls
Keokuk Dam...............Keokuk
Anamosa Dam............Anamosa
Waverly Mill..............Waverly
Amana Dam................Amana
Ottumwa Dam............Ottumwa
Maquoketa Dam.........Maquoketa
Coal-burning Plants: Bettendorf, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Chillicothe, Council Bluffs, Dubuque, Lansing, Sioux City, Montpelier, Marshalltown, Waterloo, Spencer and Mt. Pleasant.
Iowa currently has more than 600 wind turbines, producing enough electricity to power 140,000 homes.
So yeah, we've made some progress, but I wouldn't mind seeing half of those 13 coal plants being closed down. I approach the green lifestyle as a way to save myself some money. Tankless water heater, light tubes in rooms with no windows, CFL's, doing the laundry in cold water, using the dishwasher for 2 days worth of dishes instead of once a day...it all helps, and it saves me money. Reduced coal burning is just a side effect.
Update:In late September 2007, Siemens Power Generation celebrated the grand opening of its new wind turbine blade factory in Fort Madison, Iowa, on the banks of the Mississippi River. The 311,000-square-foot (28,900 m²) factory is expected to produce 600 wind turbine blades each year and should employ 260 people by year's end. The facility manufactures 148-foot-long, 12-ton blades for the company's 2.3-MW wind turbines installed in the United States. In October, Iowa Governor Chet Culver announced that Hendricks Industries plans to build a manufacturing plant for wind turbine towers in Keokuk, which is also on the Mississippi River. The 347,000-square-foot (32,200 m²) facility will employ 350 people, and the company will also employ 22 people at a project to expand the city's port.
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