Clean Cars: Proposed State Law Would Impose Fee On Gas-Guzzlers, Hand Cash To Gas-Sippers

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 4/9/07 | Paul Rogers

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Call it the Robin Hood approach to global warming. California drivers who buy new Hummers, Ford Expeditions and other big vehicles that emit high levels of greenhouse gases would pay a fee of up to $2,500. And drivers who buy more fuel-efficient cars - like the Toyota Prius or Ford Focus - would receive rebates of up to $2,500, straight from the gas-guzzlers' pockets.

That's the provocative proposal from a Silicon Valley legislator whose "Clean Car Discount" bill is gaining momentum, sending car dealers into a tizzy and sparking passions among motorists.

Why? It's the first time California has considered penalizing consumers to limit global warming, rather than just providing incentives such as solar power rebates or special access to the carpool lane for hybrid vehicles. "If we are going to effectively fight global warming, we are going to have to find a way to get the cleaner cars on the road and the dirtier cars off the road," said Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Los Altos. "We need to have both carrots and sticks."

Ruskin's bill, AB493, won approval of the Assembly Transportation Committee two weeks ago.

The bill has the backing of most major statewide environmental groups, who see it as one of their top priorities in 2007. And the measure received a substantial boost Friday when it was endorsed by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a business organization that includes the major tech companies in Silicon Valley, including IBM, Google, Apple and Cisco. "Forty percent of California's greenhouse gases are from transportation," said Carl Guardino, the group's CEO. "This is a market-driven approach to drive the production and purchase of cleaner cars."

The bill would apply to new cars, pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles, starting with 2011 models.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Exactly! People believe that Robin Hood stole from “the rich” and gave to the poor. Robin Hood was a Reagan conservative.

[Always Independent]

Dam that George Bush for not invading CA first.

[Azeem]

I moved from So Cal to Indiana. Best move I ever made.

I already know what is going to happen. More “economy” cars will be added to the list and will be purchased. The state will now owe more money then it is taking in from the “gas guzzlers”. They will then complain when gas tax revenue declines and raise those rates too.

Pay attention on which Dems get contributions from the auto industry (Reps don’t matter in CA).

[Finny]

You've bought into the false premise already. There is nothing to be fixed with respect to global warming. It is a completely natural phenomenon. Climate cycles have been happening for millions of years. Human activity has little overall impact on the cycles. The socialists are enjoying this red herring as a way to seize control of the ignorant masses.

AMEN!!! Worth repeating a hundredfold. RIGHT ON!

[FixitGuy]

Caleefornians need to instantly convert to water as a fuel.

There will be :

No pollution

No traffic jams

No road rage

No junk yards

No gas tax

[BigBobber]

Don’t they have gas taxes in that state? You already pay a penalty for buying a gas guzzler.

A big "duh..." for this idiot legislator. There is already a gas tax in place that does exactly what they want - without having to pass it through bureaucrats for processing

[antiRepublicrat]

Little question, if the Focus seats four comfortably and the Expedition seats eight comfortably, shouldn’t it be okay that the Expedition puts out twice the pollution if it’s driven loaded? Or is this just a tax on large families?

Never mind, I’m using logic, and this is about control, not logic.

[Alas Babylon!]

Peak Oil is likely upon us. Even if it’s not, the oil is in “places that don’t like us very much.” We need to move on.

If that is the case, then let the Free Market, not big government, handle it. If peak oil is upon us, then the price will rise and fewer people will use oil, and others will invent alternatives to it. This will likely lead to more innovation in this country and elsewhere and spur growth.

Your big government way never, ever works. It will only cause corruption and and segregate free citizens into the good and the bad. It will also likely hinder alternative fuel research by private industry.

[goldstategop]

Agreed. This is nothing more than another income redistribution scheme disguised as an environmental protection measure. For these people the means and the ends are the same. At heart, they're the socialists they've always been.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[from occupied ga]

which runs from nowhere to nowhere else.

Pretty much the definition of mass transit. Goes from where you aren't to where you don't want to go, and carries people with whom you wouldn't voluntarily associate.

[rabscuttle385]

...rebates of up to $2,500, straight from the gas-guzzlers' pockets.

Rebates, before or after the government declares them to be "income" and taxes them?

[river rat]

Yep....
MARTA would be quite nice — if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the passengers look like a reunion of escaped felons..

In the past - I took MARTA from the airport to North Springs..
After reflection......I switched to a shuttle limousine.

Semper Fi

[from occupied ga]

MARTA would be quite nice — if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the passengers look like a reunion of escaped felons..

That and the trains that appear to have come directly from Mexico City. When I used to ride MARTA regularly I used to keep count of things like human excrement in the cars, bums' pi$$ bottles rolling around, the number of times where there were three or fewer white males in the car, and panhandlers, but the game grew boring after a while.

[river rat]

Yep —— and leftist liberals thought America was big enough and clean enough to survive the constant drip and inflow of pure human pollution.....

One can take the cleanest and largest river — and in short order pollute it beyond the point of making it poisonous and unfit for human consumption...

We have stood by and allowed America to become “polluted” by subsidizing the increase in fornication and populating the ghettos and barrios with illegitimate bastards and illegal immigrants....

The numbers of “these people” has now achieved a number sufficient to throw elections to those who have made their existence or presence in America possible......thus accelerating the spiral down the toilet..

Grim, huh?

Semper Fi

[Uncle Hal]

These liberals must stay awake nights making this stuff up. It would be laughable if it was not so serious. The inmates are running the insane asylum.

[GreyFlcn]

—As I’ve been saying for a long time, global warming is all about taking away your liberties and freedoms.—

Not like we can’t have big cars.
They just have to put up less pollution.

Best way to do that?
Switch to electricity.

First off electric cars get 3-4x the range off of the same ammount of electricity as hydrogen.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/hydrogen.png

This electric car, puts Ferrari’s to shame with a 0-60 of under 4 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFVg_xEGYno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-kdAwJcrQw

This electric SUV crossover, due out in 2008, will offer 650 horsepower, 350 mile range, with a mere 10 minute recharge. (Quicker than a roundtrip to the gas station)
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/902

EEStor, they plan to put out new battery tech which makes all this stuff dirt cheap, long lasting, and nontoxic.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/15/technology/disruptors_eestor.biz2/index.htm

_

You can have your cake and eat it too.

Cool part is, mainstreaming this high density energy storage tech is going to boost our economy dramatically with all other sorts of branching technology.

And get us OFF of middle east, and venezualan oil.

Win-win-win

[TKDietz]

If they are going to do this they need to open the door for diesels to be sold in California and ease up on some of the environmental regulations for cars that get particularly good gas mileage. If a car gets three times times as many miles per gallon as another vehicle, but gives off twice as much pollutants per gallon, it’s still going to pollute a good bit less than the other vehicle that has a lot more performance reducing pollution controls on it. There are a lot of great diesels and gasoline powered vehicles sold in other countries that are incredibly fuel efficient, but they can’t be sold here, especially in California, because they aren’t equipped with all the expensive performance reducing pollution control gadgets the government requires. Big SUV’s that get twelve miles per gallon are fine, as long as they are loaded down with pollution control devices, but simple little cars getting better than forty miles per gallon can’t be sold in many cases because they don’t meet pollution control standards. That’s ridiculous.

[oceanview]

this is what it will come to everywhere. I am fine with the incentives part of a program like this, but take the money for the incentives from general revenues. instead, its going to be all about using punitive measures.

[TheKidster]

Excellent post sir!
I wholeheartedly agree. The limited experience I had with ecology in college as well as geology was enough for me to know when this crap began to become mainstream that it couldn’t possibly be on the up and up. One volcanic eruption spews more “greenhouse” gas than all of our combined emissions since the dawn of humanity.

I’ve heard the doom and gloom from over population to ozone depletion to soil errosion and these theories are constantly updated and debunked once legitimate scientific review is applied. Mankind just isn’t powerful enough to destroy the planet, I’m not even convinced that a global nuclear war would kill us off or effect nature for more than a couple of decades.

[Finny]

Thanks for the compliment!

I’m not even convinced that a global nuclear war would kill us off or effect nature for more than a couple of decades.

The amusing thing is that even if it affected nature for the next quarter of a million years -- or even a million years -- it would still be but a very brief moment in the context of the geologic timeline. And if homo sapiens becomes extinct, we will only be joining about a hundred million other extinct species that existed at one time or another on this planet.