Legislators and regulators need to observe a fundamental Golden Rule: Do not implement new laws if you have not considered or cannot control important unintended consequences. Posted on 08/08/2012 5:37:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
Legislators and regulators need to observe a fundamental Golden Rule: Do not implement new laws if you have not considered or cannot control important unintended consequences.
A perfect example is the Obama Administration’s plan to increase new car mileage standards, from the currently legislated requirement of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 to 54.5 mpg by 2025, as an average across each automaker’s complete line of cars and light trucks.
Carmakers reluctantly agreed to the new requirements, to avoid even more onerous standards, or different standards in different states. But the deal does nothing to alter the harsh realities of such a requirement.
First, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) analyses indicate that the mileage standards will add $3,000 to $4,800 to the average price of new vehicles for models from now until 2025. Moreover, this price increase does not include the $2,000 to $6,000 in total interest charges that many borrowers would have to pay over the life of a 36-60 month loan.
The consequence: 6 million to 11 million low-income drivers will be unable to afford new vehicles during this 13-year period, according to the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA). These drivers will essentially be eliminated from the new vehicle market, because they cannot afford even the least expensive new cars without a loan – and many cannot meet minimal lending standards to get that loan.
These drivers will be forced into the used car market. However, far fewer used cars are available today, because the $3-billion “cash for clunkers” program destroyed 690,000 perfectly drivable cars and trucks that otherwise would have ended up in used car lots. In addition, the poor economy is causing many families to hold onto their older cars longer than ever before.
Exacerbating the situation, the average price of used cars and trucks shot from $8,150 in December 2008 to $11,850 three years later, say the NADA and Wall Street Journal. With interest rates of 5-10% (depending on the bank, its lending standards and a borrower’s financial profile), even used cars are unaffordable for many poor families, if they can find one.
All this forces many poor families to buy “hoopties,” pieces of junk that cost much more to operate than a decent low-mileage used car. These higher operating costs can cripple families in borderline poverty situations.
The compounded financial impact is a “regressive” tax and a war on the poor.
Another, far worse consequence of the skyrocketing mileage requirements is that many cars will need to be made smaller, lighter, and with thinner metal and more plastic, to achieve the new “corporate average fleet economy” (CAFÉ) standards.
These vehicles – even with seatbelts, air bags and expensive vehicle modifications – will not be as safe as they would be if mileage weren’t a major consideration. They will have less “armor” to protect drivers and passengers, and less space between vehicle occupants and whatever car, truck, bus, wall, tree or embankment their car might hit.
The NHTSA, Brookings Institution, Harvard School of Public Health, National Academy of Sciences and USA Today discovered a shocking reality. Even past and current mileage standards have resulted in thousands of additional fatalities, and tens of thousands of serious injuries, every year – above what would have happened if the government had not imposed those standards.
They also learned that drivers in lightweight cars were up to twelve times more likely to die in a crash – and far more likely to suffer serious injury and permanent disabilities.
Increasing mileage requirements by a whopping 19 mpg above current rules will make nearly all cars even less safe than they are today.
For obvious reasons, most legislators, regulators and environmental activists have not wanted to discuss these issues. But they need to do so, before existing mileage requirements are made even more stringent.
These affordability and safety problems may be unintended. However, no government officials – elected or unelected – can claim they are unaware of them.
Finally, the asserted goals of CAFÉ standards may once have been somewhat persuasive. The standards were necessary, it was argued, to preserve US oil reserves that were rapidly being depleted, reduce oil imports from unstable parts of the world, and prevent dangerous global warming. However, the rationales used to justify these onerous, unfair, injurious and lethal mileage standards are no longer persuasive.
New seismic, drilling and production technologies have dramatically increased our nation’s oil and natural gas reserves. Opening some of the publicly owned lands that are currently off limits would increase reserves even more. Using government and industry data, the Institute for Energy Research has calculated that the USA, Canada and Mexico alone have 1.7 trillion barrels of recoverable oil reserves – enough to meet current US needs for another 250 years – and another 175 years of natural gas.
As to global warming, even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is now backing away from previous claims about alarming changes in global temperatures, sea levels, polar ice caps and major storms, due to greenhouse gas emissions.
All of us should conserve energy and be responsible stewards of the Earth and its bounties, which God has given us. However, to ignore the unpleasant realities of existing and proposed mileage mandates is unethical, immoral and unjust.
We must not emphasize fuel savings at the cost of excluding poor families from the automobile market – and putting people at greater risk of serious injury or death.
emits fewer particles per mile than compliant cars due to its high mileage
“The mileage of old VW’s and Honda’s were great.”
Old Beetles got 29-30 mpg. At least both of the two (’59 & ‘63) that I owned got that.
IIRC, so did everyone else’s.
I remember after I bought my 2004 Chevrolet Cavalier it took about a week for the gauge from the full tank to the 3/4 tank level. Now it takes me three short trips and its down to the 3/4 tank level and after that is goes down even faster
For the “true-believers” in the EPA, NHTSA, and the environmental movement all that matters is that we stop using oil and coal. Period. Everything else comes second including, whether they admit it to themselves or not, other people’s lives.
It won’t be long before there is no “fleet average” allowed.
From wiki- coverage of medium duty trucks has been added to the CAFE regulations starting in 2012, and heavy duty commercial trucks starting in 2014.
So soon there won’t be any exceptions and ALL vehicles will be high mileage foil covered over priced ugly death traps.
Obama will just issue an Executive Order repealing the laws of physics.
I don’t disagree with your overall point about the overburden of regulations at all levels of gov’t. I was just looking to clarify some information about Ford.
As far as I know, Ford has 2 engine plants in Michigan. One is in Romeo and the other is in Dearborn. Here is information on Romeo:
http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=8382
Key information is: “In addition to the 4.6-liter 2-valve V8, the plant also produces the 4.6-liter 4-valve (DOHC) Intech V8 that powers the Ford Mustang Cobra and Lincoln Continental and the 5.4-liter 4-valve Intech V8, which is exclusive to the Lincoln Navigator and Blackwood.”
The Dearborn engine plant produces the Duratec engines.
All of that said, that Wiki info seems to be a bit outdated for Romeo...they still list the engine for the Continental!
I can see the gubmint making the big,evil insurance companies the fall guy. FEDGUV INC will make it so insurance companies can NOT insure these kit cars and they can’t LEGALLY go on public roads without insurance.
Exceptions will be made if you pay a special tax,etc and fill out 100 pages of forms and promise to never resell the car and only drive it designated areas.
(think 1968 and machine gun registration)
Many of them. I was buying a bunch of C4C parts from the wrecking yards and “Cash for Clunkers” was criminal stupidity.
I would have loved to see those who advocated the program stripped of the right to ever own a motor vehicle of any type and forfeit, without compensation, those they owned.
Yes the old VW’s got great mileage. The first one imported in ‘49 had a 30hp engine. When they were phased out in ‘79, it was up to 57hp.
My ‘74 got 33 mpg but there was not enough extra hp to have an air conditioner.
Do we want to go back to that level of performance?
I wish I had a brand new 1974 Burnt Orange VW like I had. It was fun to drive and great in snow.
That is old info as you noted. The Continental ceased production in ‘02. The 4.6 DOHC has been replaced by the 5.0 DOHC Coyote.
In this suburb just west of Detroit, Ford Motor Co. is working on one of the biggest gambles in its 108-year history: a pickup truck with a largely aluminum body. The radical redesign will help meet tougher federal fuel-economy targets now starting to have wide-ranging effects on Detroit's auto makers.The venerable F-150 becomes an unintended consequence to Obama's new standards.
Ford has a deal with PSA under which Ford provides larger diesel engines for the European truck market and Peugeot reciprocates by providing the light-duty automotive diesels for Ford.
And many of those destroyed cars were still in good condition
I heard about a smug liberal couple that turned in a perfectly good SUV for Cash for Clunkers in order to buy a subcompact death trap. Later, they saw their vehicle on the dealer’s lot with a mark up of nearly twice what they received.
The dealer gave them their “liberal-feel-good” cash out of his own pocket because he knew their SUV was a very popular model. They were angry because they had believed that evil SUV was destroyed but instead the dealer would make a lot of money off of it.
Just as an FYI, I was in a Ford PD building yesterday and was asking about the Ka. They manufacture that car at Valencia, Spain and at a plant in Poland. The person I was talking to, did not know where the engines for that program are produced....
Thank you for the clarification. I was a bit surprised that the old information was all that I could find. I would have thought that Ford would make sure that info was available and up to date...
They missed one other thing...the mileage tax. Better fuel economy means fewer tax dollars at the pump, which then leads to either bad roads or tracking devices for mileage tax purposes.
I had guessed that you had more than a typical interest in the topic...
Fyi - I had heard (unconfirmed) that volkswagen had a similar high efficiency car that was not available in the USA for the same reason - slightly high CO2 emission in a very high MPG engine.
I agree with your overall point that there is some derivitive of deisel technology available in Europe that is very good in fuel economy. Plus it is not the choice of the car manufacturers, it IS directly related to our government’s regulations!
I even have a friend that used to live in Windsor and he was able to get a Jetta that was not available in the US. He loved that car for many reasons, but he bragged most about the diesel engine’s mileage!
;-)
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