Make cars dirty again
Trump and Pruitt are putting their shoulders to the wheel, or their feet to the floor, pushing us to create more and more and more pollution to make American great again.
The Trump administration openly threatened one of the cornerstones of California’s environmental protections Monday, saying that it may revoke the state’s ability under the Clean Air Act to impose stricter standards than the federal government sets for vehicle emissions.
The announcement came as the administration confirmed it is tearing up landmark fuel economy rules pushing automakers to manufacture cleaner burning cars and SUVs.
We want dirtier burning cars, god damn it. Dirt is good. It’s like cowboys n shit.
Pruitt’s announcement said that the administration will abandon the federal goal of having vehicles average 55 miles per gallon by 2025. That target will be replaced with a weaker fuel economy standard that the administration will settle on at a later date.
The action sets up the administration for a confrontation with California and a dozen other states that use the state’s emissions standards. Under the Clean Air Act, California is the only state that can independently adopt its own emissions standards, but other states can then adopt them. Several of the states that have done so have vowed to defy the administrations’ effort to weaken mileage standards.
Dianne Feinstein points out that the regulations are working: consumers are getting more efficient cars and saving money on fuel.
But automakers complain they are confronting a market in which gas prices are low and consumers are more interested in purchasing SUVs and pickups than the fuel-efficient passenger vehicles the federal mandates favor.
More interested because automakers advertise them like crazy, and because now that there are so many of them, smaller cars are automatically less safe since they’re so vulnerable to the gas-sucking behemoths. None of this was inevitable, it was a marketing decision – the profit on the gas-suckers is much higher.
Industry officials and analysts note that electric cars and hybrids account for just 3% of vehicle sales in the United States, even as they are taking off in other countries. Environmentalists blame the companies, saying they are putting too much of their marketing and product development energy into SUVs.
It’s what makes America great: selling useless or harmful shit for the big bucks without giving a thought to bad consequences.
Guess I should be glad I hadn’t managed to get my lectures fully updated, waiting for the rules to become finalized and see what the impact would be. Now I don’t have to revise my lecture. Thanks, Trump! That’s one for you! Just kidding – those are the kinds of revisions I like to make, and I would happily have changed every test bank question, every lecture note, everything, just to see those rules Making the Atmosphere Great Again.
Hey, I like that. I’m going to slogan all over the place. “We want our atmosphere back!” “It’s the atmosphere, stupid”. “Don’t like our atmosphere? Stop breathing!” “Air doesn’t kill people, pollution kills people”.
I think I’m getting the hang of this….
I wonder when they’ll re-introduce lead into petrol? They can’t just boost the profits of the oil and auto industries without including the lead mining outfits.
Just wait ’til they start rolling back 19th century standards and statutes. Child labor laws? Workplace safety codes? PFFFT! Red tape and regulation thar stifles profitable enterprises. Make America Dickensian Again!
Come to think of it, they’ve already started attempting to repeal laws of physics, or are at least furiously trying to ignore them.
Might as well pave the whole fucking planet and be done with it.
So we’ll see a return to the period when young men are dying in the workplace. Young women are dying in childbirth. And children are just plain dying. I’m sure many of these Republican Randites would suggest that is very Darwinian. But the prosperity gospel Republicans would just call it God’s will. (Only if Trump and his fellow Republicans are God…and I’m sure Trump thinks he is).