Legislating Physics

To start out, I’ll admit that I don’t have all the facts on the mileage standards and haven’t even had time to read the law.  That said, I do have experience with internal combustion engines having taught labs, studied and even published on them, and I do have an opinion of the assignment of fuel economy standards.  Recently in the news it was reported:

The Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department’s officials targeted to raise the average mileage of new cars to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

Of course they have mandated it, not targeted it, because that’s what liberal politicians do.

Starting in 2012, automakers will be required to improve average fuel efficiency in their fleets by 5 percent every year through 2016, pushing mileage to an average 34.1 miles per gallon by the end of the initiative.

The fleets include cars and trucks, it’s also stated that it will be a cost savings.

The Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, in a joint statement, said the purchase of the average car affected by the regulations would likely translate into savings of $3,000 over the life of the car due to the higher fuel efficiency mandated by the standards.

Of course the feel good liberal media with no ability to question when they are being lied to, made no criticism of this law and instead just gave the whole thing one big happy pass.

So I’ll ask readers to think about this policy.  How many of you have ever seen a pickup truck or SUV that can meet the 2016 standard?  The answer is they can’t, they therefore will pull down the fleet number.  So of course the other sold vehicles will have to have a higher mileage standard than average, again I’ll ask people to consider if you have ever seen a 45mpg family car with reasonable space, cost and features? Again, you haven’t.  There is a simple reason for that.  We don’t have the technology to produce workable vehicles at this level of performance. Sure 2016 is a few years away but in 2016 we still won’t have the ability to do this — the dirty secret is, the government knows this.  It cannot add $1000  to the cost of the car, because you can’t build them.

They know it.

And they don’t care, because the key is the penalty for what happens when car companies can’t sell the shitty little riceburners (that Obama wouldn’t be caught dead in) to us.  What happens when you still prefer to pay for the picup truck – because you need it?

Taxes baby, that’s all, just taxes. Lisa Jackson summed it all up perfectly.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called the initiative “an important example of how our economic and environmental priorities go hand-in-hand.”

The price of gas is more than enough incentive for consumers to seek out better vehicles, it always has been.   I’m not kidding myself though, many of your perceptions on fuel economy have been twisted by the liberal press reports of water burning cars and ultra efficient vehicles being held back by big oil.  These are lies of course, as are the press reports, and the government statements.  Nothing but flat, in your face, lies.  It’s not my fault of course that people can’t look up this information for themselves, or think with anything other than a public education has provided.  People are foolish, as is accepting a hidden tax in the form of a mandated fuel economy.

But then again, nobody asked me.