Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

CAFE Kills : Mindlessly imposed fuel-efficiency standards aren’t just costly, they’re deadly
National Review ^ | 08/29/2012 | Michelle Malkin

Posted on 08/29/2012 6:46:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

While all eyes were on the Republican National Convention in Tampa and Hurricane Isaac on the Gulf Coast, the White House was quietly jacking up the price of automobiles and putting future drivers at risk.

Yes, the same cast of fable-tellers who falsely accused Mitt Romney of murdering a steelworker’s cancer-stricken wife is now directly imposing a draconian environmental regulation that will cost untold American lives.

On Tuesday, the administration announced that it had finalized “historic” new fuel-efficiency standards. (Everything’s “historic” with these narcissists, isn’t it?) President Obama took a break from his historic fundraising drive to proclaim that “by the middle of the next decade, our cars will get nearly 55 miles per gallon, almost double what they get today. It’ll strengthen our nation’s energy security, it’s good for middle-class families, and it will help create an economy built to last.”

Jon Carson, director of Obama’s Office of Public Engagement, took to Twitter to hype how “auto companies support the higher fuel-efficiency standards” and how the rules crafted behind closed doors will “save consumers $8,000” per vehicle. His source for these claims? The New York Times, America’s Fishwrap of Record, which has acknowledged it allows the Obama campaign to have “veto power” over reporters’ quotes from campaign officials.

And whom did the Times cite for the claim that the rules will “save consumers $8,000”? Why, the administration, of course! “The administration estimated that the new standards would save Americans $1.7 trillion in fuel costs,” the Times dutifully regurgitated, “resulting in an average savings of more than $8,000 a vehicle by 2025.”

The Obama administration touts the support of the government-bailed-out auto industry for these reckless, expensive regs. What it wants us to forget is that the “negotiations” (read: bullying) with White House environmental radicals date back to the tenure of former Obama green czar Carol Browner — when she infamously told auto-industry execs “to put nothing in writing, ever,” regarding their secret Corporate Auto-Fuel Economy (CAFE) talks.

Obama’s number massagers cite phony-baloney cost savings that rely on developing future fuel-saving technology. Given this crony government’s abysmal track record in “investing” in new technologies (cough — Solyndra — cough), we can safely dismiss that fantasy math. What is real for consumers is the $2,000-per-vehicle added cost that the new fuel standards will impose now. That figure comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

War on middle-class consumers, anyone?

Beyond the media-lapdog echo chamber, the economic and public-safety objections to these sweeping rules are deeply grounded and well founded.

For years, free-market analysts and government statisticians have warned of the deadly effect of increasing CAFE standards. Sam Kazman at the Competitive Enterprise Institute explained a decade ago: “The evidence on this issue comes from no less a body than the National Academy of Sciences, which issued a report last August finding that CAFE contributes to between 1,300 and 2,600 traffic deaths per year. Given that this program has been in effect for more than two decades, its cumulative toll is staggering.”

H. Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis adds that NHTSA data indicate that “322 additional deaths per year occur as a direct result of reducing just 100 pounds from already downsized small cars, with half of the deaths attributed to small car collisions with light trucks/sport utility vehicles.” USA Today further calculated that the “size and weight reductions of passenger vehicles undertaken to meet current CAFE standards had resulted in more than 46,000 deaths.”

These lethal regulations should be wrapped in yellow police CAUTION tape. The tradeoffs are stark and simple: CAFE fuel standards clamp down on the production of larger, more crashworthy cars. Analysts from Harvard to the Brookings Institution to the federal government itself have arrived at the same conclusion: CAFE kills. Welcome to the bloody intersection between the Obama jobs death toll and the Obama green death toll.

— Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cafe; environmentalism; fuelstandards

1 posted on 08/29/2012 6:46:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I cracked up when I heard the numbers. Over 50 MPG? HAHAHA! As if they can merely regulate it into existence.

And the argument is that it will really save people money and prevent greenhouse gasses.

Gee, why not make it 150?! Think of the savings!

Morons.


2 posted on 08/29/2012 6:53:49 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

The first thing our next conservative president should do is erase all of obamas declarations and executive orders. Then he should slap ole ears in jail for treason on any given level for trying to single handedly destroy this country


3 posted on 08/29/2012 6:59:42 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cuban leaf
Obama's wet dream for America...
4 posted on 08/29/2012 7:16:19 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

The new CAFE standards are intended to get us out of internal combustion automobiles. That is there entire purpose. They are the creation of the environmental lobby, which has a death grip on the Democratic Party.


5 posted on 08/29/2012 7:36:03 AM PDT by popdonnelly (The first priority is get Obama out of the White House.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Same thing can be said from artificially limiting housing in urban areas. It drives the cost up and drives people out to the fringes of the city, increasing commute time and increasing hiway death rates correspondingly.


6 posted on 08/29/2012 7:40:02 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working fors)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I heard on the storm coverage that 3% of Cubans have automobiles.

That seems like a reasonable goal for the US under the Baraqqi regime.


7 posted on 08/29/2012 7:45:14 AM PDT by nascarnation (Defeat Baraq 2012. Deport Baraq 2013)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AngelesCrestHighway
I wouldn't mind one of these:


8 posted on 08/29/2012 7:57:23 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
Obama wants the FIAT 500 to be a LARGE CAR!! /s

No Thanks, I want my 15 passenger Ford E-350 van. (Try to fit a hockey team in a Fiat 500, you'll be wasting more fuel!!)

9 posted on 08/29/2012 8:03:10 AM PDT by ExCTCitizen (Yes, Obama, I had help with my business. MY CUSTOMERS!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AngelesCrestHighway

What is it?? looks like a ‘LITTLE TYKES’ Coupe... :)


10 posted on 08/29/2012 9:04:24 AM PDT by ExCTCitizen (Yes, Obama, I had help with my business. MY CUSTOMERS!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: cuban leaf
What kind of car is it...looks like it would be fun to go from my house to the store for stuff...

Highway, NO!!!

11 posted on 08/29/2012 9:06:03 AM PDT by ExCTCitizen (Yes, Obama, I had help with my business. MY CUSTOMERS!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: ExCTCitizen

It’s a Messerschmidt. It was featured in the movie “Brazil”.


12 posted on 08/29/2012 9:19:13 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I drive a 425 horsepower gas hog. By my computation I only use $2857 of gas TOTAL. How’s Obummer gonna save me $8000 ? Pay me to drive it ?


13 posted on 08/29/2012 1:16:53 PM PDT by jimt (Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson