Blowing Smoke

The Trump administration has gone ahead with its plan to roll back gas mileage standards that would have set corporate average fuel economy standards at 54.5 miles per gallon and set them to stay frozen at 2020 levels - 37 miles a gallon - well into 2026, after Trump is out of office (unless he nullifies the Twenty-Second Amendment).

And get this.  It's because they say old cars can kill you.

The White House and its stooges in the Environmental Destruction Agency and the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration argue that increased fuel economy standards would make newer cars more expensive and force people to driver older vehicles with fewer safety features. Hence, more fatalities in older cars.

You know, I would accepted the old argument that higher fuel economy standards would have led to people driving smaller cars and that small cars are not as safe as big cars and SUVs.  I wouldn't have agreed with it, but I would have accepted it.  But this irrational rationalization that Trump offers is so ludicrous that you don't need safety experts to refute it (though they have).

And here's another spectacularly dumb argument against the old standards.  The Trump administration is afraid that higher fuel economy standards would allow motorists to drive more, because they would buy less gas, and therefore cause more tailpipe emissions as a result of more driving.

So never mind that the lower standards would lead to more gasoline being refined and used - because more people would buy gas-guzzling vehicles.

Neither of these arguments - I won't even dignify the argument that the reduction in greenhouse gases would be too negligible to make a difference in combating climate change -  address the real issue.  Automakers will be able to sell more large vehicles with the proposed Trump standards, and that means bigger profit margins. As Henry Ford II once said, big cars mean big bucks and small cars mean small bucks.  The Trump administration can argue that the old rules, initiated under President Obama, impedes consumer choice by making gas-guzzling SUVs more unfeasible, but the truth is that two SUVs are sold for every traditional car not out of any real demand for SUVs but because of effective marketing of gas-guzzling truck-based passenger vehicles and lack if incentive to make more efficient vehicles. The Obama rules would have set the auto industry on a more sustainable course and encouraged both automakers and consumers to embrace sensible cars.  Like electric cars, which the Trump White House has no desire to promote.

Oh yeah,  the cost of meeting the Obama standards would be higher for domestic automakers than for the foreign automakers who have to design cars for customers back home who have to spend the equivalent of eight U.S. dollars a gallon on gasoline.  Because Toyota and Volkswagen already know how to make more fuel-efficient cars. They've been doing it for years.  So has Ford, in fact, in Europe and even here in America to some extent - but of course Ford's North American lineup will soon be devoid of small cars and traditional sedans (I talked about this before).  

Ironically, the automakers had been preparing to meet the tougher Obama standards and are more than happy to meet them.   

Meanwhile, Trump wants to take away California's waiver for tougher fuel economy standards despite ample evidence that the state's climate - which is being choked right now by wildfires - is vulnerable to more gasoline consumption and the tailpipe emissions that it produces. Governor Jerry Brown has vowed to keep the standards in place and fight the White House in court to preserve the Obama standards.  Eighteen states and the District of Columbia are joining in that suit.  This isn't over yet.

I'd better not get used to seeing any new mini-car models at auto showrooms, though. 

You know what's missing from this discussion on how to reduce auto tailpipe emissions?  Mass transit, of course!