Comments on: Obama To Let States Determine Emissions Standards

By: kranky kritter

kranky kritter — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:58:56 +0000

I’m not a federalist, but this is federalism as a matter of convenience, not principle.

The cars that automakers will be forced to manufacture will be ones that meet the sum of all of toughest standards that each state can devise. That means that California will largely get to dictate what everyone gets.

Since I worked in oublishing, I am VERY familiar with this notion. Ed content must meet each state’s standards, so much time, effort, and money goes to figuring out each state’s standards and coming up with products that meet the big states guidelines, along with plans for how to alter the products to comply with other states.

It’s an extremely wasteful way of doing things. Every state duplicates the efforts of every other state, using way more resources than necessary, Then after all the sturm and drang, they agree about 90% of the stuff, leaving content producers to come up with 50 plans for each state’s divergent 10%. Lots of paperwork ensues, along with all the resources used to review and comply and so on. Then time passes, and given states decide to rethink things and they tweak their standards, changing which 10% they don’t agree on.

And here’ the thing. This dynamic is probably GOOD for producers because they have to keep producing slightly modified stuff. But it’s bad for the states wasting money constantly re-inventing the wheel. And it’s bad for localities who pay a lot more for products because the price is strongly based on the resources expended to produce it.

This change WON’T lead to revolutionary advancements in auto technology. The physics of weight and energy are what they are, and won’t respond to individual state’s mandates any more than federal ones. For example, no one has found a really good way to get around the way physics dictates that decreasing weight to increase fuel efficiency compromises safety. Improvements in materials have mitgated the effets of this dynamic, but fundamentally, it endures.

Researchers in various fields may well come up with great new ideas. I hope they do. If we can come up with a decent source of alternative energy that results in less pollution, I’m all for it.

All these changes WILL do is add a bit to the price for a new car, because automakers will have to expend additional resources on compliance.

By: Manfred

Manfred — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:55:04 +0000

It will be interesting to see how each state deals with this issue. In some ways it would be a good thing to allow states to take care of their own as it would seem to be more an individual decisions, but can we trust our worthy Statesmen and women to do whats right for us and the environment.
If we went back to horse and buggy then we would have people to count the horse air emissions. HA…

By: ShortWoman

ShortWoman — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:46:37 +0000

Do you remember when the car manufacturers started offering special “California cars” at a premium? Have you noticed that they don’t do that anymore, but have standard “50 states emissions”? No, we won’t see GM and Ford offering cars with special emissions depending on the destination state except on a temporary basis. In the end they will simply comply with the toughest standard. And that is the goal!

[devils_advocate] Really, nobody is forcing them to sell vehicles in all 50 states. If the new standards are too onerous, why not just choose not to do business in those states? [/devils_advocate]

By: wj

wj — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:25:17 +0000

If memory serves (and no doubt someone can correct me if I’m worng) we don’t get a patchwork of standards because the law was written carefully. States can either take the (weaker) Federal standard or 1 of one alternative (stronger) standard. So that particular problem isn’t that major.