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Obama’s new fuel economy standards will raise car costs by over $5000

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From U.S. News and World Report.

Excerpt:

Within a span of three weeks, President Obama has announced back-to-back new fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles and trucks. New regulations put in place will require a corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) of 54.5 miles per gallon for passenger vehicles by 2025. New standards for trucks will require a 10 to 20 percent increase in fuel efficiency before 2018.

Whether President Obama realizes it or not, fuel efficiency does not come without compromising other aspects of a vehicle. One feature that will undoubtedly be affected by these new rules is vehicle cost.

According to a study conducted by the Center for Automotive Research, the new passenger vehicle standards could eventually cost consumers an additional $5,000-$6,000 for each new vehicle. Even if gas prices rose to $6.00 per gallon, the average American driver may not recoup that huge price increase through fuel savings. Similarly, new rules for trucks are expected to add an additional $1,050 for work trucks and $6,220 for supercab tractors.

One of the most efficient ways to increase the amount of miles a vehicle can travel per gallon of gasoline is to reduce the weight of the vehicle. Therefore, auto manufacturers will be forced to make cars that are smaller and lighter in order to meet President Obama’s new CAFE standards. Far from a win for consumers, this type of government-knows-best policy is the exact opposite of how a market economy functions. Instead of making their own demands, car buyers will be forced to comply with a federal mandate that insists on prioritizing fuel efficiency above all else—safety, comfort, size, and performance all take a back seat. Car buyers will be forced to pay more and have fewer vehicle options to choose from.

Given the fact that this is such an important policy goal for President Obama, it is fair to look at his own driving habits. The president is chauffeured in a vehicle known as The Beast, a 10,000-pound limousine that gets 8 miles to the gallon. In order to achieve maximum safety and security for the president, the vehicle must be extremely heavy which, of course, decreases its fuel efficiency.

Obviously, lighter vehicles are not nearly as safe for families as heavier vehicles, so there will be increases in traffic fatalities as well.

This is consistent with Obama’s desire for equality. Americans are too wealthy – we need to produce less and consume less so that we are more like other nations. Nations like North Korea and Cuba. Naturally, Obama himself will be exempt from these standards, just as he and his family are exempt from Obamacare. Oh, and his union supporters are also getting exemptions from Obamacare in record numbers.

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Senate Republicans fight to block Democrats from imposing energy tax

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From the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Marathon Pundit)

Excerpt:

The Environmental Protection Agency debate lands in the Senate this week, amid the makings of a left-right coalition to mitigate the agency’s abuses. Few other votes this year could do more to help the private economy—but only if enough Democrats are willing to buck the White House.

This moment arrived unexpectedly, with Majority Leader Harry Reid opening a small business bill to amendments. Republican leader Mitch McConnell promptly introduced a rider to strip the EPA of the carbon regulation authority that the Obama Administration has given itself. Two weeks ago, Mr. Reid pulled the bill from the floor once it became clear Mr. McConnell might have the 13 Democrats he needs to clear 60.

[…]A vote to overrule the EPA is also needed to remove the regulatory uncertainty hanging over the economy. This harm is already apparent in energy, where the EPA is trying to drive coal-fired power out of existence. The core electricity generation that the country needs to meet future demand is not being built, and it won’t be until the EPA is bridled. This same dynamic is also chilling the natural gas boom in the Northeast, and it is making U.S. energy-intensive industries less competitive world-wide.

As the EPA screws tighten, the costs will be passed along to consumers, with the same damage as a tax increase but none of the revenues. Eventually, the EPA plan will appreciably lower the U.S. standard of living. Hardest hit will be the middle-American regions that rely on coal or heavy industry, though the EPA bulldozer will run over small businesses too. The Clean Air Act, once the carbon doomsday machine has been activated, won’t merely apply to “major” sources of emissions like power plants or factories. Its reach will include schools, farms, hospitals, restaurants, basically any large building.

It’s not enough that the Democrats caused the recession through their affirmative action mortgage lending to unqualified borrowers, now they have to go and pass an energy tax, too. Not to mention their efforts to block domestic energy development, which only makes prices go higher. When will they learn?

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Obama’s car regulations will kill more Americans than the Iraq war

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The Heritage Foundation reports on Obama’s proposed regulations on fuel economy.

Time for practice. Time to pile into the…Toyota Prius? Maybe the Yaris. Or surely the Smart Car will do. Those are three of eleven cars that meet President Obama’s new emissions standards that include “nothing larger than a midsize sedan, even when you include hybrids.”

Eleven choices of vehicle? The soccer moms will not be liking that.

But it gets worse. It’s going to cost another 50,000 jobs added on to Obama’s massive count.

Keith Henessey writes: (H/T Competitive Enterprise Institute)

NHTSA estimated that a similar option would cost almost 50,000 U.S. auto manufacturing jobs over five years.

See Table VII-1 on page 586 of the NHTSA analysis.  NHTSA estimated that the TC=TB option, which I’m using as a proxy for the Obama plan, would result in the following job losses among U.S. auto workers:

MY 2011

MY 2012

MY 2013

MY 2014

MY 2015

8,232

24,610

30,545

36,106

48,847

Compared to the Bush draft final rule, this is 37,000 more jobs lost.

Since I know this table is inflammatory, I will anticipate some of the responses:

  • This is an estimate for the job loss from the TC=TB option analyzed by NHTSA in 2007.  This is the closest proxy for the Obama rule, and I’m convinced it’s a good proxy until someone demonstrates otherwise.  But technically, it’s not a job loss estimate for the Obama proposal.
  • This estimate was done in a different economic environment (late 2008), and before the U.S. government owned 1.5 major U.S. auto manufacturers.  My guess, however, is that these changed conditions should push the estimated job loss up from the above estimate, rather than down.
  • There’s a false precision in the above table.  It’s just what NHTSA’s model spits out.  …I don’t put any weight on the precise annual estimates.

And it gets even worse than that.

Steve Milloy writes about the really bad problem on Green Hell blog: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

The Obama administration’s proposed mileage standards that will be announced today may kill more Americans at a faster rate than the Iraq War — his signature issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Obama’s standards will require automakers to meet a 35 miles-per-gallon standard by 2016 — four years earlier than the same standard imposed by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007.

As discussed in my new book Green Hell, the only way for carmakers to meet these standard is to make smaller, lighter and deadlier cars.

The National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards with about 2,000 deaths per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars increases annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715.

In contrast in the more than six years since the Iraq war began, there have been 4,296 deaths among American military personnel.

The Iraq war cost 550 billion and 4300 lives. And for this we got more liberty and security. Obama is spending trillions and trillions of dollars, and he wants to kill 2,000 Americans per year? I am not even talking about his subsidies to kill more unborn babies at home and abroad. This is on top of that!