California Scheming
HAVING READ “SHOWDOWN WITH California” (see WAW — May '08, pp.34), it appears Gov. Schwarzenegger and the California Air Resources Board — namely Mary Nichols, Tom Cackette and Stanley Young — must enjoy some outstanding engineering capabilities to be so hellfire sure their emission proposals can be met within the timeframe they specify.
I propose that this group of experts be set up in a skunkworks so they can show all of the dumb engineers in the automotive industry worldwide how to accomplish this monumental task. Remember, their design must be capable of mass production within acceptable cost limits, and of course it must be green.
The comment by Stanley Young, “There are two options: California regulations and the federal regulations,” is totally erroneous and naïve. There are 50 states in The Union. If California has its way, who's going to stop each state from having its own pet requirements?
As an afterthought, perhaps Al Gore should be added to the CARB design team.
Thanks for the great magazine.
Al Denton
Ann Arbor, MI
YOU PAINT GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER AS the cyborg that is trying to save us from ourselves. Well, paint again. Rather, he has become an ATM Cyborg Gone Wild!
He intentionally failed to balance the California budget. The governor's deficit budget was the excuse to fire some 40% of California's teachers. The media have failed to address the long-term damage this will cause in California.
According to your publication, Schwarzenegger is the good cyborg, protecting Californians from bad, rust-belt politics. He and the state are suing the federal EPA. Can't he find a better use for borrowed money? The state can't afford to pay Schwarzenegger's salary, much less sue the EPA over CO2. The governor doesn't even know what CO2 is, nor can he prove it is a pollutant, because it is not.
What about his merry band of helpers, the Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board? These people are not elected into office and are not members of the legislative branch or the judicial branch. They are appointed by Schwarzenegger. They are not accountable to California citizens and have no term limits. Last I heard, they were paid more than $100,000 and year, yet do little more than attend one meeting a year and vote on outrageous, if not insane, ideas.
Follow the money. Just like the teacher firings, this CO2 nonsense has a money trail. California's vehicle smog reduction program has netted the state billions of dollars (and wreaked havoc on almost all Californians at one time or another). So might this CO2 “pollution” scheme net California more revenue.
My bet is Schwarzenegger will levy a tax on CO2 emissions. In the European Union, not only is there a global warming tax on the fuel, of about $3/gal, they also have a CO2 emissions tax on the registration of the vehicle.
I've been told that the tax is about $1,700 per year for a 4-cyl. diesel car. Schwarzenegger wants this money. Imagine, $1,700 for each vehicle in California. Imagine what he can tax out of the big rigs hauling goods from Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors. At that point, Schwarzenegger will never be able to pen a bad budget, and he will look like the good cyborg, forever.
Monty Campbell
Alta Loma, CA
Political Wrecking Crew
I WANT YOU TO KNOW THE EXHAUST page column by Steve Finlay is the exact editorial stance your publication needs to be taking (see WAW — June '08, p.48). This column is “spot on.”
If you would dive into the “political” process and see how politicians have contributed to the wreck of the U.S. automobile industry, you would identify a basic reason for the economy being in the tank and fuel prices constantly moving upward.
Tom Willett
El Paso, TX
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