Thursday, November 20, 2008
Excellent News
More to come on this, but is a rather surprising development, Henry Waxman supplants my old Rep., "Tailpipe John" Dingell, as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a huge victory for global warming, environment and energy policy over the thirty year blockade Dingell ran for the auto industry.
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9 comments:
There is much grumbling here in Michigan, as you can probably guess.
And gee, why is it that Dingell would have lost this chairmanship?
My only worry is that the stadards soon to be imposed on the auto industry won't serve to further break it.
Yes, now instead of having someone put forward plans that will actually benefit the environment, such as industry-wide emission caps, we will get more Waxman/Californian/environmentalist demagoguery of the auto industry. Which, incidentally only produces about 1.5% of the worlds CO2.
Great news!
/sarcasm
I understand the grumbling up there, but frankly, Dingell has only made matters worse by allowing Detroit to reach the point they find themselves in. His protectionism led to the complacency and rot in the industry.
Focusing only on the auto industry part of the committee is not seeing the forest for the trees—yes, this means the automakers will face some tougher standards—but they SHOULD. But this is good for every other aspect of global warming and climate changing—from coal to renewables and everything else. This means Obama can actually pursue an effective environmental policy. Or MORE effective than would run through Dingell.
This is also huge for telecommunications and net neutrality as well.
This is also huge for telecommunications and net neutrality as well
Here's where I agree absolutely.
"...this means the automakers will face some tougher standards—but they SHOULD."
Why? Becuase the fact that GM's corperate average is 2 mpg less than Toyota's mean we need to punish these horrible people?
I direct you to an old post of mine at ATK, where I discuss CAFE.
http://aroundthekeg.blogspot.com/2007/07/examining-real-impact-of-cafe.html
Bob, I know all Dingell gave a shit about was the automakers, but that committee actually has the potential to impact a huge swath of issues. Waxman will be better than Dingell on ALL of them.
He won't be setting policy by himself, and it's not like Dingell is not still in the room. If we are bailing the Big Three out, it's not in our interest to run 'em out of business...
Don't worry, Toyota will be subject to the same standards too...
Obviously left to their own devices, GM, etc are not capable of looking beyond this year's fad or the next quarter's numbers, so, yeah, they need a kick in the pants if they want tax money.
I got NO problem with that.
Toyota's not asking for a handout, so it's not really relevant.
Bob, excellent post on CAFE, and your point is well taken.
I don't know what the specific requirements of any bailout would be, or what future legislation Waxman might push that Dingell would quash, but hopefully it will be something much more well thought out than simply raising CAFE.
Investment in alternative fuels is key to everything I have heard, and would address your concerns. So, perhaps this will be a win-win situation.
Our energy and climate change policies have to be part of a wider umbrella approach—a master plan if you will. The auto industry needs to be a part of the solution. Under Dingell, they were allowed to stay too far on the problem side of the equation.
All of that said, you guys probably know much more about this stuff than I do, but it has to be viewed in a bigger context than Michigan or one industry too...
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