Wonder how much of the European prices includes tax. I suspect there is some built in or otherwise we couldn’t buy the Astra here at anything below the Euro-converted prices. Asking b/c I don’t know. I agree though – alot of Americans not ready to pay premium prices for a small car. Some folks would rather have a lower quality larger vehicle for the same price. Gas is still considered a small part of ownership costs. For me though I still remember the $25K+ price of gasoline over the ownership of a car. More for a large SUV. I’d rather spend that somewhere else by driving frugally. Used car and good gas mileage makes me most happy. Not the same yardstick for everyone of course.

I’d rather have a Mini than an Aveo. I would not rather have a Buick Century vs a Mini if the prices were the same but that’s just me.

A recent survey showed that a high percentage of small-car buyers were actually dissatisfied with their new purchase.

I wonder how many of those people surveyed were folks making knee-jerk reactionary small car purchases?

The ownership experience is certainly going to be related to your expectations in a small car.

There are people out there who follow the herd without considering the actually interior size of a small car, what a small displacement engine with short-gearing is like on the interstate, how big trucks seem when driving a small car, etc.

I have also heard declarations that a car is a “POS” substituted for “this car does not meet my expectations” b/c that person has a different set of qualifications. Of course I hear POS and I start wondering about it’s quality and durability b/c those are my first qualifications for a vehicles value.

My m-inlaw came to dislike her Saturn car way back when b/c on a long uphill highway stretch on her morning commute the tranny would shift down into some lower gear that left the engine revving at 3500 rpm for several minutes. I took a year but she was tired of that car.

She never considered the buzzy engine at purchase time. I on the other hand figured that out when I was sixteen (a decade before) that I didn’t like automatic transmissions or three speed manuals for that reason.

She also refused to slow down so the car would stay in high gear and would not even come close to driving a stick so she could choose which gear the car would make use of at any given time. All she wanted was silent power and gas mileage was optional so now she drives a large Saturn SUV Outlook and raves about it’s capacity to carry seven people despite not really needing that very often. Her choice individually I suppose but if everyone makes those kinds of choices we get $4 a gallon gas (assuming the greeedy men behind the curtain aren’t artificially trading the futures up). That’s when our collective choices gets on my budget’s nerves.

She is one of my imaginary focus group participants. VBG!

For small cars to come around in big numbers again here I think there will have to be a big leap in sustained gasoline prices and an self-educational process where people learn what it is like to live with a small car again and what they need to do to make themselves most satisfied with living them. Yeah I could just say “get used to them”… Again freedom of choice.

I look forward to better economy standards for a selfish reason: more small cars like mine on the road and for a hopefully cleaner atmosphere to breathe. We surely have plenty of haze around here when the wind is still.

Well, are we a “free market” or not? I agree a gas tax is prob the best idea. Tax those who use the infrastructure. That must include commercial interests though too. No loopholes. Let the end consumer pay these taxes through slightly higher prices. No need to let heavy traffic use up the roads while the private vehicle drivers pay for them.

If the theoretical dude is hurtin’ so bad for some gas money b/c of taxes maybe he can lay off spending it on something (consumer distractions like computers or MP3 players) in favor of some more gas to make it to his job. Maybe he can work a second job until he has gotten a promotion at one of his jobs to make up the difference.

Maybe he can get an education so he can get better jobs. Maybe he can get a reliable roomate or put off expenses a little longer. Time for a scooter or bicycle instead? Not as “cool” as a Camaro or Mustang but must society keep it’s taxes low so the lowest income folks are able to purchase an image accessory? Needs vs wants…

Disclaimer: I consider my Navy years and my college years to have been years that my wife and I were working poor like manby other people. The Navy never paid me more than $15K and our fulltime jobs during our college years never paid us more than about $8 per hour either.

The working poor I’ve known are still living pretty well and a there are plenty of frivolous expenses in modern life that a person can cutout. What does pretty well mean? I mean cellphone plans, custom ringtones, subscription TV, pizza and beer, HVAC, video games, etc.

Not like poor in 1960 where a person had a radio, a bathroom down the hall, a payphone in the hallway and the most basic lifestyle. Wait – that was my military years in a nutshell…

Too many times I hear people complaining about not having enough money when they are spending it on frivolous stuff like the latest video game console. My economics prof called “opportunity cost”. My Dad called it “priorities”.

These are simple things that I fear our corporate leaders (looking at you Detroit) and political leaders alike have forgotten or maybe never knew if they were from wealthy backgrounds. That’s the problem with letting the elite run our country – corporate or gov’t leadership. Maybe Dave Ramsey needs to run our treasury…

Back to the broke bachelor. There are always second jobs to be had. Once upon a time we bought our first house working a pair of $8 an hour jobs in a small TN town, going to college and mowing yards on the side. Meanwhile we were making a new car payment and paying child care. Hell, if we can do that so can others.

Is there really such thing as POOR in this country anymore or are there people who perpetually make poor choices?

I think the argument that people make against this tax or that one b/c of a stereotypical poor single working mothers who can’t make ends meet needs to be retired. I don’t want to sound heartless but everybody has choices in life.

Work hard, get an education, spend wisely, DON’T HAVE KIDS if you can’t afford them and aren’t settled domestically, move to places where a better job and lifestyle can be had. Find safer towns where you can live downtown near your job and walk. Losing the automobile from your lifetime budget would yield HUGE savings. Learn to get along with the people around you, make friends, and make good choices.

Maybe the hardships some people’s families faced once upon a time is what motivated generations to do better than their parents. Maybe we are making it too easy to be 19 years old without any personal ambition???

We can all go to college if we want to (fed loans or the US military GI Bill), choose when we want to have children, choose what we want to drive (expensive or frugal), free to live where we want to, most of us can spend a few years in the military saving up some cash or finding a career path, etc etc etc.

I don’t want to see the country treading water b/c we have to wait for lowest common denominator to come along too.

The American Dream still exists but you get there by careful choices. The American Dream doesn’t mean everybody gets a McMansion and two $40K SUVs either. For some of us it is a modest home full of happiness with paid bills and a nice dinner cooking on the stove. The Norman Rockwell dream… VBG!

A person just needs a little education – at least high school, teach yourself some stuff like how to use a computer/manners/fix something, learning to fit in with the crowd you want to earn a living with (can’t look like “A’ if the rest of the office/customers look like ‘B’ – got to be able to function/speak/dress/manners/etc), etc etc etc

Maybe the old statement “Go West Young Man” needs to be revised to “Go Somewhere Else Young Man”. We do need to conquer modern life’s teenage distractions and work hard…

A big dose of that and America could fix alot of it’s problems. I’m not the wise one behind these ideas – I’m just parroting that which I have collected so far in my lifetime.

I know what it is. Not applicable.

Philipwitak: really, geeber? i don’t think i’ve ever seen ‘junk science’ that gets peer-reviewed, and then published.

Lots of junk science out there regarding climate change, the (imaginary) dangers of gun ownership, things that supposedly cause cancer, etc.

joeaverage: A person need not have a heavy Detroit iron with a V-8 to do this either. In fact having tried that with some heavier domestic vehicles I prefer something more nimble for high speed travel.

As someone who traveled the Autobahn in a VW Polo at speeds hitting 90-100 mph, I’ll take a bigger vehicle, thank you very much. The extra room alone is worth it.

Not a bad car for, say, Manhattan or even downtown Los Angeles or Philadelphia, but I’d never trade my Accord sedan for a Polo (if it ever is sold here). Unless I would move to downtown Philadelphia, and I have no intention of doing that.

joeaverage: This is what we typically see in this country b/c automakers want to up sell us into larger vehicles. There are more profits to be made on said larger vehicles BUT I have been in many Civic-sized vehicles that were quite “refined”. There isn’t much of a market for those vehicles here and part of the upselling that goes on is cheaping out on the small cars.

Those features cost money, and Americans have not been willing to pay for them in a small vehicle. When I was in Germany, I looked over an Opel Astra on the showroom floor. Beautiful car, but the sticker price, when converted into dollars, was far higher than what Americans have historically been willing to pay for a vehicle of that size (and that was even taking into account the taxes added to the price).

joeaverage: They would if gas went to $4 per gallon + and stayed there. Some folks wouldn’t no matter what but for them their V-8 vehicle is a very important part of their image/preferences. I saw alot of people eager to reduce their transportation costs last summer and a smaller vehicle option was suddenly palatable.

A recent survey showed that a high percentage of small-car buyers were actually dissatisfied with their new purchase. Here are parts of the article…

As Detroit struggles with a disappointing year-end, market research firm Mintel has uncovered another problem for automakers: consumer dissatisfaction with small cars.

In a new consumer study, Mintel found that only half of small car-buying respondents (51%) say they feel “extremely happy” with their small car purchases.

This pales when considering that 80% of all respondents report feeling just as happy with their vehicle purchases.

“Our survey revealed a surprisingly high number of small car drivers who aren’t fully satisfied by their vehicles, suggesting that today’s small cars may not have the amenities people want….

…Analyst Mark Guarino believes making luxury features such as surround sound stereo and heated seats standard in small cars could help lure drivers to the market.

“The transition from expensive, gas-hogging SUV to cheaper, fuel-efficient compact will feel like less of a sacrifice if the smaller car offers similar luxury features,” he says. “Automakers need these innovative strategies to show consumers they are committed to change.”

Only problem is that those features add weight…which was the complaint in the post I originally responded to. People want air conditioning, power everything, top-notch stereos, sunroofs and deluxe interiors. The great majority of customers do not want razor-sharp handling or the feeling of being “one with the road.”

These features add weight. But historically Americans have not liked extremely small or stripped cars, and have not liked cars that are “high strung” or “sporty.”

The best-selling passenger car in the United States is the Toyota LeSabre, oops, I mean Toyota Camry, not the VW Jetta or Mitsubishi EVO.

joeaverage: I have. I have merged onto Italian autostradas where the left lane is occupied by huge buses and trucks trundling along at 60 mph while the left lane is occupied by German sedans running 130 mph. I did this for three years in all sorts of cars from 40 HP Beetles to ~100 HP Fiats and Opels. This “need” to have 300 horsepower on tap is really a “want”.

If they are paying for the vehicle, they are in the best position to decide what they want.

Along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the slow lane is occupied by buses, trucks and vehicles traveling faster than 60 mph. Merging at a slower speed would be a safety hazard. It is not much fun – not to mention not too safe – to merge in an underpowered vehicle on to the eastbound side of the Turnpike at the Bedford interchange, where the entrance ramp runs uphill. I certainly wouldn’t mind 300 horsepower.

As for anyone’s frustration with CA leading the way or what anyone else drives forcing you to choose – deal with it. That’s life.

Given the choice I’d prob bicycle to work but because of the kind of traffic (fast and large) I’ll never be able to safely make that choice. Heck I have been considering selling my motorcycle for the same reason. It’s no match for a big cell-phone talking idiot SUV driver. Consequently I’ve got to at least drive a small car with seat belts and airbags. My preferred transport methods have been rendered obsolete by those of my fellow citizens. As for CA setting the standard – great! Maybe all of us downwind from CA will be healthier. Maybe the car makers will be forced to be more creative in designing the air pollution controls of their products. Maybe they will be motivated to add EVs to their product lineup wherever the current level of tech makes them viable (great second cars in most moderate temp markets). It’s like my gadgets – every year or two they gadgets I own are obsolete b/c suddenly cassettes are no more, VHS is no more, analog TV is no more, DVDs will get replaced by HD versions of DVDs, my CRT TV is an antique even though it is only a few years old, etc. So what is the difference if my car is suddenly obsolete? No, I don’t like it either but we NEED some progress on pollution controls.

Fly into some big city, travel through many of our national parks, and look at the health issues our children have that are attributed to transport pollution. Alot of modern Amerian cities have a dark cloud of dust and pollution hanging over them even today.

ONE car might be magnatudes cleaner than those of our childhood (or like the two I have in my garage) but when there are millions of them running around our country (or world) it adds up. For the record I’m not worried about old cars and trucks. Most don’t drive enough miles each year to make any difference. Let age and attrituion wash them out of the daily driver fleet.

So what had been the difference between a CA-spec car and a 49-state car? Engine controls? Big deal. NOT a big deal to engineer or repair. Just grab parts from the CA parts bin during assembly. Besides how many of you guys really wrench on your cars yourself anyhow. Do you really even know the difference between them? For the record none of my cars have been in a shop for a repair in over 20 years except for tires and muffler installation.

geeber: I see nothing that will require car makers to build smaller vehicles that will withstand collisions with tractor trailers or delivery vehicles, or legislate those vehicles off the road.

And another approach would be to mandate that the large vehicles such as commercial trucks and SUVs are made safer for smaller vehicles with lower bumpers, softer crumple zones, and in the case of large trucks – guards that keep small cars out from under trailers. They do this in Europe. Also MPG benefits from this. There are creative solutions available.

geeber: Today, most people drive at least 75 mph on most limited access highways. Quite a few people drive faster than that.

Yep, I have done triple digits mph in cars with engines ranging from 1.6L to 2.0L for hundreds of miles. A person need not have a heavy Detroit iron with a V-8 to do this either. In fact having tried that with some heavier domestic vehicles I prefer something more nimble for high speed travel.

Customers also are demanding more control over noise, vibration and harshness, for what we call “refinement.”

I agree. Again a person need not drive a big heavy vehicle to get this. This is what we typically see in this country b/c automakers want to up sell us into larger vehicles. There are more profits to be made on said larger vehicles BUT I have been in many Civic-sized vehicles that were quite “refined”. There isn’t much of a market for those vehicles here and part of the upselling that goes on is cheaping out on the small cars. Alot of potential refinement is left out. Better wind noise control, better rubber mounts, some quiet pads, and quiet coatings for inside body cavities goes a long way and weighs very little meaning a 45 mpg compact can be alot better than what we typically find in America today.

The demand for more refinement has led to more weight, hrough increased stiffness of the body shell, which means additional bracing.

I agree with that. Also people won’t put up with the vibrations my 1981 Mustang had that caused the dash to bounce at when the car was driven at high speed with an out of round tire. I won’t either. Again good =/= heavy necessarily.

ren’t going to swap their Explorers and 4Runners for Fits and Rabbits.

They would if gas went to $4 per gallon + and stayed there. Some folks wouldn’t no matter what but for them their V-8 vehicle is a very important part of their image/preferences. I saw alot of people eager to reduce their transportation costs last summer and a smaller vehicle option was suddenly palatable.

Cars have gotten bigger, faster and heavier because this is what customers wanted.

Because gas has been cheap just like in the 60s. Once gas went high and stayed there Americans changed. We reminiced alot about our big cars of course and went back to them when we could. Europeans might as well as long as parking fuel prices weren’t problems. We rationalize our wants with our needs. At the same time my own taste in cars have slowly evolved towards more desire for quality (less NVH with more clever features) as I have gotten older. No way I’d put up with my ‘66 Mustang or even my ‘81 Mustang now if I didn’t need to but I can afford to drive something better if I want (continuing to cheap out though).

PGAero: I live in CA, and love the geography, climate (I had snow yesterday), and the people I’ve grown up knowing, but this stuff just gets me angry. California has a lot going for it, but it thinks it’s too great, and that will come back to bite it.

Yep. Let folks who make less money cope. Live closer to work, learn new skills, get a better job, find a partner or roommate to share the living costs, have fewer children, put off the purchase of luxury items. It’s life and what a free market brings.

Quick math tells me I pay about $150 in gas taxes at 38 cents per gallon (TN), 500 gallons of fuel per year. Okay – if that went to 75 cents I’m paying $375. That’s $30 per month??? If I can’t afford it I’m shopping for a better car next time or driving less or hopefully developing some friendships so I can carpool and lower my cost of getting to work. Heck, I could even buy a scooter instead.

look, I’m not for higher taxes just to give my money away. If our gov’t/country is going broke and we can’t keep the lights on then I’ll pay my part but I’m not eager to give this party or the last extra money to be frivolous with. I’d rather keep the gov’t poor and do more with less. Maybe we would be less eager to go to war or spent money like the DC politicians were royalty.

If we need to fund a war we can start selling war bonds again.

I also take it that you have never attempted to merge on to the Pennsylvania Turnpike in a small, underpowered car where the merging lane is going UP a hill, or attempted to pass ignoramuses camping in the left lane on a hilly limited access highway. You’d be amazed at how much that “unnecessary” power is appreciated.

I have. I have merged onto Italian autostradas where the left lane is occupied by huge buses and trucks trundling along at 60 mph while the left lane is occupied by German sedans running 130 mph. I did this for three years in all sorts of cars from 40 HP Beetles to ~100 HP Fiats and Opels. This “need” to have 300 horsepower on tap is really a “want”.

Maybe this is one reason Europeans like diesels. Lots of torque, small engine, great mileage. Not saying they have all the answers in Europe but that we are ignoring some good ideas we could apply in America. They certainly have alot of ideas about how to live in cities with alot of people and maximizing farming land. I think the one big mistake we Americans make time and time again is the one where we are convinced that we have all the best ideas about everything. We do have alot of good ideas and alot of our other ideas could be improved by looking around a little to see what other folks are doing. And for the record the Europeans could learn alot of stuff from us too.

I invite you to visit the Honda and Toyota UK websites where you can see the mileages of cars very similar in size and features to the ones that we drive here in America that get 40+ MPG RIGHT NOW. That was the Civic 5-door that I looked at just now. While you are at it stop by the webpages of VW, Opel, Ford, Peugeot, and Renault to see what people who pay nearly $10 per gallon drive and what kind of gas mileage they demand. The difference between their small cars and our’s in the USA? Not friggin’ much – and that makes GM’s Daewoo products look all the worse. Take a trip down to your local saturn dealership and look at the Astra. Everything I’ve read says that the US federalized version is not any different than the European version. Our Ford Focus is very, very similar to the one that Europe gets as well.

The Europeans demand good pollution controls and safety just like we do. The difference is that in order to get 40+ mpg in a compact car the Europeans will tolerate a 15 second 0-100 kph (62 mph) run. I think MOST of us could learn to live with acceration like that too. I certainly have spent plenty of time in sub-2.0L vehicles. I once owned a 900cc Autobianchi and regularly drove it 75 mph+. And yes even with mid-70s tech it got very good mileage relative to American vehicles of that era.

In fact if the Detroit 2.8 would get off their lazy asses they would see that lobbying for a standardized pollution and safety standard for Europe and America would enable them to Federalize the products they sell in Europe ASAP and they would instantly have plenty of quality small vehicles to sell to Americans who wanted them.

Of course they and the UAW don’t REALLY want true free markets b/c they would instantly be competiting with every make and model currently sold in Europe (at least the ones that could pass our safety/pollution testing minimums. Don’t forget that lowly Daewoo can sell cars here (pass testing), lowly Yugo could do it in it’s day, and so can Skoda, Renault and a long list of other brands we can see on the web but not buy here.

I’m not convinced that CO is an important gas to limit but I can say that all pollution needs to be better regulated in this country. Our population continues to rise, our rates of consumption of everything continues to rise (while the lifespan for much of the consumer rubbish we buy these days goes down ever faster), and we are ever more efficient at mining/harvesting/consuming the earth’s resources.

Once upon a time some consumer goods would last decades. Now people just toss them in the landfill and replace with another piece of rubbish b/c it’s more economical.

Meanwhile we are denial about the issues we’ll face with all of these problems right around the corner.

No, as our country continues to mature and we consume everything ever faster we need more control (planning) over how we do it.

Once upon a time people had land. It didn’t matter that your neighbor had a junkyard and was pouring industrial waste into the ground. Now we are much more crowded and our neighbors’ actions directly affect our own health.

The industrial age is only 150 years old and we have some believe used up most of the oil, most of the minerals (rare minerals as found in your favorite gadgets), and polluted the earth like never before. How long can we continue to do this? Another 150 years? I SERIOUSLY doubt it. Could the environment absorb the waste even if the raw materials did not run out?

You might be 15 minutes from dying and being buried but I have several decades left and my children have a lifetime ahead of them. I have no desire to use up the world leaving nothing for anyone after me. It’s the me-first mentality which has helped upset our economy to the detriment of us all this past year.

Do we need a socialized/communist government to set us on the right path? No. And I don’t think Barack Obama is a commie either. He’s trying hard to right the cart in the first month of his presidency and that may not be possible but I think he wants to get help where it is needed and see the fruits of his party’s efforts during his presidency. Still I think some decisions may get rushed without enough consideration for alternatives or side-effects. I’ll let time show us his follies or his successes. Prob not going to be any worse than the last guy.

Want another example of poor American planning? The wars and our federal debt. I lay this at the feet of both parties. Can we really continue to spend like we have for the past decade without expecting the value of the dollar to plummet as the debt rises? Can we live in a country where we export our dollars while importing everything else sold in our stores? That’s a question that I don’t have an answer to. From my point of view there has to be an end to it all somewhere. Wars = debt = higher taxes. But the current and previous presidents lowered taxes…

Sort of like the UAW striking when a company is facing bankruptcy. Counterintuitive to me. Blood out of a turnip et al…

So, why all the hubbub, bub? Seriously. This will hurt the imports dis-proportionally to the Detroit 3. For those of us who would like to see the Detroit 3 survive and thrive, isn’t that a good thing? I certainly think so.

In this way aren’t we, in fact, getting Japan and Korea to spend more investment dollars so that we get clean air? That sounds like a good thing to me!

In any case, I have complete faith that our companies can engineer all their cars to meet the most stringent standards so all cars can be sold in all 50 states. To say otherwise is silliness, the idea that there’ll be 50 models of every car is asinine. Any company with any modicum of competence will just engineer to the top standard and get on with the business of selling cars. It isn’t hard unless you’re stupid, and if you’re stupid you deserve to go out of business.

It’s odd that people fight so hard for their right to pollute. Whether global warming exists or not I don’t want to drive a high-emissions vehicle for the same reason I don’t piss in my kitchen – I don’t want to live in a dirty place. Filthy air full of particulates and smog is bad, I don’t care who you are. There’s no reason to fight for the right to pollute or defend the interests of a corporation that would just as soon kill you as fix a safety issue in your car.

Personally, I believe the federal government should not devolve its responsibilities in this area to California. This “solution”– to a problem I’m not convinced needs a solution in the first place– stinks.

Yeahbut…..

Not really trying to misrepresent anything — just trying to put it into some kind of clearer perspective.

Is not the proposed “solution” essentially “mandating more fuel-efficient vehicles?” And aren’t most of the folks in here against such mandation? Oh, sure, I get the whole anti-government side of the story, but I think the anti-government part of it rather overwhelms the “mandating what?” side of the story. Which is simply “more fuel-efficient vehicles.” Isn’t it?

If the government wants to have an impact on oil prices, I think less is more in regards to government “action.” We can all think of new taxes, higher taxes, carbon taxes, blah-blah. But the fact of the matter is the United States Government, in what could be described as some perverse bi-polar disorder, distorts fuel prices for the entire world with its military activities and politics in the Middle East. Oil enters every calculated decision the USA has made in that part of the world, some overtly. And I don’t mean since 9/11, either. When you look at the history you see:

1953: Coup in Iran via CIA malfeasance with British help to insure BP owned the fields to keep the goo flowing.
1956: Effectively eliminating the influence of old colonial powers Britain and France in the eastern Med during the Suez crisis, pleasing our drug dealers.
1973: Air-shipping Israel damn near a whole brigade of Army junk so they could seize the initiative in the Yom Kippur war, pissing off our drug dealers and precipitating the embargo.
1979: Screwing up big-time in the implosion of the Shah (see 1953 coup) with half-ass commando ops to save hostages, precipitating second oil-shock
1986: Flagging Kuwaiti tankers with Old Glory, insuring a diplomatic cover (once the Iranians made a stupid move, which they did) to sink the entire Iranian navy and effectively guarantee the smooth flow of goo through the Straights of Hormuz, keeping oil cheap.
1991: First Gulf War to again, protect our Kuwait and Saudi drug dealers, (after one of our dealers turned on the others) and insure cheap, reliable access to the oil.

Needless to say, the subsequent eighteen years since then have been filled with all kinds of shenanigans by our sovereign government in the Middle East. If Uncle Sam really wanted to insure higher oil prices, we would extricate ourselves not just from Iraq, but militarily from that region. No more 5th Fleet in Qatar. No more F-16’s with AESA radars and Patriot batteries for Dubai. No more Strike Eagles and M-1 tanks for the Saudis…etc.

Within a couple years, Iranians will have their third-rate nuke and oil will be north of $150/bbl barring significant “regime changes” within those societies. High gas prices solved, and Uncle Sam saves lots of blood and treasure in the process. Gas taxes have not even begun to cover the bills we’ve paid to insure access to the goo, at any price.

A president might advocate a tax increase, but the power to do so is reserved to Congress. And strangely, politicians perceive little demand among their constituents for raising the cost or other burdens of government.

1) They certainly didn’t have this issue with all the huge expense in Iraq. You know, that war became quite unpopular during the second term. If politicians can persuade their constituents to pay for an unpopular war, why not a gas tax?

2) A gas tax doesn’t have to be “added” tax. It can be tax neutral, if the government returns the entire amount of gas tax in the form of reduction in social security tax.

If the California waiver is granted as it now appears it will, Obama has outmaneuvered the Congressional and the auto industry opposition.
Increasing auto MPG has got to be a big part of reducing oil imports. Ethanol and biodiesel will never be enough without help.

The big three have resisted increased mileage for years for immediate profits that have disappeared. They are now wards of the state and at the mercy of the Obama administration. Obama knows that he has little to fear and much to gain in reducing oil imports with this action. It is the constant drain from the economy to pay for imported oil that is a major factor in the current economic predicament.

IMO this means the American car market will come to look more and more like the European and Japanese. Much smaller cars with smaller engines, diesels and plug in hybrids will increase while the old fashioned buggies head for the junk yard.

We have all the tools to do everything we need smarter and more efficiently while most likely, providing most of the choices we already have.

If you would notice, those are not researchers in climatology. You should try searching for their papers; you know, peer reviewed papers, aka science.

It’s quite common for deniers to bring in peripherally related people with trumped up credentials, or just make up supporters, as in the case of the Heartland Institute, and likely true in this case.

There are a handful of remaining scientists still sitting on the fence, but the number is dwindling, as if it can fall any lower, and it’s no surprise which way they’ve been falling. I seriously doubt any of them want ANY association with the deniers.

The most common pockets of _popular_ (ie. not scientific, an important distinction) dissent come from petroleum geologists and meteorologists (weathermen). Make of that what you will.

Consensus? What consensus? That said, most people feel that misrepresenting an opposing viewpoint is bad form.

Personally, I believe the federal government should not devolve its responsibilities in this area to California. This “solution”– to a problem I’m not convinced needs a solution in the first place– stinks.

Again, where are the names and the research. All I see are usual motley of unrelated people like chemical engineers and whatnot.

Must be a different list than the one I read on the link . . .

* Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
* Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.”
* Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate
* Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands’ Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes
* Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
* Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon

This is the top of the list, and they sound qualified in the right disciplines to me. And as I understand it, they’re not claiming unique research that contradicts GW . . . they’re refuting the fact the existing research makes a good enough case in support.

I know, going into your golden years without the choice of 81 SUVs is akin to Marxism, I know…

really, geeber? i don’t think i’ve ever seen ‘junk science’ that gets peer-reviewed, and then published.

perhaps you would like to cite your source?

The blog that you linked to belongs to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who is the co-chair of the EPW committee. He is responsible for all of the content.

His views do not reflect the views of the full committee.

For what it’s worth, Sen. Inhofe is the guy who said global warming is “the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state.”

How long before China demands the same standards on cars there?

Perhaps Bertel can comment. My memory is that China has fairly tight regulation in place on fuel economy standards and have recently tightened crash standards.

As others have said, China has many of the regulations that they need, even surprisingly to most people, environmental ones but the problem has been active enforcement.