Republicans Willing To Trade Bad Emissions For Better Safety
In its proposal Wednesday, U.S. House Republicans offered a carbon credit plan for automakers to trade tougher emissions standards for more safety technology. ( You know, the safety features that people are already willing to pay for.)
“This is a life-saving endeavor,” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said according to Reuters (via Automotive News). Trading pollution for safety, “incentivizes automakers to invest in new safety technology that will save more lives.”
The plan would relax future carbon dioxide requirements up to 9 percent in cars with advanced safety systems. An automotive lobby group said reducing crashes would reduce CO2 emissions.
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration director Mark Rosekind, car companies don’t necessarily need incentives to make their cars any safer.
“Save lives, prevent injuries — that should be the highest incentive that anybody needs to add advanced technologies,” Rosekind said, according to Reuters.
Upton’s proposal would include a sliding scale for credits awarded to vehicles based on technology. A car with three advanced devices could give automakers an additional credit of 3 grams of CO2 per mile, whereas a car that communicates with the road could earn up to 6 grams of CO2 per mile.
(In other news, the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture will offer farmers free water not to grow fruit with razor blades in them.)
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If you consider all the safety features cars have, which ones do you view as wussie? Safety glass? Seatbelts? Steering wheels without sharp chrome horn rings? Steering columns with collapse zones? Signal lights? Mirrors? Your view has been voiced by some at every level of the evolution of cars. Does that make it arbitrary, or do you think you're so special that at this moment cars have suddenly become too safe for "REAL MEN"? What safety features would you consider unnecessary for your children, for instance?
....and ketchup is a vegetable ....
Ah, Republicans, always happy to mortgage our future for short-term gains. Of course they're the party of the old.
I see most people think cafe is unrealistic. The mpg targets are not the same numbers you'll see on the monroney label. It is instead the old unadjusted fuel economy numbers. I'd say most cars are pretty close to meeting their target marks. Not to mention this idea is not a very good one. IIHS seems to do a good job getting automakers to adopt safety measures and its an independent company. You'd think conservatives would love that.