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July
25, 2002 10:55 a.m. EDITOR’S NOTE: Earlier this week Gov. Gray Davis signed into law a bill to limit carbon-dioxide emissions in California that is aimed directly at SUVs. The law is already being pushed by the New York Times as a model for the nation. Here is what I wrote about it in my syndicated column a couple of weeks ago, when it first passed. — Rich Lowry |
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rive
your Lincoln Navigator around the block a few extra times while you have
the chance. If California Democrats have anything to say about it, the
sport-utility vehicle will eventually be chased from the nation's streets.
A bill that just passed the California legislature, and will probably soon be signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis, mandates that automakers make "the maximum feasible reduction'' in carbon-dioxide emissions. The only way to do this is to squeeze out bigger, heavier vehicles.
The vote won't just affect fuzzy-headed Californians who think it's practically a hate crime to drink nonorganic coffee and want their cars to run on rubber bands and propellers, but every driver in the country.
A quirk in the Clean Air Act allows states to follow either federal or California pollution standards, making the Golden State a leader in environmental regulation. Also, automakers can't afford to simply forgo the California market, and therefore will probably have to manufacture all cars to be meet California standards.
California Democrats want, in effect, to save the planet on the backs of America's SUV-driving soccer moms, who apparently are sainted figures only so long as they don't want to drive any of their children to soccer games.
Environmentalists tried to raise fuel-economy standards nationwide earlier this year in Congress, but failed, because SUVs and other light trucks are so popular. In 36 out of the 50 states, sales of light trucks outpace sales of passenger cars.
So, enviros opted for the California backdoor. The Golden State doesn't have any of those pesky unionized autoworkers who object to attempts by enviro activists to "act locally" by killing off their jobs.
An environmental group, the Bluewater Network, drafted the legislation, and it passed the legislature by one vote after lobbying by U.S. senators like John Kerry (D, Mass.) and John McCain (R, Ariz.), who had supported the failed regulatory push in Congress.
The bill leaves it to the California Air Resources Board to determine what constitutes the "maximum feasible reduction." Whatever it is, it won't be enough to put a dent in "global warming" (if such a thing even exists).
California vehicles, by one estimate, account for roughly one-tenth of 1 percent of all CO2 released globally. This is not just a drop in the bucket, but a fraction of a drop in the bucket.
Even the Kyoto treaty itself, if fully implemented, would only offset .07 degrees of warming by 2050. This means that to stop and then reverse climate change, there would have to be two, three, many Kyoto treaties.
In terms of its benefits, then California's move is empty symbolism, like Jimmy Carter's famous sweater. The costs, in contrast, are real.
The legislature explicitly ruled out new taxes as a way to achieve emissions reductions, but the measures likely to be adopted will be taxes by a different name. To get consumers to stop buying light trucks, automakers will be forced to raise their prices.
Meanwhile, the most obvious way to reduce the fuel consumption of cars is simply to make them lighter and smaller, and thus less likely to protect passengers from crashes.
In response to another starry-eyed California mandate — for automakers to make 10 percent of their sales "zero emissions" cars by 2004 — Ford has been marketing glorified golf carts that it warns drivers not to take on the open road.
"Unsafe at any speed" once was an indictment from liberal activists. Now, it's an aspiration.
There is no reason to believe that consumers, in their love affair with SUVs, minivans and trucks, are making anything but a rational choice.
The price of gasoline, adjusted for inflation, is less than it was in 1970, and can be less than a gallon of bottled water. Why not consume more of it in exchange for greater room, safety, pickup, towing power, etc.?
But environmentalists think they know better. California liberals want government out of your bedroom, so it can meddle in your driveway instead.
© 2002 by King Features Syndicate