Still In Denial

When things are good, when we're living grandly, richly and high on the hog, we are more willing to accept diesel emission controls, climate policy, mercury limits, clean air provisions, what have you. But now we're in a cratering economy. Now, if any of these purport to reduce or eliminate jobs, holy shit. The sky's falling. The environment plays second fiddle when Merikan jobs are on the line.

Nonetheless, the EPA held its first hearing on the California waiver denial last Thursday. And as I understand things, the car manufacturers didn't even send their henchmen to testify at the hearings.

I had written earlier that a depression is not the time to be suing for pay discrimination. That might sound harsh, but if you're willing to lose your job due to "performance issues" (code for get-the-hell-out) over the failure of your company to give you that 5% raise, well, go for it.

It looks like our auto manufacturers aren't going for it. Instead, now that they are on the public dole, they suddenly don't find it politically expedient to challenge EPA as they've been doing for the last thirty years. Only two auto industry trade groups were present, and both touting themselves as being "part of solutions that work."

Ha!

Thank God we find ourselves in the worst recession since WWII, because otherwise we'd be up against an industry with immense political clout that would still be fighting tooth and nail against more efficient regulations, as they did with the seat belt and the catalytic converter. Now they are nothing but political Nerf balls, subjected to an Obama administration intent on creating a cleaner industry. What are they gonna do? Fight the EPA and continue to ask for billions of public dollars? No way.

Look. I've never been much of an advocate of climate change. I've always held the position that if we cleaned up our local environments, the global environment will follow. The California Clean Cars program will help my local environment. Immensely. I would get to ride my bike alongside thousands of vehicles who produce less toxic emissions; as a consequence, my lung cancer might only take hold when I'm sixty instead of fifty five. I've got a personal interest in this outcome so you know where my biases lie.