The Conservative Edge

It just keeps getting worse. Overshadowing the historic significance of December 7, the Environmental Protection Agency has today announced that it can regulate auto emissions and greenhouse gases without any legislation being passed by Congress.

As the Reuters news organization reported, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday cleared the way for regulation of greenhouse gases without new laws passed by Congress, reflecting President Barack Obama’s commitment to act on climate change as a major summit opened in Copenhagen.” The news report also quoted Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, who said “This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer.”

The trouble is, the Obama administration is developing a callous disregard for any opposing views, and even the law itself. The White House has already stripped the Department of Commerce from its oversight of the upcoming 2010 Census, and has in fact been feuding with the department all year. Furthermore, the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws concerning trade and commerce. If the EPA makes good on its threats to regulate the auto industry, manufacturing plants, and utilities outside of Congressional law, the agency will violate the ideals expressed by our most fundamental document.

By regulating emissions, the EPA will surely be affecting the very industries involved in production, trade, and commerce. Enforcing auto emission standards (and I would assume truck emissions as well) will have a direct influence on the trucking, shipping, and transporting industries. Manufacturers, already hit hard by increasing unemployment compensation taxes, will be further decimated by tighter emission regulations. The only way many industries will be able to lower greenhouse gas output will be to reduce production output in proportion. This will result in decreased manufacturing activity, and will translate into more job losses in the future. The power utilities will no doubt pass higher operational costs to the consumer, which will likely result in higher utility bills. More money going to pay the electric bill will mean less money going into the economy.

The Obama administration and the congressional Democrats are running roughshod over the American people. I am reminded of a passage in the Book of Revelation, where it describes a horrible beast, and asks “Who is like the beast? And who can make war with the beast?” That is what our government is turning into—a terrible beast that becomes so powerful, it can do what it wants, and nobody can fight it. This group of vipers in Washington is cloaking its thirst for power behind a seemingly innocent ideal—that of saving the environment.

If you want an idea of what America will become, just look at the Russia of the 1990s. When Russia collapsed, industry and energy output crashed as well. Russian greenhouse gas output declined so drastically, that the carbon emissions fell well below levels permitted by law. As a result, Russia now has lots of energy credits it can sell, because it piled up those credits in the economic collapse of the 1990s.

That is where the Obama administration is taking this country. The only way to satisfy the EPA’s tighter standards will be to shrink our economic output. We will be sure to stagnate, just as Russia did just over a decade ago. Welcome to the USSA—the United Socialist States of America.

It does sound like a good deal. The “Cash for Clunkers” program will help put you behind the wheel of that new car the government wants you to own. Old vehicles get taken off the roads, and are replaced by new fuel-efficient cars, and the consumer gets a good deal to boot. So what could be wrong with the program?

There are actually a few negative side effects. Firstly, there are restrictions on the purchase of the new vehicle; namely, the new vehicle cannot be resold for the first two years of ownership. This makes sense, in a way, but it does prevent the buyer of a new car from potentially making a profit by selling the vehicle. For instance, say a person takes advantage of the CARS trade-in program in addition to factory rebates and dealer incentives. But, six months into ownership, say the buyer either doesn’t like the car after all, or needs to sell it due to financial considerations. He or she could get his or her money back, and then some. That transaction, however, would be disallowed by the CARS program restrictions.

Secondly, the used car and used parts industries are being dramatically affected. This is because any vehicle (the “clunker”) traded in must be scrapped, and cannot be re-sold. Salvage yards are not even allowed to sell the engines and drivetrains; they must be destroyed. According to the Dayton Daily News, one local salvage yard refused to take part in the CARS program because of all the rules and restrictions. Another local salvage yard is approved to accept the clunkers, but has declined. Apparently, a government safety bulletin has been issued, stating that disabling the motors yields a toxic substance when the components are melted together, possibly causing skin irritations and other hazards to workers in unventilated areas. These are serious safety concerns for salvage yard owners.

Thirdly, there are higher costs projected for used auto and truck parts. One local proprietor predicts that consumers will see an increase in the prices of used parts for SUVs and trucks, simply because there will be fewer parts available. Another salvage yard owner stated that in the future, if someone needs a transmission, they will be paying quite a bit more for it. This will affect the people who cannot afford a new vehicle, even if they could be eligible for the clunkers deal. With so many Americans still out of work, the last thing they need is higher vehicle repair costs.

Finally, many of the cars being traded in are still driveable. A local car dealer observed that, out of 25 “clunkers” taken in, 15 or 16 of them could have been retailed, or given to someone in need of a nice car. Furthermore, some dealers aren’t getting paid for the “clunkers.” One dealer has 96 cars ready to be taken off his lot, but hasn’t been paid by the government. He has close to half a million dollars’ worth of vehicles ready to send to the scrap yards.

Even though the “Cash for Clunkers” program seems to be a great deal for the consumer, there is still an underlying goal for the liberals in the federal government. Their goal is to dramatically reduce the numbers of cars on the road, and in the process, reduce our dependence on automobiles as personal transportational devices. This CARS program is only the first step. Don’t be surprised if, under the authority of the EPA, the government mandates emission tests for all used vehicles; if the vehicle can’t pass the new emission tests, it will be taken out of service. That won’t be a good deal for anyone.

A few days ago, a column written by Nicholas Kristof appeared in my local newspaper, the Dayton Daily News. Mr. Kristof’s piece stated that Americans are unable to process the oncoming threat of global warming. He asserts that we have a cavalier attitude that prevents us from perceiving future dangers, even though we are alerted at more immediate ones.

I felt compelled to write a letter to the paper, pointing out that global warming is not presented in a factual, common-sense manner. Most global warming supporters use emotionally-based arguments and presentations to make their points.

If you’d like to see the letter, and accompanying responses, follow this link to the Dayton Daily News website. Feel free to post a response either here at this blog, or at the paper’s opinion page. You might be surprised at how many people are refusing to accept the dubious global warming theory.

One of the liberals’ favorite mantras during the Bush administration was “Bush lied, people died.” The Democrats in Congress and in the media were obsessed with the idea that the Iraq war was accompanied by a massive cover-up of information. We supposedly went to war knowing that there were no WMDs in Iraq. All of the pied pipers in the media said that we had been misled and lied to, and that the government had suppressed vital intelligence information.

The Obama administration was going to be different. “Transparency” was a key word used to describe the truthfulness of the new presidency. But we’ve all been lied to since last November. Obama campaigned on putting Americans to work. He said that the economy was going to get a “quick jolt.” But, as Ohio’s own John Boehner recently asked, “Where are the jobs?”

The Obama administration is giving us a green version of deception and cover-up, with help from the Environmental Protection Agency. Research conducted by the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics challenges the prevailing notion that global warming is an increasing danger to the environment. But it seems that the report was intentionally suppressed in order to allow the EPA to support the administration’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

The June 29 edition of the Investor’s Business Daily notes that the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released the EPA study on its own website. Among the findings are interesting statements such as: “Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998, there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.” And this one: “The idea that warming temperatures will cause Greenland to rapidly shed its ice has been greatly diminished by new results indicating little evidence for operations of such process.”

Apparently, the person responsible for producing the report at the EPA has been removed from all climate-related work. He has even been advised to hire an attorney. He is in hot water for suggesting that science is being ignored in the evaluation of CO2 as a pollutant.

If his research had been released before the House vote on the cap-and-trade bill, the outcome might have been different. It’s no wonder the Obama administration is moving so quickly on climate change legislation. They are intentionally suppressing information that would blow holes in the global warming theory, and allow millions of reasonable Americans to see what a farce the theory really is. Remember Y2K? It never happened.

You can read more of the IBD editorial here. I would also recommend a visit to a highly regarded science blog, Watts Up With That? You’ll find that not only are global warming dissenters being intentionally silenced, but that climate data is manipulated to produce desired results that support climate legislation.

Jobs? We don’t need them. The liberals are convinced that America needs more legislation and regulation. They are taking care of both with unprecedented speed and ruthlessness.

On Friday, June 12, I heard Larry Summers defend the government’s involvement in private companies. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Summers said that President Obama “did not, as he has said many times, run for president to manage banks, insurance or car companies.”

That’s understandable. If Obama had mentioned those ideas, he might not have been elected. Like Bill Clinton in 1992, Obama campaigned on fixing the economy, but, once in office, began implementing the Democrats’ real agenda.

If Obama had been completely honest, before the election, about the liberals’ real intentions, he would have told us that (among other things):

• They would impose outrageous and illogical taxes on tobacco products (supposedly to fund health insurance for children), with further tobacco regulation directed by the FDA.
• They would decimate the American auto industry, causing the additional loss of thousands more jobs. They would have the authority to fire the CEO of GM, and arrange the sale of Chrysler’s assets to a foreign car maker. They would increase the regulation of the auto industry, with the EPA to be in charge of auto emissions.
• They would permit the White House to oversee the upcoming Census, removing the Department of Commerce oversight.
• They would increase spending and our national deficit, leading to inflation and higher interest rates.
• They would refuse to expand the exploration and utilization of our energy resources, risking our national security and maintaining our dependence on foreign oil supplies.

That’s been the focus of the administration during the first few months. There doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on job creation. We were supposed to get a “quick jolt” to the economy, but I haven’t noticed it yet. Most of the new jobs the Obama administration takes credit for have come from preparation for the Census. Unemployment has spiked well beyond government estimations. And the run-up in oil prices means that the markets are anticipating increases in inflation, due to the massive amounts of new money being released by the government.

It gets worse. If the Obama administration authorizes the pending cap-and-trade legislation, we will all be spending more on energy to heat and cool our homes. That’s besides the higher gasoline prices that are sure to come, because the Democrats refuse to capitalize on American resources. The real growth we are witnessing is not in job creation, but in the size and authority of the Federal government. God help us.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced a plan to require new cars and trucks to become more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly. The goal is to cut auto emissions and increase mileage up to 30 percent by the year 2016. Vehicles will have to meet a fuel mileage standard of 35.5 miles per gallon.

Right now, it is estimated that consumers will pay an extra $1300 (or more) per vehicle for the cleaner cars and trucks. Before the Obama plan was hatched, carmakers were going to meet a mileage standard of 31.6 mpg by the year 2015. To meet that standard, it would cost the auto industry $47 billion. How much more will it cost them to meet the new requirements for both fuel efficiency AND emissions? Can we be sure that we won’t end up paying $2,000 or $3,000 more for cars and trucks that will meet the new regulations?

What’s really amusing (but also infuriatingly dumb) is the comment by an Obama administration official on the added costs. Here is an excerpt taken from a report on Yahoo!: “Administration officials said consumers were going to pay an extra $700, anyway, for mileage standards that had already been approved. The Obama plan adds another $600 to the price of a vehicle, a senior administration official said, bringing the total cost to $1,300 by 2016.

“That official said the cost would be recovered through savings at the pump for consumers and if gas prices follow government projections.” Notice the “so what?” attitude about consumers paying more for new vehicles; if we’re already paying extra, what’s a few hundred dollars more, right? Shouldn’t the government be finding ways to make cleaner technology cheaper, so more people could afford to buy better cars and trucks?

But the real joke is the statement that we will get the money back through fuel savings if gas prices follow government projections. There is absolutely no way that the government will be able to predict gas prices with any kind of accuracy. Nobody can predict prices for the next 6 months, let alone project out to the year 2016. Is this the government’s way of telling us that it believes gas prices will be 6 or 8 dollars a gallon by 2016? That could be the final nail in the coffin for the auto industry and personal transportation.

The only way that our government could forecast gas prices for the next 7 years is if we had our own supply of oil. With much of our oil coming from unstable countries, it is impossible to predict what will happen to the supply and the price of crude. But if our government would put more people to work securing a predictable supply of oil, we could stabilize prices by cutting our need for foreign oil. The United States and Canada have roughly 15 percent of the world’s proven reserves. We need to get more of that 15 percent to market, available for use here at home.

The Obama administration may be crowing over its new plan to squeeze the life out of the auto industry. But no one is willing to talk about the higher costs the consumer will be shelling out. Not only will new cars cost thousands more, but gas prices will skyrocket again, perhaps from additional future gas taxes. And you can be sure that mandatory emission tests will soon be required, resulting in even more fees to be compliant. It looks like the real reduction in fuel use and emission output will come from the fact that no one will be able to afford cars anymore. Maybe that’s what the liberals want after all.

Winston Churchill once said that “The farther backwards you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” He meant, of course, that history is a great teacher. Even the Old Testament philosopher said that there is nothing new under the sun; everything we see now has happened before.

And so it is with the American auto industry. With GM’s bankruptcy now likely to occur, many people may be wondering if we will ever again have a vibrant auto manufacturing industry. There are thousands of people losing their jobs, not just with GM or Chrysler, but at the smaller factories where parts are made and then sent to the big auto plants. Everyone from machine operators to engineers, from electricians to toolmakers, are seeing their jobs disappear.

And now, here comes our government to the rescue. But it almost seems that the car companies are making deals with the devil. In exchange for government loans to continue operations, the companies are essentially giving up the right to make the kinds of cars to satisfy market demands. They are also being told that the government can fire their CEOs, and tell corporate officials how much money they can make. Maybe Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank will start sketching prototype cars on the backside of bar napkins, and then send them to GM for manufacture.

Let’s look back a number of years to find a similar crisis facing a car company. In 1979 and 1980, there was much anxiety over the fate of Chrysler. Lots of experts were wondering how Chrysler could get in such sorry condition. There seemed to be some agreement that Chrysler’s problems stemmed from a combination of poor management and excessive government regulation. Lee Iaccoca came to Chrysler in 1979, and brought along some talented people from Ford, which resolved much of the management problems. But the company needed capital to stay in business long enough to revamp its product line. The federal government agreed to guarantee Chrysler up to $1.5 billion in loans.

In September, 1980, Ed Lapham wrote in Car and Driver that as part of the agreement, Chrysler had to get more than $450 million in wage and salary concessions from its employees. Chrysler then had to arrange $650 million in concessions from 400 banks; that was hard to do in times of high inflation and interest rates, especially with Chrysler’s credit rating. But the company eventually met all of the requirements for government loans. Iaccoca also worked hard to get everything in order. But his biggest challenge was holding his tongue while certain government officials inspected his company and then made public sport of it. Sound familiar?

In December, 1979, Tony Hogg said in Road and Track that “As far as government regulation is concerned, meeting a bunch of ill-conceived regulations…(is) absolutely devastating as soon as a business takes a turn for the worse…” Hogg also quoted then-Senator Carl Levin as saying “This situation was caused in part by the government…I think the government has an obligation to get Chrysler out of its problems. This is not a bail-out, but government help to solve a problem government has created.”

In 1980, a couple of months before the election, Iaccoca said “I suggested that we’ve had so much regulation in this country, how about declaring an economic crisis for 24 months and freezing all regulations in place. Everything. The air won’t get dirty. More people won’t get killed because side beams or bumpers aren’t meeting the new requirement.” Indeed, this whole realization that government was regulating the life out of American industry is what helped propel Ronald Reagan to the presidency.

But the Obama administration is set to add MORE regulation and legislation against American industry. How many millions of dollars will corporations have to spend to meet new piles of regulations, and to protect themselves against litigation? When you add these new costs to the higher taxes being imposed, it’s no wonder the American manufacturing industry is in such disarray. The auto industry revived in the 1980s because of a cooperative government (remember the repeal of the 55-mph speed limit). The auto industry will be crushed in the years ahead by an oppressive, anti-business government.

Churchill was right. History is a great teacher.

I’ve been giving some attention to the reaction of the local media to last week’s Tea Party here in Dayton, Ohio. Our newspaper, the Dayton Daily News, generally downplayed the event. There seemed to be too many ordinary people who were present, too many blue-collar conservative types. Oh, and let’s not forget–they were mostly white folks.

As I read various articles and blogs, I noticed that of the people who carried signs at the event, there seemed to be no predominant message, other than venting at big government in general. There were lots of people who gathered because of one big issue that troubled each of them. Some people, for instance, were irate about high taxes. Others were concerned about government spending. Still others questioned the bank bailouts. You get the idea.

But I wonder how many people can put all of those little pieces together in order to craft the big picture of what this present administration is really trying to do? And how many folks can look back just a few years ago, to see when and how all of these power grabs got started? The speed of legislative action and the enactment of liberal ideology since January of 2009 has been breathtaking. The dominos are falling rapidly. The closure of Guantanamo Bay; the blitz of tobacco taxes; the reshaping of the auto industry; and now the judgement of the EPA concerning greenhouse gases, are all indications that there is serious social re-engineering going on.

I wish that conservatives could put everything together. The religious right, for example, should get off the abortion soapbox. They think that if a potential congressional or presidential candidate doesn’t say exactly what they want to hear on the abortion issue, they can’t support him. When they withdraw their votes, the liberal fanatics get to fill the vacuum. If the abortion foes would just see the bigger picture, they could help expose the liberal hypocrisy. Namely, the liberals want to give women the right to do as they please with their own bodies (by having abortions), but those same liberals want to take away everyone else’s right to do as they please with their bodies by enjoying tobacco. And these liberals have tried to validate their seizure of the right to use tobacco by citing suspicious and questionable “research” done on the dangers of tobacco use, going all the way back to the 1970s.

They have also been hammering on the oil companies since the late ’70s. Remember Jimmy Carter’s efforts to hammer oil companies with a “windfall profit” tax? And didn’t the liberals raise the same idea last year? Instead of allowing more responsible use of American resources, they restricted further the exploration and production of American oil and gas. What would happen if the oil companies stopped pumping because of the crushing profit taxes? Fuel costs would likely spike even higher.

We all need to see that the liberals have been planning their moves for a long time. They now have the opportunity to implement the many items on their agenda. We need to understand the many issues that are jeopardizing our freedoms. To the world, our President is appearing to be thoughtful, cooperative, and non-threatening. At home, he and his Democratic cohorts are squeezing the last bits of freedom from American society. Can you see the big picture?

Not too long ago, I wrote a commentary titled “Why Liberals Hate Us.” I referred to a column written by Brock Yates, published years ago in Car and Driver magazine. In his column, Yates cited some other writers, who said that the automobile represented one of the last bastions of unregulated freedom. And that’s why liberals have always hated cars. They resent ordinary Americans who derive such pleasure from driving, collecting, restoring, and hot-rodding their favorite cars. Since the late ’60s and through the ’70s, the car haters sought to regulate the automobile and anything connected with the industry.

So, they made seat belts, air bags, ignition interlock switches and 5-MPH bumpers mandatory equipment on all autos sold in America. While countries such as Germany had brilliantly engineered autobahns, superior driver training, and high driving speeds, the liberals here decided we should crawl down the road at 55 miles per hour. We have also been taxed like the colonists were under King George. We pay more in gasoline taxes than the actual cost of the fuel. We have to pay sales tax every time we buy a used car, much less a new one. Every year, it seems like we pay more and more for our car registration fees and driving license fees. All of this is done because liberals hate us and our cars.

Now, in 2009, we have a President who is just as eager to dump on the auto industry as the rest of the liberals in Congress. With the perfect storm of high oil prices in 2008, a collapse of domestic car sales, and an economic crisis, the Obama administration gets what other Democrats before him could only dream of. He now has the opportunity to dictate to the car companies exactly what kind of cars they can make, and how to make them.

This is confirmed by a recent report made public by the Environmental Protection Agency. As reported by Yahoo!, the EPA has concluded that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are a major hazard to Americans’ health. “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem (and) the greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare,” said the EPA. It was the first time the federal government had said it was ready to use the Clean Air Act to require power plants, cars and trucks to curtail their release of climate-changing pollution, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

This opens the door very wide for Congress, especially the car-hating liberals, to regulate the automobile right out of our lives. Pay attention to the following quotes: It’s “a wake-up call for Congress” — deal with it directly through legislation or let the EPA regulate, said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate committee dealing with climate legislation. If Congress doesn’t move, Boxer said she would press EPA to take swift action. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whose House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hopes to craft legislation in the coming weeks, called the EPA action “a game changer.” “It now changes the playing field with respect to legislation. It’s now no longer doing a bill or doing nothing. It is now a choice between regulation and legislation,” said Markey.

For years, the liberals have been trying to convince us how bad the automobile has been, and how we are guilty for loving such terrible contraptions. Never mind that cars sold in California, for example, have been practically emission-free for years. The liberals have been trying to stigmatize the automobile for a long time, the same way they demonize tobacco and firearms. They are getting set to take it all away.

The Investor’s Business Daily recently quoted Czech President Vaclav Klaus in an editorial piece. Klaus said “As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not communism.” Klaus told the Cato Institute that “environmentalism is a religion” that accepts global warming on faith and seeks to exploit it to reshape the world and economic social order.

I couldn’t agree more.