


Is our lifestyle threatening our planet? The EPA thinks so.











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By BlackIceHorizon on 12/8/2009 1:18:26 PM , Rating: 3
A good plan other than the fact that our costs *are changing*. Gasoline and other petroleum derived substances will continue to increase in price, while non-fossil technologies continue to decrease in price. Certainly some will decry the $60 billion (!) this specific standard is projected to cost the automotive industry (American and foreign alike) over a decade. But we spend ten times that annually funding our military, a good portion of which goes to preferentially securing oil rich areas. Our military investment in the Middle East already outweighs the monetary value of the fossil fuels found there, in strict economic terms. That's not even accounting for the other costs to the U.S. of our foreign energy dependence (political destabilization and radicalization in foreign countries, significant exportation of national wealth through an increased trade deficit, proven health effects of fossil pollutants, etc.). We need to reform our energy systems for myriad reasons, and profit is certainly one of them, in addition to the specter of climate change.

That being said, this regulation-heavy bureaucratic approach strikes me as exactly the wrong way to go about these reforms. If we're going to transition to superior energy solutions (nuclear and wind power, more efficient vehicles and mass transit, etc.) it will happen most efficiently and productively through market-friendly approaches - the antithesis of these new regulations. Hardcore Republicans bristle at the notion, but we need new taxes and less regulation. A gradually scaling gas tax, and a similar strategy with GHGs would do everything we need to promote RD&D of superior technologies through a market incentive without the inefficient and bureaucratic nightmare that will be these GHG regulations. Such taxes can even be revenue neutral by legislative provisions requiring commensurate income tax cuts, for example. We need a reform system that is cheaper to implement and less prone to nepotism and special interest lobbying pressure for specific concessions than our government is ever capable of.

Libertarians like those on this site are right to denounce the institution of the legally-complex nightmares that are our current reform proposals. But such cries will fall on deaf ears without superior alternative solutions. It's time to stop simply griping about how our government is doing it the wrong way and start lobbying with serious policy alternatives.

