California Sues Automakers for Global Warming 725
ajs writes "Reuters is reporting that the state of California is suing automakers over global warming. California is claiming that automakers have 'harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health,' of the state. The targeted automakers are Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Chrysler Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co."
Have the guts to sue the drivers (Score:3, Interesting)
And great timing for the American auto industry btw. Maybe left-leaning interest groups (unions and environmental groups) could coordinate with each other.
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt that anyone seriously expects the state to win this suit, but they are at the very least drawing attention to the auto manufacturers' continuous efforts to keep any law that might involve reduced emissions or higher fuel economy off the books.
Hypocrites (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:3, Interesting)
And if the lawsuits were successful in blocking the tougher regulations, then it would appear the law is already on the auto-makers side. So this suit could basically be summed up as "I'm suing you for winning the previous lawsuit".
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Have the guts to sue the drivers (Score:2, Interesting)
Like the parent said, if you want to target someone then target the drivers (obviously not the most popular opinion). They are willingly and deliberately driving a vehicle which they know causes pollution. Im not saying that this should be done, just that it makes about as much sense as what California is attempting to do.
Is global warming proven to be caused by autos? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Only in the short term. Gas spiking up to $4/gallon for a few weeks after a hurricane doesn't get anyone to sell their Canyonero or find a job closer to home. Over the long term (meaning an average driver's car replacement cycle) it is elastic, since buyers can give more or less consideration to fuel economy when they buy a new car. If you think gas-guzzling SUV sales are still as high as they were 5 years ago, you need to acquaint yourself with Ford and GM's financial statements.
When gas was 96 cents a gallon, I drove an SUV that got 15 MPG; now gas is $3 and I drive a compact that gets close to 40. Et viola, long-term elasticity!
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Several years ago, I bought a 1979 Mercedes 450SEL6.9. The car was originally purchased in France, and brought to the US when its owner moved here in the mid 80's. It was retrofitted to pass the US standards, but I always had a bitch of a time getting it to pass CA's SMOG tests. Several years ago, I let the registration expire, with the intenetion of reregistering it once it becomes smog exempt in a few years. Not that it matters now, I finally moved out of that wacky state.
Also, IIRC the $300 fee that you reffer to was deemed unconstitutional, and one of Arnold's first acts as governor was to issue refunds to everyone who had paid it.
Well that's fine (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want these cars, but want them to meet standards the auto industry is unwilling or unable to meet. Well too fucking bad. Maybe you need to just accept that if you want your restrictions you can't allow some or all of the cars a company sells to be sold in your state. Either they'll change because of the loss of business, or they'll accept it and you have to as well.
I've no problems with states deciding to restrict things, however they don't have the right to bitch if companies decide they'd rather not deal with those restrictions and just go elsewhere.
Re:On the face it sounds insane... (Score:5, Interesting)
That law isn't perfect, but it's better than what was there before. Better than what goes on in America.
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:0, Interesting)
http://www.his.com/~sepp/Archive/controv/controve
In Other News... (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps you don't understand the economics, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
The costs simply get passed on to the consumer, via higher future car costs. Since it's CA suing, and the automakers sell worldwide, the net result is that CA is asking consumers in the rest of the world to subsidize California problems.
For all practical purposes, all costs of automobile pollution in CA are due to CA consumers chosing to drive the cars which they do. It's awfully ego-centric for CA to ask the rest of the world to pay for problems that they themselves are responsible for.
Perhaps the rest of the world should get together, and sue California for the increased vehicle costs due to automakers having to meet their unique emissions regulations. (Which, by the way, is a perfect defense -where do they get off suing for emissions which meet the standards they themselves set? Hubris maximus.)
Great idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
Pass a law mandating emmisions be lowered by 25%, then sue the makers of the auto's for the user's actions with their product being in violation of a law that was passed after they made their product. While we're at it, let's throw every gun and knife manufacturer in jail because their products have killed people in the past.
End Sarcasm
I'm not particularly familiar with the law that was passed, but if you ask me, laws limiting greenhouse gas emmisions are a good thing on the whole (assuming they mandate semi-gradual change). But outrageous actions (and IMHO to sue them right now looks outrageous) will probably hurt the cause far more than it helps it. But what would I know?
You can't reduce oil consumption by taxing it. (Score:3, Interesting)
The phrase you are looking for is 'fungible commodity'.
In the short term, a certain amount of oil is produced every day, that gets refined into various products.
There is more than enough demand for oil to use up the supply. That's what establishes the price - if the demand for oil products is too high at a price, the price will go up. If demand at a price is too low, the price will go down.
So, if you tax oil products, what happens? Demand goes down. Price falls. So you end up with the same price for gas as you would have had without taxes - just more of the prize going to taxes. (Well, in a global market, what really happens is the price across the planet drops slightly and the oil products get sold elsewhere.)
In the *LONG* term, if you lower demand enough by taxing enough, the price people can sell oil products for (before tax) goes down, so it becomes less profitable to seek out new sources of oil. So less oil becomes available. Which
In the real long term, you raise gas taxes because, as mentioned above, it takes most of the revenue from gas and puts it into the government's hands to waste appropriately. Since there is thus less economic motivation for people to sell gas, there is a comparatively bigger motivation for energy-producers to invest in energy-production technology that is not taxed, where they can keep more of the profits.
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am almost positive car makers know this. The way I see it, the two reasons car makers haven't adopted electric is for two-reasons:
1. Batteries just aren't high enough capacity. You do not get the range that consumers want.
2. No one wants to wait 8 hours for their battery to change, especially if they're on the road. I realize that there are now fast-charging Li-ion batteries that can charge in a few minutes, but they are incredibly expensive and hard to make. The best compromise I can think of is if the packs were swappable. So you basically keep the "gas" stations. When you want to charge up, they take out your battery, put in a freshly charged one, you pay your money and off you go.
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:3, Interesting)
By swapping out the batteries at the charging station and slotting in freshly charged ones.
Next question?
Oh, and there's only a factor of 500 between lead-acid batteries and petrol with regard to energy density, and less than a factor of 50 between lithium batteries and petrol. Still a big gap, but perhaps not entirely insurmountable.
Re:Not Quite... (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, most of the tax increases in California are voted for directly by the voters. Notice how many bond measures get passed? Yes, those are taxes. California is simply financially suicidle. The state would not fall into a deficit situation if they would stop giving money to special interest groups for projects that have nothing to do with basic govrnment services.
Sadly the state was in the black, with a reserve, before Enron and friends, with complete support of the whitehouse ("Energy concerns are not the concern of the Department of Energy") or sommat like that was their response, which was one of many of the litany of stupid things said by the president while terrible things happened at home and abroad. Energy companies robbed the state while the governor turned to Washington for assistance and was ignored then turned to what resources were at his disposal. I certainly doubt things would have gone the way they had if a republican were governor, in short I and many others believe it was a set-up to get Gray Davis sacked and put a republican in Sacramento so the GOP could do in California what they did in Florida.
On another note, Prop 13 gave everyone in California tax relieve, including businesses, who hadn't actually asked for it(!) That's what has really broken the back of the state budget for years in California. Education is the largest (or nearly) expense of each state. California with 35 million (+) is in the bottom third nationally in education spending. Which explains the poor shape of many of California's once stellar school and university education systems. Now it's a wreck and the state is in a deep budget hole.
Perhaps a state gas tax... I'm sure those who don't drive the preposterous SUVs or lifted 4x4's wouldn't really mind so much. Make those who are a disproportionate demand on petrol pay for it. Besides, who but the rich and insecure really need a Hummer in the city?
Re:Oh for the love of..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Except that California BANNED Nuclear power plants some time ago. For that matter they've all but banned new power plant construction with I think only one plant being built in like the last twenty years.
See California expects everyone else to provide them with power (and eventually water I suspect, but that's another story). Yes building a bunch of nuke plants here and getting rid of all the fossil fuel plants (and allowing people to switch their gasoline cars to clean burning natural gas) would be great. But don't expect to see that happen here, makes too much sense.
What's even more absurd is that the polution here is noticeably less that it was twenty years ago! But can't go talking about that, can they?