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Automobile mfg/dealer

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flips off heckler in ford plant

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Trump’s policies have cost the auto industry a staggering $25 billion so far

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Tariffs 'exacerbate the problem': Whitmer rips Trump for damage to Michigan economy

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/ohio-just-ordered-gm-to-repay-28-million-in-tax-breaks-for-closing-lordstown-auto-plant/

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in a Bold Move, California’s Governor Issues Ban on Gasoline-Powered Cars as of 2035

BY: DAN GEARINO

The order, issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, is the first of its kind in the United States. But it is bound to draw legal challenges.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/bmw-vows-to-tie-executive-pay-to-climate-goals/

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CAFE smash crisis

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/trump-to-announce-his-most-disastrous-environmental-policy-so-far/

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Trump to announce his most disastrous environmental policy so far

Written by Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams March 31, 2020

As the nation grapples with the coronavirus outbreak crisis, the Trump administration intends to further threaten public health and advance its attacks on environmental regulations with a new rule neutering Obama-era vehicle mileage standards, according to multiple news reports Monday.

The administration is expected to announce the new rule Tuesday.

The Obama administration in 2012 ordered automakers to have a 5% annual increase in fuel efficiency for model years beginning in 2021‚ a standard that would bring the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.  The Trump administration will significantly weaken that standard and instead require a 1.5% annual increase, putting the 2025 at 40 mpg.

“Of all the bad things President Trump has done to the environment, this is the worst,” said Dan Becker, director of Safe Climate Campaign.

“Amid a spiraling health crisis and economic turmoil, Trump is recklessly driving us over a climate cliff,” Becker added.

As Bloomberg reported,

The final regulation’s release will conclude a years-long effort to dismantle the ambitious standards, which supporters have called the most effective policy ever enacted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.

The expected regulatory change drew criticism from climate experts who said it spells bad news for consumers and the planet alike.

“This is an enormous license for car companies to lock in and profit from decades more pollution from SUVs,” meteorologist and journalist Eric Holthaus said on Twitter Monday. “This rule change alone is expected to result in a billion tons of needless CO2.”

Ken Kimmell, president of Union of Concerned Scientists, concurred.

“This new rule leaves the country worse off. In the near term, it’s a massive transfer of tens of billions of dollars from drivers to oil companies, as consumers will spend more on gasoline due to less efficient cars. It also cedes American leadership in vehicle manufacturing, putting the automakers at risk in a global market. In the long term, it’s even worse—a deliberate decision to steer us at high speed toward a more dangerous climate,” said Kimmell.

“To add insult to injury, the Trump administration has barely even attempted to justify this new rule, basing its decision on flimsy or outright false arguments,” he continued. “The stated rationale defies common sense, science, and the public interest. This new rule will face a difficult test in the federal courts, which should have no patience for this kind of shoddy reasoning.”

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Turning to the Courts

It will likely be the courts that decide the outcome of the Trump administration's battles with California. And on the state's greenhouse gas emissions standards for autos, the legal hurdle that the Trump administration faces is high.

When Congress originally passed the Clean Air Act in the 1970s, lawmakers gave California authority to set its own standards, seeking not to disrupt the steps the state already had taken to address pollution under then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. All the state needs to do to obtain its "waiver" to act is show a compelling need, and that its action is not arbitrary or capricious and is at least as protective as the federal standard. Until Trump, no administration had ever revoked a California waiver that already has been granted.

"To revoke a waiver that is already issued is a huge leap legally, and is sort of ironic in the light of other instances where the administration is taking the position of deferring to the states, and giving them more responsibility and autonomy," said McCabe.

The Trump administration plans to make the legal argument that the greenhouse gas emissions standards are, in effect, fuel economy standards—and that Congress prohibited states from setting their own fuel economy standards when it established a national auto efficiency program in 1975.

Two federal courts—in Vermont and in California—rejected that legal reasoning during the George W. Bush administration.

Trump's rollback of greenhouse gas standards could work to the automakers' short-term benefit, since their less fuel-efficient SUVs and pickup trucks are their most profitable vehicles.

In the long-run, though, automakers risk getting left behind in the competition to meet growing global demand for electric vehicles, which explains why Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen struck a deal with California in July to voluntarily implement annual fuel economy improvements across their fleets even if the Trump administration weakened standards. The deal reportedly enraged Trump, and his administration has threatened them with antitrust action over the agreement.

When asked how it answers the charges that it is engaging in a political vendetta against California, the Trump EPA returned to its message on the environmental shortcomings of the state that is fighting the administration to keep environmental protections in place.

"Highlighting that California has very serious environmental failures both with air and water quality is not a political issue, and unlike previous Administrations, under this Administration the EPA is acting to protect public health and the environment for all Americans," said Corry Schiermeyer, EPA's associate administrator for public affairs in an email.

From a purely political standpoint, Trump has little to lose in warring with California. It resonates with the president's base, if the response from his Twitter followers is any indication. "California is such a mess @potus!," tweeted @carrieksada. "Fires everywhere. And they're worried about exhaust fumes."

Trump lost the state in 2016 by 30 percentage points, but he won the election without the nation's largest pot of electoral votes.

Of course, the state was not always so politically lopsided. California was the home of two Republican presidents elected in the past 50 years. But as Reagan's daughterPatti Davis wrote of her state last week: with wildfires advancing on her father's presidential library in Simi Valley, that California is gone.

GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Fiat Side With Trump in Fuel Efficiency War Against California

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https://www.ecowatch.com/toyota-mirai-electric-car-2640583126.html

...Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs, have been in development for decades but only commercially available since 2016. Toyota, Honda and Hyundai are the only car companies that sell them in the U.S.

Approximately 1,100 have been sold so far in California, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

If the very notion of a hydrogen car conjures images of the Hindenburg exploding into flames, that fear is largely unjustified. Yes, hydrogen is flammable. But so is gasoline. The two fuels are roughly comparable in terms of safety.

One advantage of a hydrogen car over a plug-in is that it only takes about five minutes to fill up. However, there are only 40 places to do it in California — at least right now.

And then there's the cost.

Buying one is about $60,000, which is roughly the same as a plug-in electric, but almost double the average price Americans are currently paying for a new vehicle.

Riverside startup StratosShare has a plan to make them more accessible and affordable. You can rent them by the hour, day or week, starting at $10 for 60 minutes — fuel and insurance included. Drivers can use an app to locate, reserve, pay for and unlock a zero-emissions Toyota Mirai.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/the-entire-us-federal-government-is-becoming-trumps-glorified-fixer/

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The entire US federal government is becoming Trump’s glorified ‘fixer’

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly September 10, 2019

Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had opened an anti-trust investigation into four automakers. The issue wasn’t that the companies were colluding to fix prices or eliminate competition, it was that they had all agreed to abide by the fuel efficiency standards imposed by the state of California.

The Trump administration has been attempting to write a new rule to roll back the fuel efficiency standards adopted by Obama’s EPA. However, Coral Davenport and Hiroko Tabuchi reported that those efforts were running into problems.

In the Trump administration, three senior political officials working on the rollback, a complex legal and scientific process, have all left the administration recently. A senior career official with years of experience on vehicle pollution policy was transferred to another office.

That means the process is now being run by Francis Brooke, a 29-year-old White House aide with limited experience in climate change policy before moving over from Vice President Mike Pence’s office last year. Given the lack of experienced senior staff members, people working on the plan say it is unlikely to be completed before October.

They went on to write that, during White House meetings on the topic, Trump was prepared to drop the roll back of Obama’s fuel efficiency standards and had shifted his focus to coming up with ways to retaliate against both the automakers and the state of California.

According to a more recent report from Davenport, the rollback now appears to have been put on hold, but retaliation efforts are going full steam ahead. The anti-trust investigation appears to be the way the administration is taking on the automakers, which is why the editorial board of the New York Times issued this stinging rebuke.

President Trump’s Justice Department — for it is increasingly clear that the department has been reduced to an arm of the White House — has opened an antitrust investigation of four auto companies that had the temerity to defy the president by voluntarily agreeing to reduce auto emissions below the level required by current federal law.

The investigation is an act of bullying, plain and simple: a nakedly political abuse of authority…

The investigation is particularly striking because the department has shown little interest in preventing corporations from engaging in actual anticompetitive behavior. This summer, for example, the department blessed T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint, a deal likely to harm mobile phone consumers and workers, and to impede innovation.

If the Justice Department wants to get serious about antitrust enforcement, there are plenty of places to get started. This investigation is an embarrassment. It might as well wheel out the statue of Lady Justice and replace it with a bronze marionette.

According to the WSJ, the state of California also received a letter that threatened legal action.

On Friday, top lawyers at the Transportation Department and Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to California’s top air regulator, Mary Nichols. It urged her to dissociate the state from the four auto makers, saying the commitment may result in undefined legal consequences.

“The purpose of this letter is to put California on noticethat this framework agreement appears to be inconsistent with Federal law,” the letter states. “Congress has squarely vested the authority to set fuel economy standards for new motor vehicles, and nationwide standards for (greenhouse-gas) vehicle emissions, with the Federal government, not with California or any other State.”

That last sentence is the kicker, because it’s not true. Robinson Meyer provides some historical background.

When Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1970, it empowered the EPA to set new national standards on air pollution from cars and factories. It was the federal government’s most aggressive attempt ever to address the dangers of smog and toxic air pollution.

But this was old hat for California, which had already been dealing with smog for two decades…When Congress began drafting the 1970 Clean Air Act, the state fought to maintain its ongoing regulatory scheme. It argued that its program should be left alone, since it was successful, and that its air problems were naturally worse than other states’…

California succeeded—and dramatically so. California is written into the Clean Air Act by name: At any time, it can ask the EPA administrator for a waiver to restrict tailpipe pollution more stringently than the federal government. If its proposed rules are “at least as protective of public health and welfare” as the EPA’s, then the administrator must grant the waiver…

Under the same provision, any other state can choose to adopt California’s more stringent standards. Fifteen states currently opt for the tougher rules, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and the entire New York metro area. This means that California’s rules actually cover 135 million people, more than 40 percent of the U.S. population.

So what the lawyers at the Transportation Department and the EPA should have said in that letter to Mary Nichols  is that they are preparing a plan to revoke California’s authority to set its own vehicle greenhouse gas standards. But I suppose that wouldn’t have sounded as threatening.

What we are seeing in all of this is that the Justice Department, as well as the Transportation Department and the EPA, are being used to retaliate against institutions on behalf of the president. This is the same kind of corruption of the federal government we’ve seen recently on everything from the NOAA’s defense of “sharpie gate,” to the Air Force being used to prop up a failing Trump business, and the State Department withholding funds from Ukraine in order to pressure that country into investigating a potential Trump opponent.

As Jonathan Chait notes:

This is the story of 2019, as Trump has replaced institutionalists attempting to curtail his grossest instincts with loyalists happy to indulge them. It is playing out across multiple dimensions. This is the through-line between several seemingly disconnected episodes from the last several days…Trump’s stench is slowly seeping into every corner of government.

In other words, the entire federal government has been corralled into being nothing more than a glorified “fixer” for Donald Trump.

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Trump is picking a fight with the auto industry — and making it painfully clear how he chooses his adversaries

Nancy LeTourneau / The Washington MonthlyAugust 21, 2019

For any president not named Donald Trump, Tuesday would have been a major face-palm day. He accused the more than 70% of American Jews who vote for Democrats of lacking knowledge and…

Great: major automakers and California defy Trump rollback, make an agreement to curb auto pollution

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https://www.alternet.org/general-motors-laying-thousands-workers-and-closing-two-us-plants-michigan-and-ohio

General Motors has made an announcement that is going to bring considerable pain in the Rust Belt. The automotive giant will be slashing 14,700 jobs, many of them in Michigan and Ohio—and a plant closing is expected in Ontario, Canada as well.  

This is the biggest restructuring at GM in a decade, with 15% of its workforce being eliminated in North America. According to GM CEO Mary Barra, these job cuts reflect changing tastes in the automotive market and will bring a greater emphasis on electric and autonomous vehicles. Models expected to be discontinued include the Cadillac CT6, the Chevrolet Cruze and the Buick LaCrosse.

According to GM, tariffs on imported steel—which were imposed by the Trump Administration earlier this year—have cost the company $1 billion. And in late October, GM offered buyouts to 50,000 salaried workers in North America.

The decline of traditional passenger cars in favor of larger SUVs and pickup trucks has been a major factor in GM’s evolution. In 2012, traditional passenger cars comprised over 50% of vehicle sales in the U.S., but during the first nine months of 2018, that number decreased to 31%. This year, SUV and pickup truck sales have increased by about 31%.

GM announced that it will also be closing two plants outside of North America by the end of 2019.

Ohio politicians, including Rep. Tim Ryan and Sen. Sherrod Brown ripped the company's decision.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15102018/automakers-gm-ford-pickup-suv-electric-vehicle-emissions-standards-climate-change-industry-bailout

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U.S. Automakers Double Down on Trucks & SUVs, Despite Talk of a Cleaner Future

The automakers say they’re headed for an all-electric future and they want fuel economy standards, but their assembly lines tell a different story.

By Marianne Lavelle

OCT 15, 2018

A year ago, General Motors laid out a bold vision for a transition to a zero-emissions future. It announced plans for 20 new electric vehicle models by 2023, and CEO Mary Barra wrote: "Our generation has the ambition, the talent and the technology to realize the safer, better and more sustainable world we want."

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But in the U.S. market, GM was aggressively transforming its product line for something else—it was scaling back on cars and doubling down on higher-emissions pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

SUVs and other light trucks now make up more than three-quarters of GM's passenger vehicle sales in the U.S., up from less than 60 percent five years ago. The majority of the 20 planned electric car models are destined for China, where the government has new EV mandates. The company has announced no plans for electric versions of any of the big vehicles that are its best sellers in the U.S.

"We have ... successfully transitioned to a crossover- and truck-focused business," Kurt McNeil, U.S. vice president of Sales Operations said in a statement to investors early this year.

GM is not alone. All of the Big Three automakers—GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler—have shifted toward big, heavy vehicles that drink more fuel per mile. In fact, they were in last place for fuel economy among the 13 automakers selling in the U.S. market, according to the EPA's most recent annual fuel economy trends report.

It's an ominous development for climate change, since gasoline is the largest contributor to carbon emissions in transportation—the nation's biggest source of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

It also helps explains why automakers sought President Donald Trump's help in easing the fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards that they had agreed to as part of a 2009 economic bailout. Trump went farther than the automakers had in mind, however, and he now plans to freeze the standards and abandon the goal of a more than 50 mpg average for the U.S. vehicle fleet, undoing what would be one of the largest steps any nation has taken on climate change.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra, along with the chief executives of Ford and Fiat Chrysler, met with President Trump at the White House in January 2017 to discuss U.S. auto emissions standards. Credit: Saul Loeb/Getty Images]

Relatively low gas prices have helped drive the trend, as consumers are less concerned about the cost of gas guzzlers when fuel prices are low.

But automakers, who make higher profits on pickup trucks and SUVs, have also stoked those sales with marketing muscle and retooled line-ups. The manufacturers' all-important quarterly earnings have been bolstered as a result.

Advocates of tougher fuel economy standards argue that U.S. automakers are careening down the same risky road they have driven in the past—relying too heavily on vehicles that will be less attractive to consumers when gas prices are high again.

"The American manufacturers haven't figured out how to make money on cars," said Daniel Becker, executive director of the Safe Climate Campaign. "They only make money on pickup trucks and SUVs. So they are seizing on temporarily low gas prices and ... politicians like Trump to shift production to the most profitable vehicles they make."

"The number one problem with that is climate," he said. "But it also will result in the downfall of the American auto industry in a few years when gas prices go back up and they will have gotten out of the business of making cars."

Chart: GM Shifts from Cars to Trucks and SUVs

GM's corporate communications director, Patrick Morrissey, said the company is moving forward with its commitment to an all-electric portfolio.

But he said GM also aims to steadily boost fuel economy across its fleet with more efficient engines, better aerodynamics and lighter-weight materials, among other advances. For example, one of the options consumers can select on the 2019 model of GM's best-selling Silverado pickup truck is a smaller turbocharged engine, which at 20 mpg city fuel economy is 13 percent more efficient than the larger engine it is replacing.

The automakers say they do want national standards that continue to increase efficiency, but they want greater flexibility.

"The pathway to our vision for a zero emissions future includes continually improving fuel economy of our current vehicles," Morrissey said in an email.

The Wake-Up Call that Quickly Faded

The 2008 financial crisis and the surge of gas prices to an all-time high was a wake-up call for automakers and policymakers alike. Although many factors triggered Detroit's auto industry collapse, part of the problem was that it wasn't ready for consumer demand to quickly shift to more efficient vehicles.

As part of the $80 billion auto industry bailout deal, the federal government brought its fuel economy regulations in line with a groundbreaking program developed by California. For the first time, the goals were set in terms of grams of carbon emissions per mile, gradually increasing to the equivalent of more than 50 mpg by 2025.

After the bailout, GM made profound changes to its operations, shedding unprofitable businesses and focusing on technical advancement. One important shift was the company positioning itself as a serious player in the electric vehicle future.

GM had become notorious for "killing" the electric car—discontinuing the EV1 it produced for the California market between 1996 and 2001. Now, the company was joining the race again, more than a decade behind Toyota, which had introduced its hybrid gas-electric Prius in 1997. The vehicle that became emblematic of that effort was the Chevy Volt.

Chevy Volts come off an assembly line in Michigan. Credit: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The Chevy Volt, which GM first introduced in 2011, is the highest selling plug-in vehicle on the market, but its sales pale in comparison to GM's pickups and SUVs Credit: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

"It was a lot of long hours," recalls Greg Kempf, a retired GM engineer who spent much of his nearly 40-year career trying to improve transmissions for fuel economy. "GM was going bankrupt, and we had full overtime. It was a very important program."

But it did not lead to electrification across GM's portfolio.

The hybrid system Kempf's team developed was deployed in 2009 in GM's Cadillac Escalade SUV and some other high-end SUVs and pickup trucks. The so-called "strong" hybrid systems could run entirely on electric power up to 30 mph, unlike the Prius, which was all-electric only up to 15 mph. But GM's dalliance with the strong hybrid system was brief, and limited to customers willing to pay top dollar for modest fuel savings. The hybrid Escalade, with a starting price of more than $74,000, could achieve 20 to 21 mpg, compared to 15 to 16 mpg for the standard version. Citing poor sales, GM discontinued its high-end hybrid SUVs in 2013.

Across the industry, EV technology—the only current pathway to zero emissions—accounted for just $9.8 billion of the $119.5 billion in investments automakers made in North America from 2009 to 2017, according to the industry-funded Center for Automotive Research.

Kempf was disappointed to see the shelving of technology he believed had so much promise. "It was intended to be the first one of several generations—each one with the cost coming down and becoming more reliable," he said. "It could have been done with more speeds for added fuel economy, and there's no reason it couldn't have been in smaller vehicles."

Bigger Vehicles, Bigger Profit Margins

The U.S. automakers' shift toward focusing more on bigger vehicles and less on fuel economy became pronounced after 2014, when gas prices fell more than 40 percent.

U.S. passenger vehicle production, which was 65 percent cars in 2013, dropped to 55 percent by 2016, according to EPA. GM's sales tipped from 60 percent light trucks to 70 percent by 2016. That included an increasing number of so-called "crossover" SUVs, like the Chevy Traverse (fuel economy 20 mpg) and Trax (28 mpg), most of which are categorized by EPA as light trucks, meaning they have a less stringent fuel economy standard to meet than vehicles categorized as cars.

One advantage of the shift to bigger vehicles for the automakers: higher profits.

Carmakers jealously guard the numbers for particular vehicle models, but the Center for Automotive Research says manufacturers make profits of $10,000 per vehicle or more on light trucks, and as little as a few hundred dollars on some models of cars.

Detroit News' auto critic recently quoted anonymous insiders saying that GM earned $35,000 profit on every Escalade SUV it sold. In contrast, when GM rolled out its all-electric Bolt in December 2016, a company source told Bloomberg that GM stood to lose as much as $9,000 on every one it sold at a retail price of $36,650.

The view from inside the latest model of the Chevy Silverado. Credit: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

The Center for Automotive Research says manufacturers make profits of $10,000 per vehicle or more on light trucks and SUVs, and as little as a few hundred dollars on some models of cars. Credit: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

"It is not a coincidence," the Center for Automotive Research said, "that the shift to [cross-overs], SUVs, and pickups coincides with a period of increased profitability for nearly every automaker that sells vehicles in the U.S. market." GM's profits soared to a record $12.5 billion in 2016. Even in 2017, when sales slid and the company posted a loss due to a business write-down, GM set new records for sales of pickups and crossovers, as well as record average transaction prices.

GM executives repeatedly confirm the importance of light trucks to the bottom line when they talk to Wall Street investors and analysts.

"I think about it as what we are trying to do is fish with fish, or do business where the money is," GM President Dan Amman told investors at Deutsche Bank's Global Auto Industry Conference in January, as the carmaker unveiled its plans for the 2019 Silverado.

Automakers argue that the shift to pickups and SUVs is simply a reflection of what customers want.

GM's Chevy Volt, introduced in 2011, is the highest selling plug-in vehicle on the market, but the 139,000 Volts (and 35,000 Chevy Bolt EVs) sold in seven years are dwarfed by the trucks and SUVs that make up the growing share of the 3 million passenger vehicles GM sells annually in the U.S. Among the 485 passenger vehicle models in the U.S. market, the more than 50 models of battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles accounted for only 1 percent of the 17 million cars sold in 2017.

The carmakers "are already building highly fuel efficient vehicles around the world and in this country," said Gloria Bergquist, vice president for public affairs at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents 12 carmakers accounting for 70 percent of U.S. vehicle sales. "If consumers bought more of them, then we could reach higher fuel economy standards."

A street in Sacramento, California. The photographer labeled the photo: Driving in the land of giants. Credit: Robert Course-Baker/CC-BY-2.0

If consumers bought more fuel-efficient vehicles, "then we could reach higher fuel economy standards," said Gloria Bergquist, vice president for public affairs at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Credit: Robert Couse-Baker/CC-BY-2.0

Polls may show that the overwhelming majority of Americans value fuel economy in the next vehicle they purchase. But Bergquist says that that preference does not show up in actual sales. "It's something consumers say they value, but they won't spend more money for it," she said.

"We think there's going to be a tipping point where people start buying more of them and so that's why we're investing in them," Bergquist said. But if consumers aren't buying enough of the high-efficiency vehicles, "we're caught between government regulations and the marketplace," she said.

The National Academies of Science, the International Council on Clean Transportation, and the Obama administration all produced studies detailing how the automakers could meet the Obama fuel economy goals without much consumer uptake of electric vehicles. It would require deploying technologies like 8-speed transmissions, turbocharging, smaller engines and lighter materials.

Bergquist notes that the automakers do sell more fuel efficient vehicles in other countries, where gasoline prices are higher and smaller cars are the big sellers. But a close look at those overseas markets provides a hint of why automakers may like the U.S. market as it is. GM's best-selling vehicle in Europe was the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, with fuel economy of 50 mpg or more, but GM lost money in Europe every year since 1999, and decided to exit the European market entirely last year. GM sells more cars in China than it does in the U.S., but it pulls in only a fraction of its profits there.

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose term in office spanned Detroit's 2008 collapse and the start of its recovery, looks at the carmakers' current truck-heavy vehicle mix in context of the profound transformation ahead for the industry: "That's the money they are investing in new technology."

Preparing for an All-Electric Future?

Analysts at the Center for Automotive Research argue that carmakers are in a pivotal period, caught in a "great divide" between the industry's present and future. They must invest in the next-generation efficient technology, while continuing to develop and sell the vehicles that make a profit today. Complicating matters is the possibility that autonomous vehicles, networked fleets and increased ridesharing could mean that people won't need as many of the vehicles they sell.

GM sought to position itself for this uncertain future under Barra, who took over as CEO in 2014, and it has coupled its strategy for electrification with its efforts to advance self-driving vehicles.

"Our commitment to an all-electric, zero-emissions future is unwavering, regardless of any modifications to future fuel economy standards," Barra said at the energy industry conference in Houston last spring. But she had no firm answer when asked how long the transition from gasoline to emissions-free EVs would take. "Less than decades," she said. Barra also avoided setting deadlines in a LinkedIn post last month to mark the one-year anniversary of her "zero emissions" vision statement. "It won't happen overnight," she wrote.

Luke Tonachel, director of the clean vehicles and fuels project at Natural Resources Defense Council, praised GM's work on technological advances like the Volt and Bolt. But he said the imperative of addressing climate change will require a fleetwide transformation for GM and other automakers.

"GM can talk about this vision of zero emissions, congestion, and fatalities, but when will that dream become reality?" Tonachel said. "If you don't have a real deadline and an immediate plan to make progress, what's the value of that commitment?"

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econ update 3/17

ike hwy massive subside to car corps; ferg Mo one of 1st? golf course outside city, white flight?

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The head of the city department that drafts many of San Francisco’s greenest rules and regulations uses one word to explain her greatest fear for the environment during Donald Trump’s presidency: “preemption.”

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If some of the deepest concerns of climate-focused bureaucrats from San Francisco to Massachusetts and New York come true, the Trump administration will preemptively prevent them from acting to slow global warming.

With Trump and Republicans in Congress widely expected to unite to undermine federal environmental protections, progressive states and cities are making plans to fight global warming within their borders without being helped or required to do so by the U.S. government.

“Preemption is probably the progressive cities’ worst nightmare,” said Deborah Raphael, director of San Francisco’s environment department, which has helped city lawmakers craft rules mandating everything from greener buildings to composting and recycling by residents. “It’s also the state of California’s worst nightmare.”

The term “preemption” doesn’t describe a single legislative or regulatory tool. The word describes a concept, in which the federal government or a state imposes restrictions on the rules and programs that governments operating beneath it are allowed to implement.

Conservative lawmakers in North Carolina used a preemption law last year to outlaw transgender protections in Charlotte. In Michigan, cities and counties were barred from banning plastic bags. Colorado prevents local governments from banning fracking.

With Republicans about to control both houses of Congress and the White House, environmental experts are warning of battles ahead over potential federal preemptions.

“There really is virtually no aspect of federal regulation of the natural environment or health that’s not at risk of preemption now,” said Mark Pertschuk, a lawyer and activist with the nonprofit Grassroots Change, which tracks state preemptions of local rules affecting gun safety, paid sick days, factory farming and other issues. “Federal laws almost always trump state and local laws.”

It’s difficult to predict when, how or whether the federal government will wield any tools of preemption to bar cities and states from enforcing their own environmental rules. Nonetheless, governments across the country are bracing for new restrictions. California’s decision to hire Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder Jr., showed it’s preparing to fight for state rights in court.

“Everything is speculative right now,” said Cooper Martin, a sustainability official at the National League of Cities, which represents cities in state capitols and on Capitol Hill. Based on Trump’s anti-environmental cabinet nominees and his rhetoric on climate change, which he has falsely called a hoax, Martin said fears of federal preemption are “certainly well founded.”

“It’s just the nature of the political landscape that this hasn’t been an issue on climate, at least in the last eight years,” Martin said, referring to the length of Obama’s presidency. “It was certainly an issue prior to that.”

Clean car rules in California, which are unpopular with oil companies and auto manufacturers, offer what may be the clearest opportunity for federal preemption. Other rules that could be blocked relate to appliance efficiency standards, power plant pollution, fossil fuel exports and safe disposal of pharmaceuticals. Local governments that have spent federal transportation funds on cycling and transit initiatives could be prevented from doing so in the future.

“Programs that allow cities to invest in bike and pedestrian infrastructure, or that allow cities to invest in transit, have all become more popular, particularly in the larger cities,” Martin said. “We want to make sure that there’s flexibility for the cities that do choose to go down this path.”

The Clean Air Act allows California to enforce stricter standards on car pollution than the federal government. It also allows other states to adopt California’s rules. But to do so, California needs a waiver from the EPA. When George W. Bush was president, the EPA refused to issue such a waiver, which was eventually granted after Obama became president.

Trump’s nominee to lead the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has repeatedly sued the agency, arguing that federal pollution rules violate state rights. Now he might lead a charge to limit the rights of states to enforce their own pollution rules to slow climate change.

Within days of Trump’s election, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers sent the president-elect a letter arguing that the “regulatory friction” caused by two sets of car pollution standards is “driving up vehicle costs.” The automakers implored Trump to eliminate California’s far-reaching clean car rules through what they call “harmonization” with federal regulations.

“We could see the U.S. EPA refuse to grant future waivers; there’s even been some talk that they could try to strip away existing waivers,” said Bill Magavern, the policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air, a California nonprofit. “It’s safe to say California would sue in either instance.”

Michael Wara, an energy and environment expert at Stanford Law School, said the federal government could go further than car standards and try to revoke the rights of states to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution billowed by power plants. It could also jeopardize “anything that smells like foreign policy” by states, Wara said, including linkages between a carbon pricing system operated jointly by California and Quebec.

“Anything that looks and feels like a treaty — that creates binding obligations on both sides — is going to face increased judicial scrutiny,” Wara said. “Here, if there is any conflict, the state loses.”

Not all talk of federal preemption is hypothetical. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, introduced a bill last week that would repeal federal efficiency standards affecting washing machines, dryers, ceiling fans, fridges and other appliances. It would also prevent states from adopting any product standards governing “energy conservation or water efficiency.”

The Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, supports Burgess’s anti-regulatory drive on appliances, but it’s worried that his bill would curtail state rights.

“We don’t believe the federal government should mandate energy conservation,” said Nicolas Loris, a Heritage Foundation energy and environmental policy fellow who has analyzed Burgess’s bill. “But we don’t think the federal government should prohibit the states from doing so.”

==

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http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/06/norway-ban-gas-powered-cars/

Will Norway Ban Sales of Gas-Powered Cars by 2025?

Climate Nexus | June 6, 2016

Norway’s four leading political parties have reportedly reached an agreement to ...

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The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is a trade association of nine car and light truck manufacturers.

Contents

  [hide] 

History

Afraid that their vote to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration might make Congress more likely to increase fuel efficiency standards, the automobile industry is "trying to polish its image." The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is claiming, in newspaper and radio ads, and on cleaning sponges given to Congressional staffers, that "cars are 99% cleaner than they used to be." (The Union of Concerned Scientists calls the Auto Alliance campaign "highly misleading.")

An Auto Alliance spokesperson said increased fuel standards would be "very difficult to achieve," because of the popularity of large vehicles. "It's not what we manufacture; it's what consumers buy," she said. [1]

2007 fight against fuel efficiency standards

"Automakers plan to attack congressional efforts to raise fuel mileage standards in a series of radio and newspaper advertisements this weekend, the unofficial start of summer driving season," reported The Hill in May 2007. "The ad campaign, sponsored by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, focuses on states with a high proportion of truck and SUV drivers to stoke grassroots opposition to a Senate bill that would raise fuel standards for cars and trucks by 10 miles per gallon over the next 10 years. " [[2]](http://thehill.com/business--lobby/auto-group-to-attack-fuel-mileage-standards-2007-05-25.html)

The auto lobby has a website at http://www.drivecongress.com with a toll-free number to get US drivers lobbying Congress against fuel efficiency standards.

In his new role as co-chair of the PR firm Fleishman-Hillard's government relations (or lobbying) practice, former U.S. Senator Jim Talent will be "spearheading the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers' bid to torpedo the effort to raise fuel mileage standards to 52 miles per gallon" by 2030, reported O'Dwyer's PR Daily in June 2007. Instead, the automakers are supporting a compromise measure from Senators Carl Levin and Kit Bond. "Talent cannot lobby for the Levin-Bond bill because of Senate rules," explained O'Dwyer's. "He can do media outreach on behalf of the carmakers." [3]

Membership

Members, as of March 2005, are:

Contact details

1401 Eye Street, N.W., Suite 900

Washington, DC 20005

Tel: (202) 326-5500

Fax: (202) 326-5598

Web: http://www.autoalliance.org/

SourceWatch resources

External links

Category: 

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coalition_for_Vehicle_Choice

The Coalition for Vehicle Choice was created by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to fight against higher fuel efficiency standards. Ironically, the AAM claims that "automakers are investing billions to develop and introduce breakthrough technologies that will lead to significant fuel economy gains."

On its website the group claimed that it represented "more than 40,000 organizations and individuals committed to protecting safe and affordable transportation."[1]

The organisation is now defunct and the domain name up for sale.

Documents Contained at the Anti-Environmental Archives
Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here.

Contact

818 Connecticut Ave., N.W.

Washington, DC 20006

Phone: 202-628-5164

Archive of part of the groups website: http://wasearch.loc.gov/e22k/2002*sa_/www.vehiclechoice.org

External Links

This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Coalition for Vehicle Choice, September 14, 2002.

Categories: 

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wikifluff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_action_on_climate_change

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pnas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Global_Automakers

Fuel economy and emissions

On behalf of its members, the Association develops and advances positions on fuel efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and other regulations and standards.[7][22][23] The Association opposes allowing individual states to adopt standards more stringent than the federal standards for vehicle emissions and fuel economy.[24] It supports the Obama administration's proposed changes to CAFE standards, which would require automakers to improve car mileage by 5 percent annually until 2025, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.[25][26]

In 2007, the Association brought a lawsuit against the state of California, attempting to establish that the state had no authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.[27] The Association's argument was that the only method to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide, is by improving fuel economy and only the U.S. Department of Transportation has authority to establish a fuel economy standard, under federal energy legislation from 1975. As such, California's standards are preempted by federal law.[28] California is able to set its own standards for tailpipe emissions, if it is granted a waiver by theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) from preemption under the Clean Air Act, as it had begun regulation of air pollution before the EPA was established.[27] The Association also argued that if California and other states did have authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, that would force manufacturers to make vehicles using too many different standards, effectively raising the cost of cars and eliminating model choices. In December 2007, a district court judge ruled against the Association's suit.[29]The Association appealed this decision.[30] In February 2008, the Association issued a statement supporting the EPA's decision not to issue the waiver that would be required for California to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.[31] The Association's president, Michael Stanton, stated that its interest was not in resisting such regulation, but ensuring that uniform standards are set by the federal government.[32] In 2009, the Association stated its support for an agreement reached by the Obama administration to adopt a single national standard for fuel economy, which led to outstanding lawsuits being dropped.[33]

Fuel formulation

In late 2010, the Association was part of a coalition of engine manufacturers who filed suit in the United States Court of Appeals to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of an increase of the ethanol content of gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent.[34] The Association expressed concerns that alcohol-blended fuel could cause damage or problems to engines that were not originally built to run on such fuels.[35] The Association noted that the Clean Air Act required producers of any new fuel or fuel additive to show that those fuels would not contribute to the failure of vehicles or engines to meet emissions standards. The Association and other plaintiffs requested time to conduct studies assessing the impact of an increase in the ethanol content of gasoline on newer model automobiles and small engines.[34]

The Association and 30 other organizations—including Friends of the Earth, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and representatives of the small-engine and snack-food industries—recently signed a letter asking the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology to support a bill requiring more study and scientific evaluation before so-called E15 fuels are approved for consumer use.[36]

Safety and consumer protection

Together with the (now defunct) American Automobile Manufacturers Association, in the late 1990s Global Automakers advocated for U.S. regulators to begin recognizing some of the ECE Regulations, which are used instead of U.S. regulations throughout most of the world.[37][38]

The Association advocates a ban on the use of hand-held devices to text or talk while driving[7] as "an important part of vehicle crash prevention".[39]

The Association opposes the Motor Vehicle Owners' Right to Repair Act, the name of several related proposed bills in both the United States Congress and state legislatures. According to the Association, the bill's supporters want not only repair codes, but also design and manufacturing codes, which it argues is an effort by after-market parts makers to access the manufacturers' intellectual property, and is unnecessary as the information independent shops need for repairs is already available online.[40]

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http://www.alternet.org/new-jersey-bans-tesla-motors

cf new jersey

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 This is odd: America's laws to deter corporate crime actually force victims to help subsidize the criminals.

Follow the bouncing ball here: First, a court orders a corporation to pay punitive damages to a victim of its criminal acts; second, the corporate offender pays up, then merrily subtracts a big chunk of that payment from its income tax, effectively taking money out of our public treasury; third, while the criminal is counting its tax break, the victim is notified that the punitive damage money he or she received from the corporation will be taxed as "regular income;" fourth, that means a big chunk of the victim's payment effectively goes to replenish the public money the corporate villain subtracted.

Bad enough that corporate-financed lawmakers legalize such encouragement of criminality, but corporate-coddling judges are playing the same disgraceful game by drastically reducing the amounts that juries order corporations to pay. In a Montana case, for example, a jury awarded $240 million in punitive damages to the families of three people, including two teenagers, killed in a car crash. The deaths were blamed on a steering defect that South Korean automaker, Hyundai, was found to have known about and "recklessly" ignored for more than a decade. But a district judge has since supplanted the jury's ruling with her own. While declaring that Hyundai's "reprehensibility" certainly warrants a sizeable punishment, she cut the corporation's punitive payment down to $73 million.

Hello – that's not punishment to a $79 billion a year car giant, it's pocket change. Why would Hyundai executives quit putting corporate profits over people's lives if that's their "punishment?

With subsidies and wrist-slaps, the corporate criminal whirligig will continue to spin, making a mockery of justice.

"When Company Is Fined, Taxpayers Often Share Bill," The New York Times, February 4, 2015.

"Hyundai Motor," www.forbes.com, May 2014.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/13/north_carolina_tesla_ban_bill_would_prevent_unfair_competition_with_car.html

From the state that brought you the nation’s first ban on climate science comes another legislative gem: a bill that would prohibit automakers from selling their cars in the state.

The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state’s Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, would apply to all car manufacturers, but the intended target is clear. It’s aimed at Tesla, the only U.S. automaker whose business model relies on selling cars directly to consumers, rather than through a network of third-party dealerships.

The bill is being pushed by the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, a trade group representing the state’s franchised dealerships. Its sponsor is state Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican from Henderson, who has said the goal is to prevent unfair competition between manufacturers and dealers. What makes it “unfair competition” as opposed to plain-old “competition”—something Republicans are typically inclined to favor—is not entirely clear. After all, North Carolina doesn’t seem to have a problem with Apple selling its computers online or via its own Apple Stores.

Still, it’s easy to understand why some car dealers might feel a little threatened: Tesla’s Model S outsold the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Audi A8 last quarter without any help from them. If its business model were to catch on, consumers might find that they don’t need the middle-men as much as they thought.

Incidentally—not that he would be in any way swayed by this—I couldn’t help but notice that Apodaca received $8,000 in campaign contributions from the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association last year, the maximum amount allowed by state law. I’ve reached out to the senator for further comment and will update this post if he replies.

Tesla’s vice president of corporate and business development, Diarmuid O'Connell, told me he’s hopeful that the state legislature will amend the bill so that it doesn’t prohibit Tesla from doing business there. He said the company has already sold 80 cars in North Carolina, mostly through the Web, and has about 60 more orders in the works. It also has plans to build its first showroom in the state next year. The Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle in particular appears to be a hotbed of Tesla interest, O'Connell said, which makes sense given its similarities to Silicon Valley.

In its current form, North Carolina’s bill would be the harshest of a handful of anti-Tesla regulations around the country. In Texas, the company is fighting a law under which the employees of its “showroom” in Austin are not allowed to sell any vehicles, offer test drives, or even tell customers how much the car costs. But at least Texas still lets people buy the car online, which North Carolina’s law would prohibit.

Tesla’s O’Connell rejects the idea that laws prohibiting automakers from selling their cars are designed to protect consumers, as trade groups like the North Carolina dealers’ association claim. He says the franchise-dealer model might work fine for giant automakers, but not for a startup like Tesla—especially since Tesla’s products represent a challenge to the traditional auto industry on which dealerships rely. “How do you sell the future if your business depends on the present?” he asked.