According to common sense, Americans buying vehicles consider gas mileage when gas prices are high and largely ignore it when gas prices are low. As this is being written, gas prices are relatively low and hence gas mileage concerns are probably low on the list of most drivers. As such, it is not surprising that the Trump administration has decided to lower the mileage standards negotiated by the Obama administration and accepted by the vehicle manufacturers. This is also consistent with the Trump administration’s approach of trying to undo what Obama did, primarily because it was done by Obama.
The Trump administration has defended its decision by contending that the standards are “wrong” and by claiming that the standards were set as a matter of politics. One reason in favor of undoing the plan to increase fuel efficiency in cars and light trucks is that the more efficient vehicles would, it is estimated, cost $1,000-$2,000 more. While this is a relatively small percentage of the cost of a new vehicle, for most Americans that is a significant amount of money. As such, there is an economic argument to be made against these standards. This economic argument can be retooled into a moral argument: saving consumers money is the right thing to do.
Of course, there is far more to the cost of a vehicle than the cost of purchase and the most obvious is the cost of fuel. The 2012 estimate was that the increased efficiency would save roughly $8,000 over the life of the vehicle. Based on the lower 2016 prices, this saving would average out to about $4,000. While gas prices can vary greatly, it is very likely that increased fuel efficiency would more than offset increased vehicle costs. As such, the long-term economic argument favors keeping the Obama administration’s target. As before, this can be retooled into a moral argument that saving Americans money is a good thing.
Fuel efficiency does, however, have the potential of decreasing the profits of the fuel industry. To illustrate, if an efficient vehicle saves me $4,000 over its life, then that is $4,000 that does not go into the industry coffers. While few would shed tears over lost profits for the industry executives, the impact on the average people working in the industry must also be considered. If the harm done to these people outweighs the good done for the consumers, then the lower standards would be morally wrong. However, it seems unlikely that the savings to consumers would cause more harm than good. In addition to the economic concerns and the associated ethical worries, there are also concerns about health.
While the Trump administration does not seem to care about the harmful effects of pollution, about 50,000 deaths each year result from the air pollution caused by traffic. There are also many non-lethal health impacts of this pollution, such as asthma. Increased fuel efficiency means that vehicles burn less fuel for the miles they travel, thus reducing the air pollution they produce per mile. Because of this, increasing fuel efficiency will reduce fatalities caused by air pollution. This health argument can be retooled easily into a moral argument: increasing fuel efficiency reduces pollution deaths and, on utilitarian grounds, this would be morally good.
It is, of course, reasonable to raise the question of how significant the reduction in deaths would be and arguments can be advanced to try to show that the reduction in pollution would not be significant enough to justify increasing fuel efficiency on these grounds. It also should be noted that we, as a people, tolerate roughly 40,000 vehicle deaths per year as the cost of operating our vehicles and roads as we do. As such, continuing to tolerate deaths from air pollution is also an option. For those not swayed by health concerns, in the past, there have been national security and economic arguments advanced for increasing fuel efficiency and they can still be applied today.
One stock argument is that increased fuel efficiency will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and thus make us safer in various ways. This security argument can also be re-painted as a moral argument based on the good consequences of increased security. Another stock argument is based on the claim that buying foreign oil increases our trade deficit and this is economically harmful to the United States. Because of the negative consequences, this argument can also be refit as a moral argument in favor of increasing fuel efficiency. Given the Trump administration’s professed obsession with national security and trade deficits, these arguments should be appealing to them.
Given the above arguments, there are excellent reasons to maintain the goal of increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks. While there are some reasons to not do so, such as helping the gas industry maintain profits, this would be the wrong choice.
Ugh. Mike, really?
“if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig” – Barack Obama (and others, variably)
In this case, the “pig” is the never-Trumper, unresearched, unfounded ubiquitous talking points that are a hallmark of the tribal politics you talk about so much in this column, and the “lipstick” is your pedigree, your PhD, and your academic standing. This is a common approach for you – but you really need to realize that simply putting your credentials at the end of the kinds of comments like these does not make them any more believable It diminishes your own credibility as a logician and critical thinker. (Sadly, though, I have to admit that it may increase your standing among other like-minded academicians and administrators; I feel increasingly isolated as a member of a community I believed thought differently).
“…This is also consistent with the Trump administration’s approach of trying to undo what Obama did, primarily because it was done by Obama.”
Yes, I’m sure in your world this is true. Rather than try to understand the real reasons that Trump does what he does, and argue against fact, it’s much easier to just throw out this idiotic trope because you know other intellectually lazy leftists will just take it at face value and rally behind you.
“…While the Trump administration does not seem to care about the harmful effects of pollution…”
Yeah yeah. You’ve said this before. Any policy, whether it originates from the Left or the Right, has positive effects for some and negative for others, and neutral effects for still others. It’s a common, widely accepted but fallacious argument to say that the negative effects were “intended” by the originators. In a recent column (and I think I called you on this), you said that Trump actually likes pollution. I would expect this from a passionate but ill-informed thirteen year old girl posting on Facebook, but I’d expect a little more from someone as well-read in the areas of logic and critical thinking as you. Maybe you can extend this logic, and say that Trump, for some bizarre reason, wantsAmericans to die of pollution-related ailments. Remember when the Republicans in congress agreed with the Democrats, that an extension in unemployment benefits was necessary? The Democrats wanted to pass an emergency spending bill on borrowed money, the Republicans wanted to cut spending in other areas. The headline? “Republicans Hate The Poor”. This is no different, and is a stock (to use your word) tactic of the left.
“”If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” – Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol”
“if an efficient vehicle saves me $4,000 over its life, then that is $4,000 that does not go into the industry coffers. While few would shed tears over lost profits for the industry executives, the impact on the average people working in the industry must also be considered.”
“While there are some reasons to not do so, such as helping the gas industry maintain profits…”
Again, you betray not only your ignorance of all things economic, but a complete unwillingness to even attempt to understand the most rudimentary elements of capitalism and free markets. Much easier to spit out the words “profit” and “executive” with pompous odium and rally the envy-afflicted and Trump-crazed pitchfork-and-torch crowd.
Starting with this last point, you need to consider that the oil industry is not only an international industry, but the currency that drives international economies and politics across the globe. It’s not just about “lining the pockets” of industry executives. These companies are public companies – meaning that their stock is held by individuals and institutions. What institutions? Fidelity. Vanguard. Blackrock. TIAA-CREF. These institutional holdings are what drive the pensions, 401-K, 403-B, IRA, SEP, Roth IRA and other retirement plans of millions of Americans. Take a look at the “Statement of Additional Information” next to the prospectus of your own 401-K and I bet you’ll see a significant portion of your own retirement money invested in oil stocks.
As for Trump’s move to roll back the standards – I like the way you slyly put the word “wrong” in quotes –
“The Trump administration has defended its decision by contending that the standards are “wrong” and by claiming that the standards were set as a matter of politics.”
Quotes, as in “wink, wink” I guess. It’s a pretty big statement, actually well fleshed out by the administration – detailed and documented. It’s the kind of stuff you could research and really sink your teeth into – but you know that this sort of thing is better off used as a sound-byte. People respond better to emotion and to statements that agree with their preconceived ideas anyway, so why bring up facts that would muddy those waters?
The fact is that the move that Trump made is no different than the one Obama made, or other presidents as far back as Nixon made to energy standards as nothing more than adjustment to new circumstances. Obama’s standards were a continuation of Bush’s policies – which were based on our heavy dependence on foreign oil (and the concurrent wars in the Middle East), and on this concept of “peak oil” – that oil consumption would soon outstrip production and we would run out of energy. Since then, of course, the US has discovered that it can recover billions of barrels of oil from shale reserves and other proven sources, so the idea of “peak oil” is no longer an issue.
“During the George W. Bush administration, the price of oil was high and rising. The energy markets were gripped by the notion of peak oil, a theory that oil production would soon outstrip new discoveries. Policymakers were talking about the imminent undersupply of oil, consumers were becoming frustrated with high gasoline prices and pundits were obsessing over our reliance on foreign oil. The Bush administration implemented an ethanol mandate along with other policies designed to cut the use of oil and prepare for a shift away from oil.
At the end of the Bush administration, the price of oil peaked, but it remained high for almost all of the Obama administration. The Obama team was also extremely concerned about climate change and had many allies in the environmental movement. As a result, it continued and expanded the policies of the Bush administration, including creating the new, ambitious fuel mandates the U.S. is currently grappling with. Then everything in the oil market changed.
Now the price of oil, despite the fact that it is inching higher, is well below that of the two previous administrations – and US oil production is rivaling that of Russia and Saudi Arabia. The circumstances that fueled (no pun intended) the previous policies simply do not exist, and Trump is adjusting those policies to meet the new circumstances.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2018/05/02/why-the-trump-epa-may-lower-obamas-fuel-standards/#41867e63492d
Now, of course, you can take this whole article apart and argue it point by point – but you’d have to do some research and develop an understanding of global economics. It’s much easier to just say that “Trump doesn’t care about pollution” and “Trump’s policies are formed with consideration for the pockets of oil executives” and leave it at that. You’d certainly be successfully playing to a populist audience.
If you do choose to argue the facts, you should begin with your seventh paragraph, which begins “One stock argument is that increased fuel efficiency will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and thus make us safer in various ways.”. As is discussed in the Forbes article, and is pretty old news around the globe, our dependence on foreign oil and the security risks it poses are no longer the case. According to the Dept. of Energy, our domestic oil production well exceeds our imports, and it is predicted by this source and many others that we will be a net exporter of oil within five years – CAFE standards or no.
As for the morality of these various arguments, I’d counter that with a few points.
“increasing fuel efficiency reduces pollution deaths and, on utilitarian grounds, this would be morally good.”
Not so fast.
One major factor in the race to meet stricter emission standards is vehicle weight – there is a direct correlation between smaller, lighter vehicles and increased fuel efficiency – but the increase in highway deaths and injuries as a result of driving these vehicles far exceeds those caused by the pollution of less efficient ones.
Studies have been done using these smaller vehicles in crash tests not against trucks and SUV’s, but of popular mid-sized models – and the results indicate a 1-2% increase in risk of death or injury per 100 lbs reduction in vehicle weight. In assessing the morality from a utilitarian point of view, it would seem necessary to compare the reduction in deaths resulting from the decreased pollution of more efficient vehicles against those caused by the reduction in vehicle weight as a factor in the race to meet strict emission standards, wouldn’t it? To your credit, you do bring up our tolerance for highway deaths, but a deep dive into the specifics surrounding those deaths is pretty significant and germane to this argument. Is this omission contrived, or just not considered?
(these data were published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). Rather than post a link, you can google “Safety Consequences of Vehicle Size and Weight”
Of course, to follow the leftist tactic, maybe the environmentalists WANT people to die on the highways. After all, if it’s the drivers that cause the pollution, better to kill them directly, rather than the innocent bystanders, right? If we sacrifice a few lambs in the service of increasing highway death tolls, maybe our tolerance for highway death will be curtailed – resulting in fewer drivers, less pollution, reduction in Global Warming, stemming the tides that threaten our coastal cities – and saving far more lives than the few that had to die to make it so …
A second point was discussed in a paper written by researchers at UC Davis, referred to as the “Diet Soda Effect”, which is analogous to the phenomenon that many people will feel justified in eating a jelly-doughnut after a workout in the gym. A majority of American households have more than one car, and the “Diet Soda Effect” is seen when one of these cars is a fuel-efficient hybrid or electric; the consumers feel well justified in having their second car be a so-called “gas guzzling” SUV or luxury car. Again, you can Google “Diet Soda Effect UC Davis” to access the full paper.
A big question is whether or not these emission standards actually have an effect – or if phenomena like the “Diet Soda” one would negate any gains by incrementally meeting the standards.
There is some controversy about the argument that indicates that the drivers of more efficient vehicles drive more – thereby negating the efficiency. Some studies have shown that the motivation to drive these smaller, less comfortable, underperforming cars is decreased – they’re just not as fun to drive – but other studies indicate that the owners do, in some smug way, take their cars more often and for longer trips. As car manufacturers try to increase sales of these cars, no doubt they will address issues like comfort, performance, and luxury which will definitely increase driving incentive.
(Somehow, in my mind, this relates to the Puritan design of church pews – purposely made small and uncomfortable to keep the flock awake during services. Maybe the government could mandate limited leg/headroom or even wooden benches in cars to discourage us from driving too much).
So Mike, please understand, I am not specifically countering your arguments here – I am criticizing your methodology, your obvious bias, and your intellectual laziness in settling for left-wing talking points as underpinnings for your essay, and your embarrassing and frankly astounding exclusion of factual data and peer reviewed research in assessing the rationale behind the rollback of Obama’s fuel standards and the one-sided moral analysis you present.
If you came up with some real arguments, I’d be happy to debate them with you – but “Trump Likes Pollution” and “Trump wants oil executives to get rich” and “Trump just wants to undo everything Obama did, for the sake of undoing” are simply ridiculous.
putting your credentials at the end of the kinds of comments like these does not make them any more believable It diminishes your own credibility as a logician and critical thinker
Also does damage to the viability of the credentials themselves.
Again, you betray not only your ignorance of all things economic, but a complete unwillingness to even attempt to understand the most rudimentary elements of capitalism and free markets.
And again, and again, and again, and so on, and so on. Been saying similar for nearly ten years now…Gee, has it really been ten years? Sigh…
so the idea of “peak oil” is no longer an issue.
As I think you are aware, “peak oil” has been a red herring for decades now. I remember as a child “learning” in school, a school that many might describe as right-wing-religious-conservative…certainly more right-wing-relgious-conservative than I care for at least…so maybe even me, that we would run out of oil in 1978. Paul Ehrlich or some such, Hal Lindsay, others. H.L. Mencken once said, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” What is more imaginary than the various suppositions surrounding things like “increasing fuel efficiency reduces pollution deaths”? OK, a few things…but still. As you note, there are safety considerations in reducing weight but also there are, as in all central planning ideas, definite opportunity costs. When you force others to spend time and money on one endeavor you inhibit them from applying that time and money to another endeavor. While there are significant suppositions on the latter as well, there are also significant, nearly infinite, possibilities that are beyond comprehension. These latter considerations are damn near always ignored in arguments made by those seeking more centralized control of an economy.
True, the safety factor is an important concern in sorting out the ethics of fuel efficiency. If the efficiency is gained in a way that makes vehicles less save, then that must be factored into the calculation. But, this could (by the cold equations) still result in less deaths per mile.
It is also worth noting that fuel efficiency can obviously be improved without compromising safety. Materials might be lighter, but stronger. Efficiency might be increased by improved engine designs, better aerodynamics and other such factors that would not make a car less safe.
Nowhere in the essay (or any essay I’ve posted) do I say “I am right just because I have a PhD and lucked into a job at a university.”
If you are referring to the links at the end of each post, I’m engaged in basic capitalism: click the links and buy my stuff from Amazon, etc. They are not there as a hidden appeal to authority. Rather, they are intended as an open appeal for people to buy stuff and make me some money. #capitalism
“Nowhere in the essay…”
Noted. It’s not really what I’m talking about though. I don’t expect you to be “right”, or to even claim that you are “right”. My frustration is that as a PhD in Philosophy, and one who teaches logic and critical thinking, there is a kind of professional expectation that a more academic approach might be used in a blog titled “A Philosopher’s Blog”.
I guess an analogy would be if I were to read a blog on climate change hosted by a climatologist, I would expect to see well-thought out, informed commentary on the topic, not the kind of hype used by politicians and environmentalists.
When what we see is common, unfounded talking points like, “Trump is undoing everything Obama did for the sake of undoing it”, or, that a reason for easing emissions standards is “helping the gas industry maintain profits”, well, that’s hardly incisive logic or even a well thought out conclusion. It’s more along the lines of what one might find on the Facebook page of someone who just goes along with what their friends say – not what would be expected from a professional philosopher.
I find it disappointing – but it’s your blog, and you can post whatever you want.
One very practical reason to include political remarks is that people find them more interesting than philosophical arguments and they, obviously enough, trigger responses. When I write for academic publishers, I write in the usual dull and lifeless academic style; but blogging is a format that is more informal and more political. I did consider doing the blog in the academic journal style, but then I considered the readership of such journals.
But, I can see how such comments could annoy people.
In regards to one of the claims; there is certainly evidence that Trump wants to undo what Obama did because Obama did it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/opinion/trumps-obama-obsession.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-trump-delivering-on-his-promises-to-reverse-obamas-policies/
I guess you’ll write what you will write.
I’m still not sure you get my point, though. I enjoy the style of your writing, and the informal approach you take to philosophy. I also enjoy discussions of politics, but there’s a HUGE difference between arguing the substance of political differences and in dropping unsubstantiated talking points that not only require no thought, but in some cases require the absence of it altogether. When you drop those into your essay (like the examples I pointed out earlier), it is as though you have purposely abandoned any idea of critical thinking and are just doing the equivalent of re-posting some comment by an anonymous never-Trumper on Facebook.
For example – do you see the differences between the two links you just posted? Neither of the links are what you say they are – “evidence that Trump wants to undo what Obama did because Obama did it” – but there are deeper differences within.
The first one is nothing more than an opinion. It is evidence of nothing, other than the fact that the author deeply dislikes Trump. He does state that Trump’s agenda is to dismantle Obama’s legacy – but to say (for one example) that his problem with Obamacare is just that it bears Obama’s name is a ridiculous claim – and one that requires the purposeful absence of thought and refusal to do even the most cursory survey of literature.
Trump has stated several major policy objections to Obamacare – it was a core aspect of his campaign and even though his attempts to repeal it have been politically clumsy and in large part unsuccessful – they are based on solid political/philosophical theories, and are fodder for a great discussion, yet this author chooses to spurn fact and spout angry ad hominem talking points instead. Rather than say, “Trump opposes Obamacare because it is a government overreach, and limits choices”, which is a great discussion to have, he chooses to say, “Trump is obsessed with Obama” which is a conversation stopper. When people say things like that to me, I know they are unreasonable, emotional, largely devoid of factual information, and someone to simply walk away from. (I had a similar conversation with my sister over the weekend. She said something like “Trump is nothing but a Nazi”, and I just changed the subject.)
This is not political discussion, it’s not philosophy, it’s not intelligent discourse. it’s playground tribal nonsense.
On the other hand, the second article deals with facts. It definitely makes the case that Trump wants to undo much (if not most, if not all) of what Obama claims as accomplishments – but it absolutely does notsay anything even close to what you claim it supports – that Trump wants to undo what Obama did simply because Obama did it.
At the end of the very first paragraph it states quite the opposite – “… Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday suggested that he will not give up on getting rid of Obama-era policies that he strongly opposes.
Keywords here:
policies
That he strongly opposes.
Kinda takes the discussion in a different direction, doesn’t it? What policies? Why does he oppose them? Do I oppose them too? Do I opposeany of them? Some of them? What was Obama’s objective in creating the policies? What are Trump’s true objections, and why are his ideas better? Who agrees with Trump, and why? Who agrees with Obama, and why?
The article presents an intelligent discussion of what has been reversed, what hasn’t been, what can’t be – and in each case, a brief discussion of why.
So when you repeat things like that, and offer as evidence someone else’s opinion, well – if a student turned in a paper with arguments like that and citations like that, I’d fail him.
Imagine if a student really slammed you on your evaluations – saying you’re disorganized or unfair or a bad teacher. Imagine further that you had a meeting with this student and the dean, and you asked the student to please back up his claims with some fact – and the student pointed to his friend, who had produced a similar evaluation. Would that be acceptable to you? To the dean?
I’m not asking you to change your style or to avoid politics. We obviously disagree on many political issues, but it doesn’t mean that two intelligent people can’t have an honest, researched, discourse about it – and do so with informal language, avoiding dry academic style altogether.
Cheaper cars get better gas milage. Modifying those cars is unnecessary. Improving the fuel efficiency of more expensive cars will have no effect on consumers already willing to pay >$40k on a car.
I think you have a mistake in the sentence “According to common sense, Americans buying vehicles consider gas mileage when gas prices are high and largely ignore it when gas prices are high.” Shouldn’t one of those “highs” be a “low”?
Fixed.
Leftists have an annoying habit of taking technological problems such as climate change or fuel efficiency and turning them into moral issues (it is wrong to travel by air or to drive large SUVs).
I give Mike credit because he mostly does not argue this way. He generally likes to use utilitarian thinking. However, properly balancing the costs and benefits of a given policy is far from straightforward. The free market usually does a pretty good job, but one place the market fails is with “tragedy of the commons” issues such as pollution. Here regulation is absolutely essential.
So I would say that if one’s goal is to reduce air pollution, then one should regulate vehicle emissions directly rather than fuel efficiency.
As DH points out, the weight of a vehicle is a primary determinant of its fuel efficiency. Modern engines are already very efficient, and modern alloys are very good at absorbing energy during collisions. In general, people feel (and are) safer in larger vehicles, so the tradeoff is really fuel efficiency vs safety. Most Americans, quite reasonably, choose safety over efficiency, and the idea that the government would force us to be less safe in order to save gas is simply outrageous.
True, while increasing fuel efficiency is one way of reducing emissions, there are other ways to do so. There are, however, other reasons to increase fuel efficiency, such as reducing dependence on foreign oil in order to reduce the deficit and for national security reasons.
Fuel efficiency need not come at the expense of safety. If increasing efficiency was done by making vehicle meaningfully less safe, then I would certainly not support this approach.
I think that a big objection to Obama’s emissions mandates are that they do NOT address safety issues, they do NOT address performance issues or ideas about how to motivate large numbers of people to buy these cars – it’s a mandate with an unreasonable number and an unreasonable timeline that will encourage sloppy work, force attention towards meeting these deadlines regardless of the need for research in other areas, and (as has been shown by Volkswagen and others) actually misrepresent or outright falsify their emissions data.
So we can have a meaningful discussion about ways in which emission standards can be met without compromising safety or performance, we can talk about all kinds of technical or philosophical approaches to this problem – even to the point of asking “would it work?”
But these mandates do not do any of that. They merely say, “Do It”. And in the scramble to comply, companies do whatever it takes. I think that’s what Trump is saying when he says the standards are “Wrong”.
And Michael, to your point –
” If increasing efficiency was done by making vehicle meaningfully less safe, then I would certainly not support this approach.
That is exactly what is happening. To the extent that reducing the gross weight of a vehicle is a key factor in quickly achieving these unreasonable standards, it’s the first step that car companies take. And it is a proven fact (linked articles and white papers in previous posts) that a pound for pound reduction in vehicle weight has a direct correlation to increases in traffic fatalities.
We can discuss this until we are blue in the face – and I am certain that what you say is true – that it doesn’t have to be so – but it is so, at least for now. And that’s why the mandates are hugely problematic.
Plus the auto executives aren’t rich enough, and need a break.