100 Percent(ish) Of Vehicles!
Dan Mitchell makes a great point. When the president says he's going to "green" the Federal fleet of vehicles, and that 100 percent of them need to meet energy standards, he should actually mean 100 percent. Mitchell writes:
I don't like it when politicians pass laws that undermine the freedom and prosperity of the American people. But I really hate it when politicians pass those laws and exempt themselves.Years ago, as a lowly Senate staffer, I recall watching a debate about whether politicians were going to increase fuel economy regulations and thus force people into cars that were smaller, less convenient, and less safe. One good Senator, I think perhaps Don Nickles of Oklahoma, offered an amendment that basically would have forced bigwigs on Capitol Hill to live by the same rules by requiring limousines for congressional leaders to meet the same onerous restrictions. Needless to say, the arrogant political class thought this was absurd and to this day they get driven in luxury gas guzzlers (paid for by you and me).
We now have another version of this laws-for-thee-but-not-for-me mentality from the Obama Administration. No, I'm not talking about Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary who is in charge of the Internal Revenue Service but got a free pass after illegally hiding $80,000 of income from the IRS. I'm talking about the President and his personal fleet of limousines...
The rest of the story at the link.
This doesn't mean anything.
Federal vehicles now comply with the totally idiotic "flex-fuels" standard - where you fill the pickup truck with E85 and get 11 (yes, eleven) miles per gallon. Alcohol has a built-in, not-subject-to-argument 50% mileage penalty built into it by simple physics. We're only doing it because of vote-buying, starting in the '80s.
Face it: the goals of your government are not your own. They do not share your values. They do not mean it when they say they do.
And they will not until you pay continuous attention, and not to your favorite talking head, either!
Radwaste at April 2, 2011 8:22 PM
The future papal indulgences for the wealthy and powerful; carbon credits. See Al Gore.
GreyingNW at April 2, 2011 9:41 PM
The president's limousine is not an indulgence. It's armored up as hell just as it should be. It's basically a military vehicle and should be exempted just as up-armored hum-vees in Afghanistan would also be exempted from such an effort.
I know it's fun to hate Obama, but sheesh.
whistleDick at April 3, 2011 3:19 AM
The president's limousine is not an indulgence. It's armored up as hell just as it should be.
I understand that, but that's not 100 percent of Federal vehicles. And the Geithner thing is just mind-boggling.
Amy Alkon at April 3, 2011 4:01 AM
Raddy probably already knows this, but it's even worse than he says. One of the reasons the whole "flexfuel" thing is so stupid is because, yeah you can make a gasoline engine run on ethanol by tweaking the ignition. But to really run efficiently off of ethanol, you have to redesign the manifolds and heads, change the valve timing, and change the bore and stroke. The one huge advantage ethanol has over gasoline as a fuel is that it has an incredibly high octane rating, but to utilize that, you have to jack the compression ratio way up and make a bunch of changes to how the fuel and air flows in the engine. Unfortunately, that engine (unless it's using ultra-high-octane racing gas) won't run on gasoline for very long before it blows up. So gasoline engines running on ethanol are horribly inefficient, on top of the fact that ethanol contains less specific energy than gas does.
Cousin Dave at April 3, 2011 8:49 AM
Why? Senator Chuck Schumer was head of the committee that writes the tax code and, when caught misreporting income, claimed even he couldn't understand it.
You don't actually expect the people who enact and enforce our laws to understand them, do you?
Congress passed a universal health care bill that even the Speaker of the House admitted she hadn't read. The president signed it without having read or understood it.
The president appointed the CEO of GE to two of his advisory councils, all while railing against companies that skip out on their US tax obligations. Good thing GE didn't do that...oh...wait.
With major figures in the administration not paying taxes and the president making up numbers as he goes along, this has been one of the most, if not the most, math-challenged administrations in history.
Perhaps the president should have to make do with a Chevrolet Volt since he's basically forcing the damned thing down our throats.
Since this dictate doesn't go into effect until 2015 and only applies to new vehicle purchases, it really won't affect Obama (his new limousine will be purchased in 2014). By then, they should be able to up-armor and stretch a Volt, right?
Conan the Grammarian at April 3, 2011 10:48 AM
"Laws for thee but not for me" I love this. So true, and also terrifying....
Chelsey at April 4, 2011 11:22 AM
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