President Barack Obama will announce plans on Tuesday for a national fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas…

Socialists love this stuff

This program is going to cost the American consumer tens of billions of dollars, and reduce US oil consumption by 3.5%, using their numbers. This doesn’t even cover the run-off projected from domestic production in 2016, which is on the order of 15%.

IT DOES NOT REDUCE US DEPENDENCY ON OIL IMPORTS!!!

You’re letting your partisan blinders get in the way. We get massive amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela (about a million barrels a day from each). Saudi Arabia and Mexico are about even, depending on the quarter one is more than the other.

This is not an issue of “political blinders”, whatever that is. The issue is that this administration CONSTANTLY uses hot button rhetoric to press their agenda. This is an excellent example. Why use Libya in the mention of savings? US imports from Libya are virtually nothing. Why use Venezuela? Mexico, as you aptly point out, exports to us almost the same amount of oil as Venezuela. Reading the transcription of the remarks, Obama also mentions Nigeria, the nearly rogue, problematic African state, in the Saudi- Venezuela-Libya content. Why them? And, of course there is the evil Saudi Arabia, whose leader the One felt compelled to let see the top of his head.
Using these 4 countries draws harsh, negative connotations of oil production. I am quite surprised that Obama did not use the names Exxon, Chevron, Shell, Oxy and BP in his statement, but I am sure he has his reasons. Using principles of critical evaluation of speech, everything that Obama reads off the teleprompter is EXACTLY what his speechwriters want us to hear. He probably is saving those remarks for a latter date.
My point goes further in that Obama uses 1.8 BBO as the savings over the life of these cars, without mentioning the timeframe. If we are to assume 7 years as the useful lifetime of an Obamamobile, then the net savings of oil in 2016 will be around 700,000 barrels of oil per day, about what we import from the unheralded Angola now.
But the statement of, “we will save more oil than what we currently import from Angola” just doesn’t have the same cache, does it? I am thinking that the 1.8 BBO savings is rectally extracted anyway, like so many of his numbers (i.e., “saving” 5 million jobs with the “Stimulus ” package).

He routinely twists facts to spin his story to make weak minded American stand back in awe of his “magical powers”.

Sorry, I am not one of them, and I am not going to sing “Kumbaya”.

I’ve had a ton of requests for more global warming information. I don’t focus on it as much as I did at the previous site, but I’ve started a link list to help you find global warming info quickly. I’m avoiding blog posts in t…

Also Cash for Clunkers creates yet another moral hazard by bailing out individuals who bought gas guzzling cars and trucks at the expense of those who bought more efficient vehicles. More nice going by Chuck Schumer and the usual gang of idiots.

And today’s new cars all come with Onstar, GPS, built-in DVD players w/screens (two of ‘em in minivans), backup sensor/alerts, automatic on/off headlights, separate climate controls for driver-side/passenger-side, etc. A whole lot of extras that I am not at all interested in and could happily live without, but I have to pay for anyway. These are standard items that all add up to a good deal more than $1,300. The automakers have been adding on all these gadgets and gizmos, unit by unit, over the years, while resisting improvements in gas mileage because (so they say) it would make their cars too expensive.

Now, an additional 5 mpg to 8 mpg better gas mileage IS something that I would be interested in, but that is not something that the automakers offer. The car companies add gizmos and gadgets galore, and charge for them without a second thought. But to actually improve the car’s gas mileage performance – Oh, Heavens; oh dear, OH MY, that would be too expensive – why, why, er, the customer would never stand for it, (they say/they moan).

And I call major BS on all of them. Obama’s pet car czar doesn’t have a clue, but neither do the automakers. I am curious to find out who, in the end, is actually worse at running the car companies: Obama’s car czar, or current management?

ss396 on May 19, 2009 at 4:25 PM

While I’m with you on the unneeded auto options (my pet peeve is with sunroofs, it is virtually impossible to buy the type of car I want without one of those damn useless holes in the roof)-I don’t recall any car makers (even American) claiming that increasing fuel efficiency per se would cause their costs to rise.

What they do claim is that the vehicles won’t sell. Modern engines are so much more efficient than engines from 20 or even 10 years ago (and much cleaner I might add) but that efficiency has been put to use to add more power to fairly large engines, rather than creating the same amount of horsepower that was common in large engines a couple of decades ago, in smaller more fuel efficient engines.

Because that is what sells.

A 1987 Buick Regal with a Buick 3.8 liter 6 cylinder engine put out 110 horsepower. A 2009 Cadillac CTS with a 3.6 liter 6 cylinder creates 270 horsepower-an Infiniti G37 with a 3.7 liter produces 330 horsepower-the same size 2009 engine produces triple the power of the 1987 engine.

oldleprechaun on May 19, 2009 at 4:36 PM

There. Fixed.

I wonder though. Will the system continue to “evolve” or just “die” from man and his immoral c02?

Remember the $1Billion in the Stimulus for Amtract and Harry Reids (Smelly Tourist) $Billion Train??

I’m all for going back to cheap leaded gasoline. All the trouble started when THEY changed to unleaded. Not to mention all the damage unleaded ethenol goes to small and marine engines.

Friendly21 on May 19, 2009 at 7:21 PM

Seriously? Lead in gas doesn’t make it cheaper and it would actually do damage to your car these days (it bunks the catalytic converter and oxygen sensors). Lead is a powerful neurotoxin and not releasing thousands of tons of it into our air every year is a very good thing. If you think CAFE “kills” people, leaded gasoline is a veritable slaughter.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF OBAMA”S DISINGENUOUS TORTURE OF FACTS

Paraphrasing a point in his teleprompter read today -
This action will save more oil than all the oil the US imported from Saudi Arabia, Lybia and Venezuala.

In reality, the US gets relatively no oil from these 3 countries. Most of our imports are from Canada and Mexico.

gonnjos on May 19, 2009 at 5:08 PM

You’re letting your partisan blinders get in the way. We get massive amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela (about a million barrels a day from each). Saudi Arabia and Mexico are about even, depending on the quarter one is more than the other.

The point – gizmos are a reflection of aggregate demand. CAFE is not.

hawksruleva on May 19, 2009 at 4:37 PM

True enough; you just have to order the car specially without all that stuff on it. And, yes, I have done so. I am not convinced, however, that aggregate demand drives all of the add-ons. The profit is not in the new car sales; it’s in the markup on these add-ons (and on the after-sales market, the shop, and the used cars). If I don’t want a DVD player, the dealer will knock $125 off the sales price, since that is what it cost him (he says). But he doesn’t knock the $250 profit that he was making on the unit in the first place, unless I, the buyer, know to insist on that, too. The American public is not generally a society of bargainers; we are not (generally) practiced in knowing how to drive the “hidden charges” out of the deal. So the manufacturers load up the vehicles with all this profit-generating stuff, and wait for you to know how to nickle-and-dime it all back out. When you’re looking at $25k and up for a vehicle, what’s a couple hundred bucks here and there?

I don’t begrudge them their profit, and any additional charges that they manage to get. All that I’m saying is that I don’t care to hear their BS about how increased gas mileage in the absence of government mandate would have made cars too expensive for the American consumer.

There is a big market for books on how to buy cars without getting taken, too.