http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us...f.html?_r=1&hp

Great. Now people will be forced to buy expensive cars.

He opposes drilling our oil, but is also against nuclear power. Both are cheap and can generate the BTU’s. He’d rather us use unproven power sources and pay out the **** for them. Solar is not cheap, nor is wind power or hybrid cars et.... Sure they are clean, but most of us have a budget to keep and can’t afford these “green” power sources. He wants to force them down our neck and not allow us to make a choice for ourselves. This proves his anti-capitalist stance. Capitalism if left unmolested will weed out what works and what doesn’t. Again, this is another issue with personal liberty.

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There are plenty of inexpensive cars that are very fuel efficient. In fact, small cars tend to be cheaper than bigger ones, and are more fuel efficient by virtue of being smaller. Also, renewables are cheaper than nuclear, and the price of crude is largely controlled by OPEC and oil companies. Note that oil companies reduce their oil exploration projects when the price of it drops, which makes it go back up again.

Dude... we have a Hybrid. 20 grand for a new one. The average person can not afford that, or get financing for it and repairs are costly.

Yes they are cheap on gas, but you make up for it with repairs and other maintenance.

Again, this comes down to personal liberty. I don't need the government telling me what car I can and can't drive. That is draconian.

Fuel efficiency standards don't consist in making everyone get a hybrid.

Ya but it requires (no free choice) auto manufactures to comply with with government standards. This fuel efficiency and "carbon emissions" stuff is expensive to the auto manufacturers, thus driving up the cost of a car for the cost of parts. You think a catalytic converter is expensive now? Just you wait.

The Bush Administration calculated that the standards would cost the automobile industry 100 billion to comply with (a loss that's going to get distributed over a lot of companies and a lot of years). If you wrap that cost into all the cars sold over a number of years, they amount to what per car? Not a whole lot by my reckoning. Anyways, the standards apply to a companies entire fleet, in that they can make big trucks that don't get 35mpg or whatever, but have to average it across the fleet. Companies are still going to make cars in all different price ranges, because it's profitable for them to do that.

Maybe you aren't getting my underlying point here. This is about personal choice and liberty. Since when have we become a nation where the government can tell private industry what to do?

I've already laid out that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, it's plant food and no regulation by man will have and effect on the environment as nature dwarfs any man made attempt to control CO2.

America is all about free choice, not Soviet socialist state run industry.

Rather than get into a debate on global warming and the role of government (again). I propose we agree to disagree on this one.

You can't just push the price of new cars up and expect people to keep buying. Give people the choice between buying a 2009 car that cost $20,000 or a 2010 car with new emissions that costs $10,000 more(depriciation + emissions) and its easy to see this could collapse the auto industry. Maybe its a good idea, but this is the wrong time to do it. Economic recovery or a few more cleaner cars?