Trump Derangement Syndrome on Nitrous

Guest Post by Eric Peters

As a journalist I understand completely why so many people rightly loathe the media. It is because the media no longer understand – or just doesn’t give a damn – about the difference between conveying facts and attempting to force-feed its opinions to you – these opinions presented with the most insolent certainty, formed in such a way as to make it clear that anyone reading who harbors a secret doubt is not merely a doubter but a denier; i.e., a malicious and vile person who must be dealt with.

It’s the sort of thing which leads to fists and worse.

Well, here we go again.

Bloomberg – the organ of billionaire leftist Michael Bloomberg – is practically signing death warrants (and probably would, if it had the power) in its “coverage” of the Trump administration’s apparent intention to dial back an Obama-era increase (a near-doubling) of the federal fuel economy mandate, which is lately being conflated with the most despicable dishonesty as an “emissions” (of “greenhouse gasses”) mandate – which is an outright lie.

The mandates are Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mandates and you’ll note there is nothing in that term even hinting at “emissions” – of any sort. CAFE dates back to the 1970s and the Energy Policy Conservation Act  – italicized to emphasize the emphasis on energy and its conservation rather than emissions.

It decrees that every car company’s combined fleet of cars must achieve a “corporate average” of X miles-per-gallon, that number constantly going up, along with heavy fines for “non-compliance” (the writ-large version of the “shared responsibility” fines which the Obamacare recalcitrant – including this writer – are being hit with).

One of the Obama regime’s final acts of regulatory thuggery – after all, no one voted on this – was to unilaterally decree that the corporate average MPG mandate ascend to 50-something MPGs by the 2025 model year.

This was a vicious decree because, in the first place, who are these people to be dictating the mileage of our cars – the ones we pay for? This includes the gas which goes in their tanks.

What gives them – the bureaucrats nesting in DC – the moral right?

If buyers want ultra-efficient cars, won’t the car companies build them? In fact, they do build them. Some cars are very fuel efficient; those who want them are free to buy them. If you want a 50-MPG-capable Prius hybrid or even an electric car that gets infinite MPGs, they are available.

This obviousness is lost on the government bureaucrats – and the screechers at Bloomberg, et al.

Of course, the problem is that most buyers prefer larger or more powerful or more capable cars – and trucks and SUVs. Not hybrids and electric cars.

Damn them – literally.

Obama’s regulatory ayatollahs sought to countermand buyer preferences, freely expressed, by decreeing an increase in CAFE to 50-something MPG and then styling it as an environmental mandate – in order to attempt to force everyone into a hybrid or an electric car, by stigmatizing any criticism of this putsch as the equivalent of pouring used motor oil down a storm sewer.

Bloomberg – and it’s not just Bloomberg – have joined this unctuous chorus:

“The proposal, expecte to be released this week, amounts to a frontal assault on one of President Obama’s signature regulatory programs to curb emissions that contribute to climate change.”

Italics added.

This is excerpted from a news story.

First – it’s not “Obama’s signature regulatory program.” It is a federal regulatory program that dates back to the Carter presidency. Obama was in middle school at the time, so he can’t take credit for it or be given credit for it.

Second, CAFE – the “regulatory program” being discussed – was never written to nor amended to address “climate change,” a term which didn’t even exist when CAFE came into currency some 40 years ago.

CAFE is about gas mileage. It is not about “greenhouse gasses” or any other “emissions.” There are other regs which cover those.

But they – the media – either do not understand these distinctions, in which case they are incompetent. Or they do understand these distinctions and deliberately lie – in which case they are despicable.

I think they know – instinctively – that the only way to get a car-buying public that likes bigger, more powerful cars and trucks and SUVs more than it likes gas mileage is to shame the public.

To smear any opposition to a near doubling of the CAFE mandate to 50-something MPG –  which no currently available cars except hybrid cars and electric cars are capable of achieving and which therefore would mean the extinction by regulation of almost every car other than a hybrid or electric car – as opposition to “clean air” and “denying” of “climate change.”

And the writers of this stuff wonder why the people being lectured to despise them so.