If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. And that, dear taxpayer, would be you.
A furious two weeks of Big Auto, Big Union, and Big Green closed door meetings and backdoor lobbying brought pressure on the Obama administration’s plan to double the fuel economy of American cars — and effectively eliminate the gas engine by — 2025.
After the dust settles, EPA’s new so-called CAFE standards will be riddled with loopholes, the auto industry and Detroit unions will get massive federal subsidies to build cars consumers don’t want . . . and the taxpayer will be poorer and have less product choice.
That is the inevitable result of a strange, strongly worded letter from the entire Michigan delegation stating that EPA’s 56 MPG proposal by 2025 is “not reasonably feasible” and would have “significant negative ramifications for U.S. jobs and competitiveness.”
I say strange because the letter was signed by anti-mandate conservatives as well as pro-mandate libs like Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow, who has been a champion of the increased EPA regulations that she says are essential to creating “the vehicles of the future.”
Does this mean Stabenow & Co. have sworn off federal CAFE rules? Hardly.
It means Democrats got a snoot-full from automakers (and their unions) who pay their campaign bills. And it means she must cough up more taxpayer millions to help automakers meet the edict by making money-losing electrics the government wants — while also churning out the gas-powered SUVs the public wants.
Make sense? No, because you’re not at the table.