I See No Flaws in This Line of Reasoning

They’re shameless, you have to give them that:

Overall, “improvements over time have better longer-term effects simply by not alienating consumers, as compared to great leaps forward” in fuel efficiency and other technology, the administration argues. It contends that freezing the mileage requirements at 2020 levels would save up to 1,000 lives per year.

New vehicles would be cheaper — and heavier — if they don’t have to meet more stringent fuel requirements and more people would buy them, the draft says, and that would put more drivers in safer, newer vehicles that pollute less.

At the same time, the draft says that people will drive less if their vehicles get fewer miles per gallon, lowering the risk of crashes.

David Zuby, chief research officer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said he’s doubtful about the administration’s estimate of lives saved because other factors could affect traffic deaths, such as automakers agreeing to make automatic emergency braking standard on all models before 2022. “They’re making assumptions about stuff that may or may not be the same,” he said.

Experts say the logic that heavier vehicles are safer doesn’t hold up because lighter, newer vehicles perform as well or better than older, heavier versions in crash tests, and because the weight difference between the Obama and Trump requirements would be minimal.

Well, at least it sounds better than the real reasons, “to reward our donors and own the libs, not necessarily in any order.”

And, of course, we get the legendarily principled Republican commitment to states’ rights:

The excerpts also show the administration plans to challenge California’s long-standing authority to enact its own, tougher pollution and fuel standards.

Wait — next you’ll tell me that overruling Roe wouldn’t send the issue back to the states!

…

Everything they do, all of it, they have to justify in bad faith, because the good faith explanations are morally vile. https://t.co/CI6KcGjYYn

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) August 1, 2018