Here’s something that has seemed to suddenly pop up everywhere in the last couple of days. In opposition to the tightened emissions standards that President Obama announced on Tuesday, I’ve seen a number of people opposing this by complaining that the new standards will kill more people than the Iraqi war. Some have, in fact, claimed that the death toll of this new standard will approach that of the Vietnam War.

I’ll admit, when I first saw this line of argument, I was amused by it. It’s a plausible enough argument, after all, and it’s the kind of attack that seems like it just comes out of nowhere. Increased fuel standards will kill people? That’s absurd… isn’t it?

The more I think about it, the less certain that I am that this argument is specious. It’s not that I think that an increased number of deaths is definitely going to come from this decision; it’s that I have a continuing problem with the Obama Administration seeming to simply disregard the consequences of their actions.

One of the first acts that our new President took was to declare that we would be shutting down Guantanamo Bay within the year, but he didn’t seem to think about where the prisoners would go or how we’d pay to get the facility closed. In my last post, I commented on the fact that the OMB director admitted that their budget was simply based on what they wanted to do, without any major concern to those troublesome numbers.

The fact is, while cutting emission standards may be a good thing, there are definitely tradeoffs involved. Something’s got to give. If it were possible, given current technology and engineering, to build a safer, cheaper, more fuel efficient car, someone would be building it already^[a]. That’s not to say the stricter standards are bad — I’d just like some acknowledgement that there are going to have to be sacrifices made (and, then, I’d like those people who’re telling us there will need to be sacrifices to actually make sacrifices^[b]).

There are a lot of interests tugging on those who design more cars. Aesthetics^[c], safety, cost, fuel efficiency, hauling capacity… We can’t mandate a massive increase in one of these things without significantly impacting the others^[d]. It’s disingenous to claim that we can.

Some of these tradeoffs do need to be considered and discussed. I just wish there was some sense that the Obama Administration had considered them, rather than simply handing down an edict from “On High”.

1. You think the world will beat a path to your door for a better mousetrap? Try building a cheap, fuel efficient, comfortable, safe car. [↩]
2. It’s a little bit hypocritical for a politician to tell us we need to sacrifice and then not make any sacrifices themselves. For example, saying that we can’t all have our thermostats up to 72 degrees all the time, but then keeping their own thermostats up so high that their staff can’t bear to wear a suit jacket indoors. Leaders shouldn’t ask people to do something they’re not willing to do themselves. [↩]
3. For many car makers today, this seems to be a drive to try to make the ugliest car possible. [↩]
4. I’ve seen one article, which I can’t seem to find now that said that there were no trade offs. Small, fuel efficient cars can be safe (I believe the example used was the Jetta). They can also be cheap (The new Insight, which is disappointingly ugly, considering that I quite liked the original’s look). Therefore, the article concluded, there were no trade-offs. Given that the writer had to use a different car for each of his examples disproves his point, I think. [↩]