Jump to content

Pollution Credits - something to watch


Recommended Posts

Please look into the use of the Pollution Credit that the current administration is pushing in regard to how it will be used concerning this hobby. The concept of trading credit points to corporations that have not attained the EPA pollution guidelines has been show to work in a limited area in NY, is now being proposed in California to allow municipalities and big industry to retire vehicles 15 years old or older, as 'high polluters' (most notibly buses and the like) in conjunction with proposed voluntary scrapage programs. This can and will have an effect on the car restoration/preservation hobby. The same Voluntary Scrapage proposal which has been defeated recently in Virginia is cropping up yet again, and now in concert with the Pollution Credit. This requires study and while we should not throw the concept out entirely, we should make provision for saving cars of classic or restoration potential. How we define those 'cars' or 'trucks' is open for debate. What we cannot allow is the whole sale destructionof cars and potential parts.

Comments? We need to post more on this forum. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the thread Howard, Where are you?, August 3, 2000:

<span style="font-weight: bold"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Chairman of Exxon: [color:"red"]On behalf of myself and all the members of the Exxon Profit Sharing Plan I'd like to thank Howard amd all the good people in Philadelphia for all the good work they're doing for our... I mean your Republican Party! We just can't wait for January 20 and those checks to start rolling in!

Thank you, you are all wonderful Americans! [color:"blue"]

=======================================================

Chairman of Texaco: [color:"red"] Amen to that, brother!

[color:"blue"]

=============================================

Charman of Unocal: [color:"red"] I must emphatically concur! Thank you all.

By the way, all your old cars suck. They're ruining the air for our refineries. The National pressure to expand and enhance the old car scrappage programs and "Clunker Legislation" will be a breath of fresh air (literally).

Your willingness to sacrifice for the corporate.... I mean National interest is deeply affecting. You are all great Americans! [color:"blue"]

=============================================

Chairman of Sunoco: [color:"red"] What a Party!!!

[color:"blue"]

=================================================

Chairman of BP: [color:"red"] What a PARTAY!

[color:"blue"]

================================================= </div></div></span>

(At the time the Republican Natational Convention was being held in Philadelphia.) The names of which oil companies I impersonated have been deleted with the abolition of annonymous posts, so I re-inserted them here as best I can remember.

And from a later (4/16/01) discussion on the same thread:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <span style="font-weight: bold">....The point is that, of any administration (except maybe Warren G. Harding and his Teapot Dome boys), this administration (and especially this Vice-President) has the least incentive imaginable to do anything about any problem related to energy policy. Try to imagine either of these guys in a meeting with the real Chairmen I impersonated on this thread, telling them to sacrifice for the good of the Nation.

It's not a conservative/liberal thing. This is putting Myer Lansky in charge of RICO enforcement. (Not to imply that bought influence in Federal policy is illegal or immoral in any way!) </span></div></div>

The one party system that runs our Federal government (and most state governments) is just doing it's job for the people who hired them. And it wasn't us! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

(Insert standard ingrained response quote 16B here: [color:"green"] "If Gore/generic Democrat 'B' had been elected we'd all be riding donkey carts by now." ) rooleyes2.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Randall, This whole pollution credits nonsensical in almost every respect. It targets the poor and forced anyone with an old car to "trade up" or walk since public transpotation in most areas is abyssmal. is just another red herring to let corporations get away with devastation the air we ALL breathe and the environment in general in the name ofprofit ( read Greed) . We in the old car hobby don't count for squat against the corporations that run the world and have no chance of changing what is going to happen without a knowledgeable and informed populace who are committed to changing the system and I fear that just ain't gonna happen soon since the media are in collusion as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Dave! Can I move up there with you? Anyway, that is what I have been reading about over the last week or two concerning the whole pollution thing with this administration, an administration I might add that refuses to even say the words 'global warming', which is tauting more of the 'protect us from ourselves' legislation in order to further the goals and fill the pockets of the multi-billion dollar industries. They are not even bothering to call this 'Filter Down' economics. The apparent success of the Pollution Credit in New York State could very well be the gradual positive effects of the last thirty years rather than the Pollution Credit per se, but let us not dismiss the idea that it could very well have worked. The problem is not in the concept but the implementation where the abuses could arise. The general open policy of this administration on the subject of natural resources and pollution has been to support industry over Smokey Bear. James Watt would be proud! You do not have to be a tree hugger or a long haired, blood throwing animal rights advocate to be concerned with losing our natural resources to greed and short sightedness. Urban sprawl is decimating our natural lands leaving miles upon miles of rolling tract homes rather than fields and forests. Just look at Bucks County Pennsylvania...my God, I did not recognise it....it looked like Levittown went nova all over the place. And now that is happening in Colorado (has been for a while). In under 6 years the rolling fields outside of Denver have now been replaced with miles of rolling Mall and bedroom communities. Sure we need the housing ... or do we? In my area we still have a water shortage problem so they have cut back on the Golf courses and gone to voluntary rationing...and then crowed how wonderful it is that they are building more 50 and 60 unit neighborhoods in an area that is barely serviced by its sewer systems. It boggles the mind! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Randall, Come on up there is lots of room! I know what you mean and agree with what you say. Urban sprawl and misuse, overuse and waste of natural resources is unsustainable, Period. Water aquafers are being "mined" to water golf courses in the desert. Natural gas sufficient to heat/cool 250 homes is used to maintain "torchiers" in a Tuscon shopping mall for ambiance. Our forests even in this area, vast and almost limitless as they once were are rapidly being depleted so that hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans can have a 5 lb. Herald-Tribune, full of advertising on Sunday morning. There isn't enough oil in Iraq to keep this engine of waste going indefinitelly so I don't envy the generations who follow who will no doubt curse us for the damage to this once fair earth which we have depleted and despoiled.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have never heard of Cincinnati being referred to as "up there" from any perspective in Colorado, but I'll go with it! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

This concept was the reason I cribbed Dr. Dre for the tag line I use here--<span style="font-style: italic">"Don't believe the hype!</span> These liars figure their air quality improvments by assuming "average" use for every P.O.S. that gets traded in for $800. They then claim that the release of X tons of whatever was saved based on those assumptions.

There isn't one <span style="font-style: italic">real</span> environmentalist on earth who has aquired the education necessary to comprehend the problems we face who'll believe that every '77 Country Sedan and Spitfire out there is being driven 15,000 miles/year.

But you'll find a whole lotta people eating $2500 RNC fundraiser dinners who do!!! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

========================================================

I think it was Howard that discovered above that you can post annonymously on this section of the forum. I'm not sure why that is, but I almost did it myself making that first post.

By the way, the Chicago Trib is hardly alone. The worst of the bunch, those liberal bastards at the New York Times, kill off more than 40 acres of trees for every Sunday Edition alone. Or is that just propaganda from Fox News??? rooleyes2.gif <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave, I don't know how I did the "anonymous" thing either but I just replied to Randall without loging in. Unless someone in the USA lives in Alaska then I'm up here and your down there so you can come up if you want relatively unspoiled land and not many people.

Dvaid Suzuki whom I respect as a environmentalist once said it was like being locked in the trunk of a car full of people which was careening towards a brick wall at great speed and trying to warn them to stop before it was too late. A poor analogy I suppose but David isn't much of a car guy.

We have developed a culture of unsustainable consumption and most people who can participate seem to buy into it. To manitain it we must pillage the resources of other countries but that isn't a solution either in the long haul. Dick Chaney in a speech in Toronto said " conservation is a personal choice." so we know where he stands. The politicians are talking pollution credits B.S. up here also now, since Canada signed on to the Kyoto Accord. Our lame duck Prime Minister wants it as part of his "legacy". Instead of Canadians reducing our use of fossil fuels, ( oil and gas are our biggest export and we love big pickup trucks), the solution is.... (drum roll) we just "buy credits" from countries that are. I wonder where that idea came from since have concluded that politicians aren't capable of an original thought?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave, I would love to come up there. But I am afraid I am as guilty as anyone of being a user. I love my old cars and while I would give them up, I don't seem to be doing it...no, no they are still safe and sound in my garage. I find myself torn between what I know must be done, and the desire to keep what I have always known. Change is never easy for me...or anyone I gather...and isn't it odd that so adaptive a creature as Homo Sapiens sapiens is adversive to the very thing that makes up the Universe and allows him to survive?

I suspose we will continue in this vain of despoiling until it is long past the point of no return.

Not a cheery thought. So do you have trouble finding parts up there in the far north for that wonderful Packard? I had considered relocating to Canada 5 years ago... alife time now it seems..but due to my failing health it seemed there was no way to do it and not abuse yet another resource. I have paid dutifully into this system but I cannot, will not really, live off of the largesse of another people for my own comfort or gain. For better or worse I am here and I shall be happy to live and die here.

Have you noticed that the administration that promised it would take the government out of our daily lives is only increasing its influence through legislation that is meant to control how we live?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Randall. I don't think that we have to give up our old cars. The amount of use and the fuel they consume is really irrelevant in the big picture but we do make a handy scapegoat. The culture of large lawns and the need for emission spewing 2 stroke Lawnboys is by far a worse problem than a few hobby cars going a few miles to an old car event. No I don't have a problem with parts for the Packard. The internet and the Packard Club makes maintaining it a snap ( an expensive snap nonetheless). It's a great country but so is the USA. I once planned on moving down there also but have since decided that this is the place for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe the first concept as such was used in NY State in 1990 for the regulation of the utilities and waterway pollution. California took the idea a step further more recently ( I think you are right that it was in 2001 or 2002) to use the proposed Voluntary Scrapage and Pollution Credit together to help eliminate older, polluting autos and buses owned by the State of California.

It was the implication that worried the Auto groups...that this could be applied against all vehicles on the road. I wish I had more concrete data but at this moment I am without and working off of memory. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your memory's better than mind, Randall. I knew that something was tried in Cal. Just as well, those people deserve the grief for sending all those demonstrators to Irag. W.

Whoops!, sorry about that California Forum members, I'm just picking on you a little. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> W.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ACK! I don't think there is any danger of it spreading from California to the rest of the country, at least not it the current form. But Virginia is looking at voluntary scrapage of cars older than 15 years. The problem there is obvious. There is no provision for the saving of cars and parts that are deemed special, unique, or in any way valuable. They just get crushed and melted down; Now maybe we should do that with most cars after 1975 but you did not hear that here!!! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> The culture of large lawns and the need for emission spewing 2 stroke Lawnboys is by far a worse problem.... </div></div>

Minor side point, these were essentially outlawed by the 1990 Clean Air Act Ammendments. I believe there are no 2 stroke mowers any more. So our cars aren't the only things being picked on.

In fact most 4 stroke mowers now have a fixed throttle, which is set for optimum efficientcy. I was a little leary when I bought a new one 2 years ago, but it seems to work and hold up just fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave. That's good to know. Also I think those two-stroke outboard motors are being eliminated. That's something I've advocated for years now that the 4 stroke engines became available. Oil slick on our lakes may soon be a thing of the past!

Dave Kenney

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave I'm pretty sure the 2-stroke boat motors got banned along with the mowers. Let's all hope that they, however, weren't replaced with fixed throttle models! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like that! The National Weedwacker Association. Set up a big high profile lobby in Washington and hire Charleton Heston maybe ( Oops I guess not Charleton) and print bumper stickers with slogans like " You can have my weed wacker when you can pry it from my cold dead fingers". It might work? <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Albert

You will just have to start recycling Mc Donalds french fry oil in you weed Wacker, only problem, the people next door will wonder where the french fry truck is parked. As far a 2 stroke bikes they have been almost completly dissapeared from manufacture now, I think though Vespa/Preggo is still making a 2 stroke that meets Cal emission standards without a Cat. I also own a 73 Jawa (CZ) motorcycle & sidecar that is 2 stroke and at full throttle runs at 32:1 mix, talk about a blue cloud following you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The concept of Pollution Credits is an old one and has been with us since at least the 90's. Old car people generally don't understand and don't care about it. After all it's much easier to complain than to act, acting is hard work and we as a group have allowed these oppressive schemes to multiply because the work is just too hard, we give up before we even start. If the anti-car crowd had their way, our old cars would be scarped and melted down, forget what we think. You know, it wasn?t that long ago that some Model A Ford owners were giving in and putting catalytic converters on their cars and saying it was a good idea in the process! Pollution Credits are just another way to take our historic vehicles from us. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The concept of Pollution Credits is an old one and has been with us since at least the 90's. Old car people generally don't understand and don't care about it. After all it's much easier to complain than to act, acting is hard work and we as a group have allowed these oppressive schemes to multiply because the work is just too hard, we give up before we even start. If the anti-car crowd had their way, our old cars would be scarped and melted down, forget what we think. You know, it wasn?t that long ago that some Model A Ford owners were giving in and putting catalytic converters on their cars and saying it was a good idea in the process! Pollution Credits are just another way to take our historic vehicles from us. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> </div></div>

I don't know who this annonymous is, or how annonymous posts get through here now and then, but let's set a few things straight. I'm a professional environmentalist, and although I never worked <span style="font-style: italic">in</span> an air progaram I certainly <span style="font-style: italic">with</span> them enough to know a thing or two.

Pollution credits were started as a reasonable concept by which the least expensive means could be adopted to produce the best benefit in air quality. They were concieved in the 1980's and were implemented as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act Ammendments. Judging by the tone of your post I'll assume that you don't believe there is an air quality problem anywhere. However, those of us who spent years in post-graduate study on the issue learned a few things here and there, like the fact that at that time 10,000 people were dying air pollution related premature deaths every year in Los Angeles County <span style="font-style: italic">alone!</span>

You may snicker now at my unbelievable gullibility at being suckered in on that one! In the mean time I'll understand if you don't know that to me you sound like a plummer instructing a heart surgeon.

Like most policies advanced by one or other of the politcal agendas in this country, the <span style="font-style: italic">application</span> of the policy is warped by the financial powers that have a stake in it's application. Real environmental groups are <span style="font-weight: bold"> [color:"red"] NEVER </span> finacial powers. Truthfully the most finacially powerful environmental organizations out there (discounting a few wolves in sheep's clothing we can talk about) run on budgets generally smaller than a few large Super Wal-Marts. And most are much smaller than that, even the ones most of us have heard of.

Pollution credits <span style="font-style: italic">are</span> being warped in practice. This is done by people who need to justify <span style="font-style: italic">not</span> making the effort to clean their own emissions. The warpage is done by crushing old cars, and aquiring pollution credits based on wholly absurd assuptions regarding the quality and quantity of use the old cars recieve. Since all pollution measures have to be justified/evaluated by mathematical models that estimate pollutant discharge, one can manipulate the assumptions that are used to model the pollution amelioration to one's own advantage. For instance, you could blame all the pollution in the Denver air shed on one '57 DeSoto if you assume it's being driven enough.

There is no "anti-car crowd". There never has been. There is however a large and well financed anti-pollution controls crowd. <span style="font-style: italic">They</span> want to "take your car", or more properly take as much of the used resources your car may need as possible. It helps to keep them in Escalades and Bentleys.

As long as there are enough people out there who want to take the easy way out of analyzing this issue, they'll keep crushing cars. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

People like Mr. Annonymous here are <span style="font-style: italic">their</span> best friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I see how Mr. Annonymous did it. I did it by forgetting to sign in. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> This part of the forum allows annonymous posts fopr some reason.

In case it gets purged, my post to Mr. Annonymous is repeated here:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The concept of Pollution Credits is an old one and has been with us since at least the 90's. Old car people generally don't understand and don't care about it. After all it's much easier to complain than to act, acting is hard work and we as a group have allowed these oppressive schemes to multiply because the work is just too hard, we give up before we even start. If the anti-car crowd had their way, our old cars would be scarped and melted down, forget what we think. You know, it wasn?t that long ago that some Model A Ford owners were giving in and putting catalytic converters on their cars and saying it was a good idea in the process! Pollution Credits are just another way to take our historic vehicles from us.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know who this annonymous is, or how annonymous posts get through here now and then, but let's set a few things straight. I'm a professional environmentalist, and although I never worked in an air progaram I certainly worked with them enough to know a thing or two.

Pollution credits were started as a reasonable concept by which the least expensive means could be adopted to produce the best benefit in air quality. They were concieved in the 1980's and were implemented as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act Ammendments. Judging by the tone of your post I'll assume that you don't believe there is an air quality problem anywhere. However, those of us who spent years in post-graduate study on the issue learned a few things here and there, like the fact that at that time 10,000 people were dying of air pollution related premature deaths every year in Los Angeles County alone!

You may snicker now at my unbelievable gullibility at being suckered in on that one! In the mean time I'll understand if you don't know that to me you sound like a plummer instructing a heart surgeon.

Like most policies advanced by one or other of the politcal agendas in this country, the application of the policy is warped by the financial powers that have a stake in it's application. Real environmental groups are NEVER finacial powers. Truthfully the most finacially powerful environmental organizations out there (discounting a few wolves in sheep's clothing we can talk about) run on budgets generally smaller than a few large Super Wal-Marts. And most are much smaller than that, even the ones most of us have heard of.

Pollution credits are being warped in practice. This is done by people who need to justify not making the effort to clean their own emissions. The warpage is done by crushing old cars, and aquiring pollution credits based on wholly absurd assuptions regarding the quality and quantity of use the old cars recieve. Since all pollution measures have to be justified/evaluated by mathematical models that estimate pollutant discharge, one can manipulate the assumptions that are used to model the pollution amelioration to one's own advantage. For instance, you could blame all the pollution in the Denver air shed on one '57 DeSoto if you assume it's being driven enough.

There is no "anti-car crowd". There never has been. There is however a large and well financed anti-pollution controls crowd. They want to "take your car", or more properly take as much of the used resources your car may need as possible. It helps to keep them in Escalades and Bentleys.

As long as there are enough people out there who want to take the easy way out of analyzing this issue, they'll keep crushing cars.

People like Mr. Annonymous here are their best friend. </div></div>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...