If you are old enough to remember the days before the clean air act and you lived in or visited a big city like New York or L.A. you’ll remember how it was when you had “bad air days” and the sky was a yellowish brown and your eyes would water when you went outside. Those are the days Trump wants to return to, back when America was great:
President Trump on Wednesday threw the weight of the federal government behind vehicles that burn gasoline rather than electric cars, gutting one of the country’s most significant efforts to address climate change and thrusting the automobile industry into greater uncertainty.
Flanked by executives from major automakers in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the Transportation Department would significantly weaken fuel efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new cars and light trucks. The administration claimed the changes would save Americans $109 billion over five years and shave $1,000 off the average cost of a new car.
The Biden administration’s stricter efficiency standards were designed to get more Americans to go electric. But Mr. Trump said they “forced automakers to build cars using expensive technologies that drove up costs, drove up prices, and made the car much worse. This is a green new scam, and people were paying too much for a car that didn’t work as well.”
[…]
Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States, and Mr. Biden had adopted a carrot-and-stick approach to reducing these emissions. He offered tax credits to encourage motorists to buy electric cars while requiring that automakers meet stringent fuel efficiency standards to pressure them to sell more nonpolluting models.
Mr. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress got rid of the tax credits earlier this year. They also eliminated fines for automakers who violate the fuel efficiency standards. And now the standards themselves will be watered down.
The automakers said they were happy but privately they aren’t happy about having re-tooled to accommodate the new technology only to be told they should go back to the 1960s. Not to mention that the tariffs have cost them billions and people aren’t buying new cars because of Trump’s shit economic policies. But they were there with him at the announcement clapping their flappers like a bunch of trained seals.
And I’m sure the housing and insurance industries are thrilled that we are no longer concerned about climate change. Apparently, houses are becoming uninsurable in places like Florida, California, parts of the Midwest where the changing weather patterns are causing massive liability. But that’s cool. Trump promises that climate change will create more beachfront property (what?) so everyone will soon be living on the ocean. Or something.
But it’s all good. The transportation Secretary, who has been recently concentrating on getting people to dress up in fancy clothes for their plane travel for some reason had this to say about the new rules:
Jesus H. Christ. This guy has truly bought the idea that everyone is yearning to live in the Brady Bunch.
Everyone is 12.