Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Among many things that former head of the EPA Scott Pruitt did during his time at the agency was to cease enforcement of emissions standards for so-called "Glider" trucks. Gliders are new heavy truck chassis that have older, less technologically advanced and emissions-compliant engines installed into them.
The Obama administration sought to close the loopholes that allow gliders to be built and sold in significant numbers in an effort to curb their pollution but Pruitt opted to toss that aside in the name of business. We've covered the glider situation in the past, but the big news is that the new acting head of the EPA, a former coal lobbyist, has moved to reinstate the Obama regulations after a court insisted that they be enforced once again.
[...] Many trucking fleets like gliders because they are often cheaper to maintain and run than modern trucks, but the amount of pollutants that they emit can be hundreds of times more than the federal standards would allow. The laws that permitted gliders to be built in the first place were designed primarily to reduce the number of wrecked trucks going into scrap yards, instead giving their engines new homes. That kind of backfired.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday July 30 2018, @12:39PM
That might certainly help--a news article last month pointed out that minimum wage workers can't afford fair market rent anywhere in the country, with the exception of 22 counties, all of which have a higher minimum wage due to local/regional law.
Some problems with that, however, are that (1) "Cash for Clunkers" pays people who don't need help the most, not those who do, (2) there isn't any help for low income families in the "Cash for Clunkers" nor the "Get rid of Gliders" programs because the eco-greenies don't think that way (most believe that even negligible environmental changes, as here, should be shoved through regardless of economic consequence), and (3) that wouldn't help the victims of the campaign against Gliders because it would force them to not only pay more for less fuel-efficient trucks, but would have them paying more to the drivers. I am not against paying drivers more, but doing so at the expense of their employers who are getting a double-penalty for just trying to do the right thing isn't a great solution.
I am not sure about that, because I am not sure the "leftie environmentals" who want to control others are looking for good arguments so much as effective ones, good or bad.
I think that a lot of the problem is that paradoxically, there are those on one side who say either that there is no climate change or that it doesn't matter, regardless of what the science shows, and those on the other side predicting calamity and catastrophe, again, disconnected from what the science shows--and both of these groups push their positions with religious fervor, which isn't a great way to get "good arguments" nor good solutions, because any measure is the result of a holy war that represents the scorched earth of the winning side.
I think people should have a right to nutty religious environmental positions, but that the nutty people should stay out of any public discourse whose results might affect others.