Restricting What’s Not Yet Regulated

Engineers are becoming like magicians – pulling improbable things out of their hats.

The difference is, it’s not a trick – and they haven’t got much choice.

Every car company has armies of engineers trying to figure out how to maintain the performance and power the market expects of new cars while also complying with the government’s demands – which are becoming harder and harder to comply with.

Some of these demands aren’t even official  . . . yet.

For example, this idea that carbon dioxide (C02) is – hey, presto! – an “emission.”

Of course, it is – in the literal sense that it’s emitted from the tailpipe of all internal combustion-powered cars.

So is water vapor.

But C02 (like H20) isn’t an “emission” in the regulatory sense – as far as cars are concerned.

The EPA has “bins” and “tiers” specifying allowable limits for combustion byproducts such as incompletely burned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulates (i.e., soot) and so on.

These are “emissions” in the regulatory sense. The car companies are obliged to comply with the limits set.

But there is nothing in the bins and tiers about C02.

Not yet.

Perhaps because – like water vapor – C02 is not an “emission” in the sane sense.

Carbon dioxide coming out of car tailpipes doesn’t affect air quality in the slightest, or choke the asthmatic or dissolve statues with acidic rain. It is a chemically inert gas – as opposed to the highly reactive gasses discussed above and heretofore considered emissions in the regulatory (and sane) sense. With some cause – at least back in the ’70s and before – when those emissions were high and did cause air quality problems and breathing problems and so on.

Today, they are infinitesimally small – and have been for years. The problem no longer is.

Enter the need for a new “emission.” To justify new restrictions.

It is of course alleged that C02 is a “climate changing” gas; we’ve all heard the mantra.

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