Cleaner cars not best for economy

Recently, Obama signed a request for the Environmental Protection Agency to allow California and other states to be able to pass their own, stricter laws on car emissions. This would allow California to demand that automakers create more fuel-efficient cars for sale in California.

While I support the idea of creating a cleaner environment and reducing our dependency on foreign fuel, I think this is a bad move in this economy for two reasons.

First, this would give single states too much power over the U.S. economy. Auto makers cannot simply create a version of their product lines for California–they would have to drastically revise their products for the entire country. This gives California too much power and leverage over the entire U.S. economy, which is currently very delicate.

Secondly, requiring automakers to research and develop more fuel-efficient cars would place additional burdens on a fragile auto industry. Just last fall, the U.S. auto industry asked the U.S. government for a $25 Billion bailout. Placing further restrictions upon the American automakers will only cause them more trouble, to the point where they will need even more bailout money.

I want a cleaner environment, but I don’t think it is worth the cost of bankrupting the auto-industry, possibly causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Creating tougher environmental regulations may be a good thing, but only on the federal level, and only when the economic conditions can support additional auto industry restrictions.

Obama’s request for these regulatory changes is careless and irresponsible. The number one problem in America today is the economy. But instead of working to correct the economy, Obama is trying to please too many special interests, which is instead causing further harm to the economy. It seems like Obama is trying harder to polish his democratic public image than he is to fix a failing economy.

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