Return Of The Double Nickel - Part 2

Last week I wrote about Senator John Warner (R-VA) and his idea to re-impose the National Maximum Speed Limit and why it was such a bad idea. I have no idea how far his efforts to do so will go. But even if he tries and fails, there may be another way we will see the hated 55MPH speed limit make its return, and neither Congress or state governments will have anything to do with it. Instead it may make its reappearance as a regulation created by the Environmental Protection Agency.

What kind of nonsense is this? How is it they can be allowed to set speed limits on the nation's highways when they have no part in traffic regulations and laws? By using a back door.

That back door has to do with CO₂ emissions from cars and trucks. If they slow vehicles down the amount of CO₂ emissions will decrease. Never mind the fact there may be additional costs associated with the lower speed limits they have ignored, one of them being time. After all time is money and the longer it takes people or cargo to get from Point A to Point B, the more it can take its toll on the economy.

Never mind the extra cost might be minimal, there's still the idea that this course of action was decided upon by a friggin' bureaucrat rather than our duly elected representative to Congress or our state legislature. The EPA is sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong and where it has no jurisdiction. Nowhere in its charter is it stated they have control over the highways and byways or the laws and regulations governing them.

If the Agency's aim is to lower CO₂ emissions, would the lower speed limits apply to electric cars? Why should they be forced to drive at a lower speed if they have no emissions? (Yes, I know that ultimately they do have emissions due the the smokestack gases from fossil-fired power plants. But what if you live in an area that uses little, if any fossil fuel for power plants? Much of New Hampshire's electric power comes from nuclear and hydro, with a few coal and natural gas plants, as well as 5 biomass plants. Does that mean we'd get a pass for electric cars? Of course not.)

This proposal by the EPA is merely an end run around the legislative process, usurping the powers of Congress and the state legislatures. We should let them know in no uncertain terms to back off. Another approach is to take them to court. Yet another is to string a few of 'em up, to let them know of our displeasure. (No, we wouldn't hang them until they are dead. Just until they're mostly dead. Of course, with a bureaucrat that might be hard to do because so many of them are already mostly dead...from the neck up.)