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Illinois Thu Mar 12 2009
Illinois to Pass Clean Car Act in '09?
This morning, the Environmental Health Committee of the Illinois House will hold a hearing on HB0422, the Illinois Clean Car Act. This bill, cross-introduced in the Senate as SB 1941, on which hearings are occurring in the Energy Committee this morning, essentially gives Illinois the same automobile mileage/emissions standards as California, phasing in from 2012 to 2020.
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and others have made this a priority for this year, on the theory that if enough large car-buying states adopt these higher standards, manufacturers will make all their cars cleaner, not just the products destined for California.
While a similar bill came up short last year, advocates have higher hopes this time around, with public awareness of the importance of lowering greeenhouse gas emissions growing. Significantly, on Feb. 19, House Speaker Michael Madigan switched his status on the bill from "co-sponsor" to "chief co-sponsor." All things being equal, this would indicate that the bill is a priority and has strong leadership backing.
In the Illinois state senate, there are only four sponsors: Jacqueline Y. Collins, Iris Y. Martinez, Michael Noland, and Kwame Raoul. The Illinois Climate Action Network working for this bill is urging constituents to contact their state senators and ask them to co-sponsor SB 1941.
Good Luck / March 12, 2009 3:23 PM
Law of unintended consequences:
Section 30. New motor vehicle certification testing.
21 (a) Prior to being offered for sale or lease in this State,
22 new motor vehicles subject to the Illinois Clean Vehicles
23 Program requirements must be certified by CARB as meeting the
24 motor vehicle requirements of Title 13 CCR, Division 3, Chapter
25 1, Section 1961
...so we find that our nation's automobile industry is on the verge of collapse, the industry is deemed "too big to fail", and a commonly believed factor in their unsustainability is that companies like GM have created too many models and need to streamline their operations.
Here we have regulation that would mandate that cars sold in IL be different than any other state, thus requiring that Ford or GM create specialized engines/systems for the IL market. This would increase the differentiation and eliminate any operational gains from reducing the number of models they sell.
Because they have to cater to specialized needs, the price of a car under IL specifications would cost more to produce and that cost would be passed on to the consumer. The loophole for the consumer would be to travel to a neighboring state and buy a car there. That would not benefit any IL dealer located near a state border, now would it? And if the IL dealer is selling fewer cars, the state gets less sales tax revenue and the dealer may not be able to offer the same number of jobs to its community.
It would be nice if the Sierra Club was an advocate for economic sustainability as well as environmental sustainability, would it not?
Oh yeah, CA used their clean air act as an excuse to slap on an extra tax on each car in the state. So by all means give politicians more excuse to tax us.