regulation – Page 10

One change that would make cars safer for everyone

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Lone Candle

“Pedestrian deaths have increased 75 percent in the US since 2010, according to Smart Growth America’s latest report. The numbers started increasing dramatically in 2020, with pedestrian deaths reaching a 40-year high in 2022.
In the intervening years, I’ve learned a lot about the factors that make traffic fatality rates in the US 50 percent higher than they are in other comparable nations.

They include dangerous road design that makes it easy for drivers to speed, and a breakdown in traffic enforcement that allows some of the worst drivers to get away with it for so long that they eventually kill someone. I’ve also reported how drivers in the US spend more time using their phones while driving than people in other countries, and on survey data that seems to suggest that drivers in the United States have more lax attitudes toward road safety than their European counterparts.

But there’s one thing I still can’t understand.

Why has the government failed to address the fact that large, heavy vehicles are deadlier to pedestrians and cyclists than smaller cars? There is actually a way to make cars safer for everyone — and it includes changing how the government rates a “safe car.” In Europe, government regulators test new vehicles to see how dangerous they are for pedestrians and cyclists and include that information in their safety ratings. They’ve been doing it for years. The US does no such thing.

Those 5-star safety readings you see for cars? That rating is for people inside the car. So if you’ve read the news about the soaring numbers of vulnerable people being killed on roads, and thought about purchasing something that would be safer for them, you aren’t going to be able to find that information. The government currently isn’t testing for it.”

https://www.vox.com/policy/354561/pedestrian-fatalities-car-safety-ratings

American Manufacturers Need Tax and Regulatory Reform, Not Tariffs

Posted on June 30, 2024 by Lone Candle

“In a recent paper titled “Industrial Headwinds: Reducing the Burden of Regulations on U.S. Manufacturers,” published in the May 2024 Club for Growth Policy Handbook, economist Daniel Ikenson writes, “For manufacturing firms, the cost of federal regulations in 2022 was roughly $350 billion, or 13.5% of the sector’s GDP—a burden 26% greater than the inflation-adjusted cost of regulatory compliance in 2012.”

He adds that while the average U.S. company pays a regulatory compliance price of $13,000 per employee, large manufacturers shoulder a cost more than twice as much—$29,100. However, even some small-sized manufacturers face annual compliance costs of $50,100 per employee. This helps explain why manufacturing automation is so popular and why our fastest-growing companies are in service-sector tech, not manufacturing.”

https://reason.com/2024/05/23/american-manufacturers-need-tax-and-regulatory-reform-not-tariffs/

California’s $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage Law Is Already Having Disastrous Unintended Consequences

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Lone Candle

“if it’s win-win, why just make the minimum $20? Why not $30? Or $100?

Because government requiring higher wages is not a win-win.

Interfering with market prices always creates nasty unintended consequences.”

…

“No. 1: Thousands of Californians have already lost jobs because some restaurants closed. Others lost income because their employer cut worker hours. The chain El Pollo Loco cut employees’ hours by 10 percent.

Pizza Hut announced that they will lay off more than a thousand delivery drivers. One such driver, Michael Ojeda, understandably asked, “What’s the point of a raise if you don’t have a job?”

No. 2: Workers who still have jobs will lose them because now their employers have more incentive to automate. Chipotle just created a robot that makes burrito bowls. Even CNN acknowledged, “Some restaurants are replacing [fast food workers] with kiosks.”

No. 3: Prices go up.”

https://reason.com/2024/05/29/californias-20-fast-food-minimum-wage-law-is-already-having-disastrous-unintended-consequences/

Glenn Youngkin Withdraws Virginia From California’s Electric Vehicle Mandate

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Lone Candle

“California first adopted its Advanced Clean Cars (ACC) standard in 2012. The rules required automakers to gradually increase sales of zero-emission vehicles as a percent of total sales in California, culminating in an 8-percent share in 2025. Plug-in hybrids, which use both electric and gas-powered motors, counted for partial credit toward the total.
The Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 1965 in 2021, which directed the State Air Pollution Control Board to adopt low-emission and zero-emission vehicle standards equivalent to California’s. The bill was signed into law by then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, whose support helped guarantee the bill’s passage. Virginia is among 18 states and the District of Columbia that have adopted some or all of California’s regulations.

But the following year, California adopted Advanced Clean Cars II, which greatly expanded the requirements of the original standard. Under the new rules, the zero-emission requirement would jump from 8 percent of automaker’s sales for model year 2025 all the way to 35 percent in 2026, increasing each year until 100 percent of all new vehicles sold for model year 2035 must be electric.

The following day, Youngkin and the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates indicated their intent to repeal H.B. 1965 and uncouple the state from California’s rules, but the Democrat-controlled state Senate squashed their efforts the following year. In the 2023 elections, Democrats regained control of the House of Delegates while keeping control of the Senate, and the state Senate once again defeated efforts to repeal the law in January 2024.

Ultimately, California’s more aggressive rules provided the legal justification for Virginia’s withdrawal. Youngkin’s press release claims that H.B. 1965 merely authorized the state to follow Advanced Clean Cars I, the rules in place at the time that went through 2025. “An opinion from Attorney General Jason Miyares confirms the law, as written, does not require Virginia to follow ACC II,” the press release continues. “Therefore, the Commonwealth will follow federal emissions standards on January 1, 2025.”

“We are alarmed that Governor Youngkin thinks that he is above the law,” Nicole Vaughan, communications director for the Virginia Conservation Network, tells Reason in a statement. “Legislation passed in 2021 directs Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board to adopt Advanced Clean Cars and subsequent updates to the program. In doing so, Virginia exercised an option under the federal Clean Air Act to follow the more stringent standards adopted by California and several other states to address tailpipe pollution.””

https://reason.com/2024/06/05/glenn-youngkin-withdraws-virginia-from-californias-electric-vehicle-mandate/