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Environment
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It is the duty of government to always consider the environmental impact when dealing with the needs of industry or any special interest, to ensure that care is taken to preserve that which ultimately benefits all citizens (i.e., clean air, clean water, healthy wildlife and a diverse ecosystem).
- Thus, put in place conditions which force any industry, corporation, or citizen creating excessive amounts of waste to pay a high-enough cost in order to clean up or reduce or prevent the waste. In particular this means higher costs imposed onto power plants and motorists for their high rates of fossil fuel emissions.
- Maintain government oversight of all pollution sources and impose ever increasing standards for reduced pollution levels, based on the latest and best-known research, thus encouraging the best possible improvements in industrial processes and the development and application of the newest and best technologies.
- Adopt regulations which focus on desired results to be reached by the pollution sources, e.g., lower pollution outputs, rather than dictating to them the particular methods they must use to reach the results.
- Tax all pollution sources according to this principle: greater pollution level = proportionally higher tax penalty so that any polluter, whether a large company, small company, or an individual citizen, will find it profitable to be as environment-friendly as possible.
- Invest in alternative energy research.
URBAN POLLUTION & CONGESTION
- Invest in mass transportation systems that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Promote pedestrian and bicycle traffic in urban areas and avoid the encouragement of commuting.
- Follow the example of London by requiring special permits to drive vehicles into heavily-congested downtown areas, and perhaps also assess fees or tolls on use of certain congested public roads or freeways during peak traffic hours, and use monitoring cameras for enforcement.
GASOLINE & VEHICLE TAX
- Increase State and Federal gas taxes gradually to encourage improved efficiency in the American auto fleet. At very minimum increase immediately the federal tax by 10 cents per gallon and gradually more in the ensuing years.
- Also tie vehicle sales tax to both emissions and mileage on an escalating scale so that consumers wishing to purchase higher pollution-emitting vehicles must pay an initial penalty of corresponding magnitude. Also do annual inspections of vehicles to measure each one's pollution rate and assess a respective penalty/fee based on the measured result.
BETTER FUEL ECONOMY STANDARDS
Increase "CAFE standards" but also redefine them so vehicles are categorized according to objective merit-based criteria only.
- A legitimate criterion is that a 4-wheel drive vehicle is allowed a lower mpg requirement than a similar 2-wheel-drive vehicle, because the former offers greater performance. Also legitimate is passenger capacity of the vehicle, i.e., greater capacity merits more lenient mpg requirement.
- But repeal any fuel economy standard which defines a vehicle category according to the weight of the vehicle, because allowing vehicles of greater weight a more lenient mpg requirement gives producers a perverse incentive to make their vehicle heavier in order to qualify it for the more lenient standard. Thus, redefine "CAFE standard" to eliminate the arbitrary designation of 8500 lbs or any other number or reference to the weight of vehicles.
- Impose the same fuel economy regimen on ALL vehicles (or all gas-powered vehicles), without arbitrary distinctions such as between imports and domestic vehicles, or any other artificial classifications. Rather, impose standards which categorize vehicles according to merit-based performance and utility criteria only.
- To circumvent the drawback of arbitrary categories and cutoffs typical of CAFE standards, shift attention toward increasing gasoline taxes and emissions taxes as a way to reduce fossil fuel emissions, because this gives uniform incentive to ALL drivers and ALL manufacturers to seek EVERY possible alternative to fossil fuel and is thus a more efficient means to promoting alternative energy sources.
MORE RECYCLING
- Take steps toward eventual recycling of ALL waste matter, not just special categories such as plastic, newspaper, aluminum, etc. Increase or expand recycling centers to take in more kinds of non-biodegradable waste and sort it by whatever means necessary -- by machine or manually -- and reprocess the materials for re-use, or arrange delivery to public or private reprocessing operators.
- Increase research into technologies to reprocess "non-recyclable" material.