I don’t believe that CO2 is a problem now nor that it will ever be. Probably no use in us discussing that.

If I believe that, though (and I do), and that there are plenty of carbon fuel resources available in this country to fuel vehicles of any size which I also believe, then there is no need for Fiat to be in the mix at my expense (they’re not putting up a dime for 20% of their own money for the company). That is, car design doesn’t need to be based on a lack of fuel or a threat to “global warming”. Those two variables are entirely government created (or adopted). Given that I don’t believe in either, therefore, I also don’t believe there any basis for the canard that Detroit is “making cars no one wants” and the implied canard that it’s their fault they’re broke because of this.

If “gas guzzlers” made by Detroit won’t sell in the domestic or overseas market, and that market is critical to Detroit’s success, I suspect they, on their own hook, will begin to build the cars they need to build to stay solvent and successful.

I don’t have a problem with taxes to accomplish the things that are the appropriate purview of the government. I don’t believe the appropriate purview of the government involves restricting free and open creation of energy resources in this country in order to raise the costs artificially to achieve ideological ends.

I think our concerns are fairly close but our beliefs about some of the background issues lead us to different ends. You appear to be more politically sophisticated than I and you feel the political die is already cast about these things. I pray earnestly that you’re wrong.

Unlike air pollution and water pollution doing something about CO2 is an intergenerational altruistic act if the worst scenarios are true. The climate science community has been trying to move the date of catastrophe forward to remove altruism from the equation but they have been unsuccessful. The intergenerational transfer of lower CO2 production requires lower consumption today and into the indefinite future. The environmental community has been trying to lay the groundwork for lower consumption by suggesting that we work less. They have even pull quoted Adam Smith on the production and consumption of unnecessary things but Smith was assuming that investment would flow to trivial wants to a degree that has never occurred. We are heading down a road that will further erode private property rights. Because of the Jevons Paradox, carbon leakage, arising from a variety of consumption patterns, will cause government to change land use laws (where we build and live), miles driven and a host of other regulations when carbon taxes or cap and trade fail to work. If this happens at the Federal level then all vestiges of Federalism will die with it. Socialism has always died on our shores as it drifted across the pond. Now it is coming with a thousand gentle and soft cuts to the market I am sure the market is feeling a tingle up its leg, Chris Matthews are you listening.

Raising taxes is once more insinuating the government into the economy where it functions typically and primarily to exacerbate or extend the problems it was intended to solve. Politicians seem never to have heard of the law of unintended consequences.
The push for increased fuel efficiency comes from three sources: Shortage of fuel, Carbon dioxide pollution, and dependence on foreign oil. There is no shortage of carbon-based fuels available to this country and within this country (see: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/)and, absent more government intervention in the free access to real scientific information, it will (or could)be found that there is no danger to the earth from CO2. Without govt. intervention, the free market would be producing a wealth of efficient inexpensive fuel.
I think the public is far more aware of these facts than the government gives them credit for and consequently they continue to demand the vehicles that the auto manufacturers make. It is the continual finger-poking from the government that causes the problem.

http://detnews.com/article/20070822/AUTO01/708220407/0/SPECIAL/FORD+S+TEST+BED++Brazil+s+Camaçari+plant+is+model+for+the+future

but its structure would violate UAW rules. Toyota is building a total automation plant in Japan that has no line workers only computer and robotic technicians, knowledge workers. Such a plant would never pass UAW muster. The UAW has the US by the throat. I feel no sympathy for the workers they extorted their employer and assumed that the extortion would go on forever. Of course the democrats are giving the UAW a majority ownership in these companies to preserve the flow of blood money to retirees who participated in the original crime. This will go on for decades until the last retired auto worker is buried. If the UAW did not exist the automakers would have invested more capital per worker and raised the required skill level and required education of entry level workers. Today we would have a vibrant auto industry but instead we have outdated manufacturing capacity that is being shuttered for good. But this is all too late.

Of course management was also complicit in this. Never udnerestimate the incompetency of american management. They missed all major turning points in the auto culture in the US. But this can also be blamed on our lack of an energy policy. If we had had in place a system of gasoline taxes sufficiently large, demand for smaller more fuel efficient vehicles would have followed and the Japanese would have never gained a foothold here. Gasoline taxes sufficiently large insulate consumers from increased cost of crude on a percent basis. When you shrink the contribution of crude to final pump price you are ensuring that future oil shocks will not have the same magnitude effect on quantity demanded. These taxes act like tarriffs and are protective of domestic industry without violating free trade rules. Every other western nation has high gasoline taxes for exactly the reasons mentioned.