On the subject of the "Junker Bills" that would encourage getting
older cars off the road by buying and junking them:
These programs (starting with the Unocal program in California)
have gotten a lot of discussion in Old Cars Weekly. Also, I
saved a clipping from last week, with the AP story from Washington.
One point - all of the programs and proposals have been voluntary,
nobody is forced to bring in their old car. (Of course there is
still the fear of letting the camel get his nose into the tent.)
There is usually some provision to prevent the mechanical
entrepreneur buying a $50 wreck from the junkyard and patching it
up just enough to limp over to the trade-in site. Usually the
car being junked has to have been owned and registered for a year
or so, etc. Some proposals apply only to trade-ins on new cars.
This potentially has the effect of putting a floor under old car
prices - any car that is driveable will be worth at least $700.
I don't think this will affect our LBCs very much.
But here's the point where things get bizarre: George Bush (or,
as Ronald Reagan was wont to refer to him in public, George Bosh)
has no intention of using such a program to reduce air pollution.
The administration's program would allow manufacturing companies
to earn "emission credits" by buying and junking old heaps. Those
credits could then be applied to the companies' emission problems.
In other words, Amalgamated Widget Industries doesn't feel like
cleaning up their smokestack emissions to meet federal standards,
so instead they buy up a few hundred old rattletrap cars and turn
them into coffee tables. Then Uncle George will overlook the crap
the factories are spewing into the air. Net effect on the environment:
zero. Well, maybe zero. We ought to factor in the environmental
damage generated by manufacturing the new cars to replace the
junkers, but that's an unpopular attitude.
So there's the bottom line on the government's proposal. No
government money spent, since the manufacturors will finance
the program themselves, but no improvement in air quality
either. Do you ever wonder just what the hell it is that goes
through George Herbert's mind some days?
Jim Beckman AT&T, Middletown, NJ att!mtqub!jeb
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