AB 32 Brings Us – Tire Nazis

Today a business owner can expect to spend half his money on taxes. Rush Limbaugh says he can argue with liberals with half his brain tied behind his back. Cell phones are half the size they were five years ago and beginning as early as this July, you could soon go to jail for driving your car with tires that are half a goats’ fart shy of the recommended air pressure. Yep.

The California Air Resources Board is now bringing the war against global warming home from the battlefields of science fiction to your garage. CARB’s new rule will criminalize the operation of YOUR motor vehicle traveling in THEIR State of California with sub standard tire air pressure.  Few would argue with the logic that under inflated tires can have some impact on your gas mileage. So what if you are not as retentive guy driving in the lane next to you? Driving your car running on under inflated tires is now emitting more greenhouse gasses than that guy is, that’s what.

The proposed penalties for non compliance by Auto Service Providers are up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. It is unclear but certainly possible that these penalties will extend to the real culprit, the owner of the vehicle. While the deniers were relaxing on the couch laughing about the Copenhagen dog and pony show on FOX News, CARB was busy working behind the scenes to find some way to put them in jail. However insane this new rule sounds, it is not a test of the emergency network system – this is real. When you get to jail, don’t tell anyone what you are in for because you might get beat up by the other inmates.  We don’t have to guess what will happen once  Sacramento finds out that they can pull in another half a bazillion dollars per year just by arming highway patrolmen with a two dollar Chinese tire pressure gauge. Why this is a better idea than charging folks five hundred dollars each year for a little sticker that costs five cents to apply to their license plates!

In the CAL EPA’s own report, they cannot provide any connection to or proof that this onerous regulation will have any effect on climate change. But that does not matter does it?

This latest fruit loop of regulation is yet another proof that California’s slow leak of commonsense has suddenly accelerated into a full on blow out this time powered by the political doctrine of environmentalism.

Link to Cal Epa Staff Report February 2009:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2009/tirepres09/tireisor.pdf

Highlights: AB 32 page 50; Environmental Justice page 4 Effects on Climate change page 21. Note: Under the heading of effects on climate change found on 21 of this report, presented are some estimates of GHG emissions but no data or facts regarding any effects on climate change. Hmmmmm… that’s strange. How come?