The Obama administration knows how to waste money in
style. It lavished taxpayer funds on the “Cash for
Clunkers” program, paying people $4500 to turn in their old
cars (which were to be destroyed). The idea was to increase
the demand for new cars; it would have been better just to have
written checks to Government Motors and the other auto
companies. At least the program would have been simpler and
less subject to fraud.
One of the many delightful consequences of the program was
to increase the cost of used cars. Which, of course, most
hurt people of limited means, who were more likely to purchased
“previously owned” vehicles. Not that that would much bother
members of the administration or Congress. They made enough
not to feel the pinch.
A number of smaller used car dealers also went out of
business. Just not as much stock to sell. But then, why
should that be a concern of Washington?
Now comes a report that the program was an environmental bust as
well. It seems that destroying cars isn’t particularly
environmentally friendly.
Explains freelancer Andri Antoniades:
According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which
is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS),
produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb
greenhouse gas emissions.
The program’s first mistake seems to have been its focus on car
shredding, instead of car recycling. With 690,000 vehicles traded
in, that’s a pretty big mistake.
According to the Automotive Recyclers
Association (ARA), automobiles are almost completely
recyclable, down to their engine oil and brake fluid. But many of
the “Cash for Clunkers” cars were never sent to recycling
facilities. The agency reports that the cars’ engines were instead
destroyed by federal mandate, in order to prevent dealers from
illicitly reselling the vehicles later.
The remaining parts of each car could then be put up for
auction, but program guidelines also required that after 180 days,
no matter how much of the car was left, the parts woud be sent to a
junkyard and shredded.
Shredding vehicles results in its own environmental nightmare.
For each ton of metal produced by a shredding facility, roughly 500
pounds of “shredding residue” is also produced, which includes
polyurethane foams, metal oxides, glass and dirt. All totaled,
about 4.5 million tons of that residue is already produced on
average every year. Where does it go? Right into a landfill.
E Magazine states recycling just the plastic and metal
alone from the CARS scraps would have saved 24 million barrels of
oil. While some of the “Clunkers” were truly old, many of the
almost 700,000 cars were still in perfectly good condition. In
fact, many that qualified for the program were relatively “young,”
with fuel efficiencies that rivaled newer cars.
And though the point was to get less fuel efficient cars off the
roads, with only 690,000 traded in, and over 250 million registered
in the U.S., the difference in pollutant levels seems pretty
negligible.
Oops!
Well, never mind. All that matters is good intentions, and
no doubt the second Obama administration will have a lot of new
initiatives that will work out better!
