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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, August 19, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A tip of the hat to voters in Wheeler and Grant County for coming out in high numbers to have their say in two important recall elections. The results differed: In Wheeler County, voters replaced their top county oficial, judge Patrick Perry. In Grant County, voters kept longtime county commissioner Boyd Britton. But both elections had something in common: high voter turnout. Wheeler County, Oregon’s least populated, is often among state leaders for voting percentage. A solid 65 percent of eligible voters returned ballots in Monday’s election, not a bad mark for a one-question ballot. In Grant County, unoficial turnout numbers were similar: 63.4 percent of eligible voters had their say. And in that case, we think that voters made an important point, pushing back against a loud, radical minority that does not seem to understand that their views aren’t shared by a majority of their fellow county residents. Britton isn’t perfect, but he’s working for solutions in the best interest of a majority of county residents, not a select and loud few. In both cases, it’s a reminder of who has the power in the democracy. Not the people sitting in ofice. Not even the people at home on their couch. It’s the people that turn in their ballot and vote. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Lighten 2025 vehicle fuel mandate The Detroit News D espite huge gains in fuel eficiency, automakers need relief from future stringent standards. The fuel standards automakers are supposed to meet by 2025 are likely unattainable, according to a Technical Assessment Report that was recently released on the automotive industry’s progress in this area. The report’s indings were no surprise, but they underscore the need for the next administration to revisit the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for 2021 to 2025 at the oficial review next year. Automakers need relief, whether in less stringent standards or delayed deadlines, from a goal that technical costs and consumer demands will make impossible to achieve. Auto executives have been jockeying to revise the standards based on their observations of the industry. Though auto manufacturers have made massive improvements in fuel economy and huge advancements with electric vehicles and hybrids, they’re approaching a critical point where future improvements will be much more costly and fuel gains more dificult to achieve. Improvements to pure gasoline engines won’t be enough to meet the leet standard — currently at 54.5 mpg in nine years. Compliance will require more hybrids, which are more expensive to make, and which consumers aren’t buying in suficient numbers. In the irst six months of this year, sales of the Toyota Prius — considered the gold standard of hybrid vehicles — were down 27 percent over last year. And in 2015, the average fuel economy of vehicles sold fell 0.1 mpg from 2014, according to a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. Gasoline prices remain comparatively low, and the oil glut will keep them that way for a while. That renders inaccurate the government’s projections in 2012 that increasing CAFE standards would save motorists as much as $5,700 over a vehicle’s life, and justify the $1,800 higher sticker price caused by the mandates. The assumption that gasoline will be at $4 a gallon in 2025 is unreliable. Automakers now say the technology cost will exceed the $1,800 estimate. Additionally, the fuel standards were based on projections that almost two-thirds of vehicles on the road would be cars, and just one-third would consist of SUVs, pickups and crossovers. That leet breakdown looks very different now, just four years later, with the market almost equally split between cars and SUV/ trucks. At the current mix, the leet average will be closer to 51 mpg by 2025, according to the technical report. Given abundant fuel supplies and emission improvements, that ought to be enough. Regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Trafic Safety Administration have signaled they think automakers can still meet the demands, and would like to see them upheld. Automakers disagree and are asking for relief in the mid-term review. The manufacturers can only manipulate consumer demand so much. They still have a marketplace to please. The standards can’t stubbornly assume changes will happen in the market, or that more technological breakthroughs are ahead. They should be made luid enough to account for a changing market, the country’s petroleum supply and the limits of technology. At this point, automakers are down to stripping more weight out of vehicles to improve fuel economy, a trade-off that risks making cars and trucks less safe. Automakers have made huge strides in fuel economy, and will continue to do so. But they merit some relief from mandates that were put in place when their market looked vastly different. Given abundant fuel supplies and emission improvements, 51 mph by 2025 ought to be enough. What if my dog had been a Syrian? L venture has not turned out good for the ast Thursday, our beloved family dog, Katie, died at the age of world.” Likewise, a reader in Minnesota 12. She was a gentle giant who argued, “Surely the George W. Bush respectfully deferred even to any experience taught us something.” mite-size puppy with a prior claim to a Let me push back. I opposed the bone. Katie might have won the Nobel Iraq War, but to me the public seems to Peace Prize if not for her weakness for have absorbed the wrong lesson — that squirrels. military intervention never works, I mourned Katie’s passing on Nicholas rather than the more complex lesson social media and received a torrent Kristof that it is a blunt and expensive tool with of touching condolences, easing my a very mixed record. Comment ache at the loss of a member of the Yes, the Iraq War was a disaster, family. Yet on the same day that Katie but the no-ly zone in northern Iraq died, I published a column calling for greater after the irst gulf war was a huge success. international efforts to end Syria’s suffering and Vietnam was a monumental catastrophe, but civil war, which has claimed perhaps 470,000 the British intervention in Sierra Leone in lives so far. That column led to a different 2000 was a spectacular success. Afghanistan torrent of comments, remains a mess, but airstrikes many laced with a harsh helped end genocide in the indifference: Why should we Balkans. U.S. support for help them? Saudi bombing in Yemen These mingled on my is counterproductive, but Twitter feed: heartfelt Bill Clinton has said that his sympathy for an American worst foreign policy mistake dog who expired of old age, was not halting the Rwandan and what felt to me like genocide. callousness toward millions And even if we eschew of Syrian children facing the military toolbox, what starvation or bombing. If excuse do we have for only, I thought, we valued not trying harder to give kids in Aleppo as much as Syrian refugee children an we did our terriers! education in neighboring For ive years the world countries like Jordan and has been largely paralyzed Lebanon? Depriving refugee as President Bashar Assad kids of an education lays has massacred his people, nurturing in turn the the groundwork for further tribalism, poverty, rise of ISIS and what the U.S. government calls enmity and violence. genocide by ISIS. I grant that cratering runways or establishing That’s why I argued in my column a week a safe zone — even educating refugees — ago that President Barack Obama’s passivity on won’t necessarily work as hoped, and Obama Syria was his worst mistake, a shadow over his is right to be concerned about slippery slopes. legacy. Those concerns must be weighed against the The column sparked passionate lives of hundreds of thousands of children, disagreement from readers, so let me engage particularly now that we have asserted that your arguments. genocide is underway in Syria. “There is nothing in our constitution that One reason past genocides have been says we are to be the savior of the world from allowed to unfold without outside interference all the crazies out there,” a reader in St. Louis is that there is never a perfect policy tool noted. “I cannot see any good in wasting a available to stop the killing. Another is that the trillion dollars trying to put Humpty Dumpty victims don’t seem “like us.” They’re Jews or together again. Bleeding hearts often cause blacks or, in this case, Syrians, so we tune out. more harm than good.” But, in fact, as even dogs know, a human is I agree that we can’t solve all the world’s a human. problems, but it doesn’t follow that we I wonder what would happen if Aleppo were shouldn’t try to solve any. Would it have been full of golden retrievers, if we could see barrel wrong during the Holocaust to try to bomb the bombs maiming helpless, innocent puppies. gas chambers at Auschwitz? Was President Bill Would we still harden our hearts and “otherize” Clinton wrong to intervene in Kosovo to avert the victims? Would we still say “it’s an Arab potential genocide there? For that matter, was problem; let the Arabs solve it?” Obama wrong two years ago when he ordered Yes, solutions in Syria are hard and airstrikes near Mount Sinjar on the Iraq-Syria uncertain. But I think even Katie in her gentle border, apparently averting genocidal massacres wisdom would have agreed that not only do all of Yazidi there? human lives have value, but also that a human’s Agreed, we shouldn’t dispatch ground forces life is worth every bit as much as a golden to Syria or invest a trillion dollars. But why retriever’s. not, as many suggest, ire missiles from outside ■ Syria to crater military runways and ground the Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and Syrian air force? cherry farm in Yamhill. A columnist for The A reader from Delaware commented, “I New York Times since 2001, he won the Pulitzer hear ya, Nicholas, but so far every Middle East Prize two times, in 1990 and 2006. Past genocides have been allowed to unfold because there is never a perfect policy tool available to stop the killing. YOUR VIEWS Owyhee Canyonlands do not need monument protection We Oregon citizens should be aware that special-interest groups are pressuring President Obama to declare 2.5 million acres of land in Eastern Oregon a federal monument. I agree with many others that everyone should have a voice in such a decision. We don’t need to stoke President Obama’s already massive ego. The area looked at for a new 2.5 million-acre monument is already protected by multiple layers of regulation, so the designation is unnecessary and goes too far. The Owyhee Canyonlands are currently protected by federal laws, rules and regulations that are specially designed to preserve and enhance unique features and values. Ten federal laws already work to protect federal lands in the region, as well as other layers of protection, including the National Environmental Policy Act because the canyonlands are part of and adjacent to Gowen Field’s Air Force training range. I believe that the “monument” designation would promote the desires of special-interest groups and lock out local experts like farmers and ranchers, who have responsibly cared for the land for generations. Although the special- interest groups will deny it, this monument designation would virtually shut down public use, as happened in Utah some time ago on the Escalante Staircase Monument area. My information shows that a recent advisory vote by Malheur County citizens resulted in 90 percent of voters being opposed to a monument designation. Our governor, Kate Brown, and our federal senators are in favor of this decision, which leads me to question sarcastically: “Did we elect them to go counter to our will without a vote?” I encourage readers to look at the information I am eager to share; just call 541-676-5382 to request it. And I encourage everyone to reach out to our state and federal representatives and senators, as well as President Obama, to stress the wisdom in not changing the Canyonlands into a national monument. Dan Brosnan Heppner LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.