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.