Lisa Jackson, the EPA Director was in Phoenix for EPA business. She took the time to demonstrate the new cleaner mufflers the EPA is funding for 45 Phoenix garbage trucks. At $15,000 per muffler, they are only going to be able to retrofit 60 trucks with the $800,000 in stimulus money they have available for Phoenix. About half the fleet.
When asked how muffler can cost $15,000, the response was about some rare metals in the muffler and how specialized it was and there are few producers. Picture the stack on a diesel truck, this device fits in that stack. Picture the manufacturers of the new mufflers. Are they related to Al Gore, Van Jones, or even Lisa Jackson? Don’t you just know the margin on that little piece of equipment must be sweet. My first house only cost $25,000. For $15,000 you can still buy a pretty nice new car. Or, go to a technical college and learn a trade with a job guarantee. Or, go to a first rate university for a year. But, all the EPA can do with $15,000 is buy a muffler.
Ms. Jackson said they do cost-benefit analysis. She said the health ratio on this muffler was 13. What the hell is a health ratio? It sounds a lot like a statistic giving the number of jobs saved with the stimulus bill.
I’ll do a little cost benefit work for you, Lisa. Currently there are roughly 15.5 million heavy duty diesel trucks in the US. At $15,000 a pop, you are going to have to go in and ask Barack for about $232 billion to do your little retrofit deal on all the diesel trucks in the country. That’s almost as much as Barack will cut out of Medicare to fund the health care reform bill that strongly resembles a dog’s breakfast. Good luck with that meeting Lisa.
Since the cost is prohibitive to retrofit all the trucks in the US, why do any? Is this like health care rationing. You pick who gets cleaner air. Those areas who vote for your friends get mufflers, and those who don’t get no mufflers.
This is how the DOE, the EPA, and the other agencies who spend money for clean air operate. They buy gizmo’s from friends and fellow sleazeballs and pay 100 times the value. Or, they commission R&D that employs thousands of two headed PHD’s who produce nothing. Or, they just hire more union workers in their agencies who don’t show up for work. When it’s all tallied up, the billions have been spent and we have nothing to show for the money. Like urinating in a blue serge suit, nice warm feeling and nothing to show for it.
Doesn’t it make you feel a warm and fuzzy to know that 60 garbage trucks with $800,000 of new mufflers will be chugging around Phoenix creating an infinitesimal lower level of pollution? I feel more than warm, it really heats me up.