Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CAFE 1/45
CAFE
CAFE.......................................................................................................1
FYI (Not Super Important).......................................................................2
Read Me (Much More Important)............................................................3
1AC 1/14.................................................................................................4
1AC 2/14.................................................................................................5
1AC 3/14.................................................................................................6
1AC 4/14.................................................................................................8
1AC 5/14.................................................................................................9
1AC 6/14...............................................................................................10
1AC 7/14...............................................................................................11
1AC 8/14...............................................................................................12
1AC 9/14...............................................................................................14
1AC 10/14.............................................................................................15
1AC 11/14.............................................................................................17
1AC 12/14.............................................................................................18
1AC 13/14.............................................................................................19
1AC 14/14.............................................................................................20
2AC Case Explanation..........................................................................21
2AC – If You Have to Describe Implementation.....................................22
AT Specific Vehicle Low Mileage Good Turns.........................................24
Agent (NHTSA).....................................................................................25
2AC OSPEC...........................................................................................26
2AC T – ‘Incentives’..............................................................................28
2AC Ban CAFE CP 1/2...........................................................................29
2AC Ban CAFE CP 2/2...........................................................................30
2AC States CP.......................................................................................32
2AC Gas Tax CP 1/2..............................................................................33
2AC Gas Tax CP 2/2..............................................................................34
Politics – Plan Popular...........................................................................36
Case 1NC 1/..........................................................................................37
Case 1NC 2/..........................................................................................39
Gas Tax CP 1NC 1/2..............................................................................40
Gas Tax 1NC CP 2/2..............................................................................41
Gas Tax CP 2NC Overview....................................................................42
Gas Tax 2NC CP Solves / Case Solvo Turn.............................................43
............................................................................................................43
CP Solves Oil Shocks............................................................................44
AT Artificially Competitive / Perm Out of Ban.......................................45
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 2/45
FYI (Not Super Important)
Who likes and who doesn’t like the plan? Collantes with his charts
again:
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CAFE 3/45
Read Me (Much More Important)
This aff is not really ready to run. It needs more work. The reason is
because the mechanism I’ve been exploring for changing CAFE is a
little convoluted, and it takes time.
So, I wanted to find a way to alter the CAFE act that didn’t involve
raising standards, so the current standards raises could be used as
DA non-uniques. This means that the aff is much more strategic, but
also more convoluted and requires more work to maintain.
Is that tradeoff worth it? Your decision. But I’m almost positive some
teams will read CAFE this year, so at least the neg business in here
should be real good for you.
If you do decide you want to read this aff, you should track down
Michigan State University’s cites for their version, which should be
on the free and open college cite wiki somewhere. Since I figured
you would be able to do that yourselves, I haven’t made any effort
to locate their cites, I’ve only done original stuff.
By the way, I haven’t included any net benefits for the CP in here
except the case stuff – I figure you should have plenty of econ and
politics files to work from, the arguments are straightforward.
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 4/45
1AC 1/14
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CAFE 5/45
1AC 2/14
Contention I is Comrade Napoleon –
Increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards are
inevitable – the 07 bill hiked it, and the DOT is going to raise it
further to 31.5 MPG
Jerome, Wired, ‘8
Also note that the Alternative Motor Fuels Act is tied to CAFE
Collantes, Science and International Affairs at Harvard Belfer Center,
‘8
(Gustavo, “Biofuels and the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program: The Statute,
Policy Issues, and Alternatives,” May)
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CAFE 6/45
1AC 3/14
Contention II: All ethanols are born equal, but some ethanols are
more equal than others
First, CAFE-AMFA successfully jumpstarts flex-fuel vehicle
development, but the lack of incentives tied to fuel is a structural
problem that prevents effective alternative fuel use and
development
Collantes, Science and International Affairs at Harvard Belfer Center,
‘8
(Gustavo, “Biofuels and the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program: The Statute,
Policy Issues, and Alternatives,” May)
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 7/45
these lessons. One more structural deficiency characterizes the AMFA program. On
establishing the CAFE program, Congress provided guidelines but gave DoT the
ultimate authority to determine whether to revise the fuel economy standards. For
the AMFA provision, however, Congress adopted an entirely different philosophy—it
prescribed the methodology and only left to the regulatory agency the decision of
whether or not to extend the program for an additional four-year period. This
unfortunate choice can be singled out as the main cause for the conflictive nature of
the related policy debate— many stakeholders found themselves with the difficult
choice between an ill-designed policy to pursue a noble policy goal and no policy at
all.
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CAFE 8/45
1AC 4/14
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CAFE 9/45
1AC 5/14
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CAFE 10/45
1AC 6/14
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CAFE 11/45
1AC 7/14
This solves every ethanol bad argument, put your turns away
Glasgow and Hansen, Rocky Mountain Institute, ‘5
(Nathan and Lena, Researchers/Consultants, “Setting the Record Straight on Ethanol”
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/reinsider/story?id=38601)
Biofuels, and specifically ethanol, have been the subject of a great deal of criticism in
recent months by detractors claiming that more energy is required to produce
ethanol than is available in the final product, that it is too expensive, and that it
produces negligible carbon reductions. These critiques are simply not accurate.
State-of-the-art technologies have been competently forecasted-even proven in the
market-to produce ethanol that is far more cost-effective and less energy-intensive
than gasoline. We'll explore why, and why the critics have gotten it wrong. When we say biofuels, we mean liquid fuels made from
biomass-chiefly biodiesel and ethanol, which can be substituted for diesel fuel or for gasoline, respectively. The technology used to produce
biodiesel is well understood, although its biomass feedstocks are limited and production today is fairly expensive. We will instead focus on
Ethanol, which can be substituted for or blended
ethanol, which we believe has significantly greater potential.
with gasoline, has traditionally been produced from either corn or sugarcane
feedstocks. In fact, Brazil currently meets more than 25 percent of its gasoline demand with ethanol made from sugarcane. (The sugar
is so cheap that the resulting ethanol sells in New York for $1.10 a gallon-with about 81 percent the energy content of a gallon of gasoline-after
paying a 100 percent duty, illegal under WTO rules, to protect U.S. corn farmers. Undeterred, the Brazilians are merrily expanding their ethanol
exports to Asia.) Even gasoline in the United States contains, on average, 2 percent ethanol (used as a substitute for MTBE to oxygenate fuel).
American ethanol is almost exclusively made from the kernels of corn, accounting for about 7 percent of the corn crop. But
conventional processes and feedstocks used to make ethanol are not feasible in the
United States on a large scale for three reasons: they're not cost-competitive with long-run gasoline prices without
subsidies, they compete with food crops for land, and they have only marginally positive energy balances. Happily, in addition
to starch-based feedstocks, ethanol can be produced from "cellulosic" feedstocks,
including biomass wastes, fast-growing hays like switchgrass, and short-rotation
woody crops like poplar. While not cost-competitive today, already observed
advances in technology lead us to believe that in the next few years, ethanol made
from these crops will become cost-competitive, won't compete with food for cropland,
and will have a sizeable positive energy balance. Indeed, because these crops are
expected to have big biomass yields (~10-15 dry tons/acre, up from the current ~5
dry tons/acre), much less land will be required than conventionally thought. Further,
cellulosic ethanol will typically have twice the ethanol yield of corn-based ethanol, at
lower capital cost, with far better net energy yield. A common complaint about
ethanol is that the quantity of feedstocks is limited and land used to grow feedstocks
could be put to better use. For cellulosic feedstocks, the situation is quite the
contrary. Cellulosic feedstocks are plentiful: for example, municipal and agricultural
wastes can be used to create ethanol, with the positive side-effect of reducing the
quantity of waste we must dispose of. Using waste to produce fuel has the clear benefit of a virtually free feedstock,
and because energy is generally expended to create the product, not the waste, this type of ethanol obviously has a positive energy balance.
Not quite as obvious is to what extent dedicated energy crops can be used to produce ethanol. We believe the answer is straightforward.
Research by Oak Ridge National Laboratory shows that dedicated energy crops can be grown without competing with food crops because they
can be grown in marginal areas unsuited for food crop production, or on about 17 million acres of Conservation Reserve Program land that is
currently being withheld from agricultural use. Cellulosic crops have additional environmental benefits for several reasons. First, because
crops like switchgrass are deep-rooted perennials, growing them actually prevents soil erosion and restores degraded land. For this same
reason, cellulosic crops also have significantly lower carbon emissions. While corn-based ethanol reduces carbon emissions by about 20
percent below gasoline, cellulosic ethanol is predicted to be carbon-neutral, or possibly even net-carbon-negative. We can't remember how
we've been asked the question: "But doesn't ethanol require more energy to
many times
produce than it contains?" The simple answer is no-most scientific studies, especially
those in recent years reflecting modern techniques, do not support this concern.
These studies have shown that ethanol has a higher energy content than the fossil
energy used in its production. Some studies that contend that ethanol is a net energy
loser include (incorrectly) the energy of the sun used to grow a feedstock in ethanol's
energy balance, which misses the fundamental point that the sun's energy is free.
Furthermore, because crops like switchgrass are perennials, they are not replanted and cultivated every year, avoiding farm-equipment
energy. Indeed, if polycultured to imitate the prairies where they grow naturally, they should require no fertilizer, irrigation, or pesticides either.
So, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, for every one unit of energy available at the fuel pump, 1.23 units of fossil energy are used to
produce gasoline, 0.74 of fossil energy are used to produce corn-based ethanol, and only 0.2 units of fossil energy are used to produce
Critics further discount cellulosic ethanol by ignoring the recent
cellulosic ethanol.
advancements of next-generation ethanol conversion technologies. A recent example
that has received significant attention is David Pimentel's March 2005 paper in
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CAFE 12/45
Natural Resources Research, which argues that ethanol production from cellulosic
feedstocks requires more fossil energy to produce than the energy contained in the
final product. However, Pimentel bases his analysis on only one technology used to
produce ethanol, ignoring two other developing technologies. His chosen conversion technology, acid
hydrolosis, is the least efficient of the three. A superior option, thermal gasification, converts biomass into a synthesis gas composed of
carbon oxides and hydrogen. The gas is then converted into ethanol via either a biological process using microorganisms or a catalytic
Ethanol and biofuels have been wrongly depicted by politicians like Al Gore as
a solution to global warming. But in reality, subsidized ethanol production
gravely harms the environment, and also causes starvation, high food prices, and
rioting.
“The diversion of food crops to biofuel production was a significant factor contributing
to global food prices rocketing by 83% in the last year, and causing violent conflicts
in Haiti and other parts of the world,” reports African Energy News. ”Food riots have
also taken place in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia,
Indonesia, Mauritania, Madagascar and the Philippines in the past month“ (and
in Pakistan and Mexico, too).
Unable to afford food, hungry Haitians are now eating “cookies made of dirt,
vegetable oil, and salt.”
“International Monetary Fund (IMF) President Dominique Strauss-Kahn has warned
that hundreds of thousands of people will face starvation if food prices keep rising.”
Millions of poor people in the Third World now risk being evicted from their homes
and becoming homeless as vast tracts of land are converted to produce ethanol and
other biofuels.
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CAFE 13/45
Finance ministers and central bankers are now calling for an end to ethanol subsidies
and other “biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.” South African finance
minister Trevor Manuel called such subsidies “criminal.” Earlier, the Indian Finance
Minister Chidambaram noted that “in a world where there is hunger and poverty,
there is no policy justification for diverting food crops towards bio-fuels. Converting
food into fuel is neither good policy for the poor nor for the environment.”
Ethanol subsidies do not result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but they do
result in soil erosion, deforestation, and other environmental damage.
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CAFE 14/45
1AC 9/14
Almost sixty percent of annual deaths worldwide - roughly 36 million - are a direct or
indirect result of hunger and nutritional deficiencies. n17 More than 840 million
people worldwide are malnourished. n18 Over ninety-five percent live in the
developing world. n19153 million of them are children under the age of five. n20
Hunger is both a cause and consequence of poverty. Hungry workers [*699] produce
less and therefore earn less. In turn, theirpoverty exacerbates their hunger. n21
Malnourishment is also the largestsingle contributor to disease. Undernourished
mothers give birth tounderweight children who are more susceptible to diseases that
lead to theirpremature deaths. n22 Children who are sick and hungry also do poorly
inschool. n23 As a result they are more likely to end up as unskilledlaborers, who do
not earn enough to feed themselves or their families. The cycleof poverty, disease,
and hunger continues.
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CAFE 15/45
1AC 10/14
Poverty is superbad
Gilligan, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, 96
(James professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, and a member of the
Academic Advisory Council of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence. Violence:
Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes.. P. 191-196)
The deadliest form of violence is poverty. You cannot work for one day with the violent people who fill our prisons
and mental hospitals for the criminally insane without being forcible and constantly reminded of the extreme poverty and discrimination that
characterizes their lives. Hearing about their lives, and about their families and friends, you are forced to recognize the truth in Gandhi’s
observation that the deadliest form of violence is poverty. Not a day goes by without realizing that trying to understand them and their violent
behavior in purely individual terms is impossible and wrong-headed. Any theory of violence, especially a psychological theory, that evolves
from the experience of men in maximum security prisons and hospitals for the criminally insane must begin with the recognition that these
institutions are only microcosms. They are not where the major violence in our society takes place, and the perpetrators who fill them are far
Any approach to a theory of violence needs to begin
from being the main causes of most violent deaths.
with a look at the structural violence in this country. Focusing merely on those relatively few men who commit what
we define as murder could distract us from examining and learning from those structural causes of violent death that are far more significant
from a numerical or public health, or human, standpoint. By “structural violence” I mean the increased rates of death, and disability suffered
by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively lower death rates experienced by those who are above
them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of class structure; and that structure is itself a
I
product of society’s collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God.
am contrasting “structural” with “behavioral violence,” by which I mean the non-
natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of
individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide,
soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. Structural violence differs from
behavioral violence in at least three major respects. *The lethal effects of structural
violence operate continuously, rather than sporadically, whereas murders, suicides,
executions, wars, and other forms of behavioral violence occur one at a time.
*Structural violence operates more or less independently of individual acts;
independent of individuals and groups (politicians, political parties, voters) whose
decisions may nevertheless have lethal consequences for others. *Structural
violence is normally invisible, because it may appear to have had other (natural or
violent) causes.
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 16/45
moot, for they are inextricably related to each other, as cause to effect.
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CAFE 17/45
1AC 11/14
Oil gives Middle East nations huge influence in world affairs. Countries can restrict
the amount of oil that they will buy if a nation makes them angry. We see this when
the United States and her allies placed an embargo on Iranian oil. However, this has
not made a reduction in demand for Iranian oil. It just changed the customers
standing in line.
When world stock markets sniff the possibility that oil may not flow as freely as the
world wants and needs, it sends them into a nosedive. This keeps prices high and
Middle East coffers full. With this glut of cash, these nations are positioned to finance
political actions at home and abroad.
They can help channel cash to candidates who they believe will help further their
causes. Even with restrictions for foreign contributions, United States presidential
candidates manage to get money funneled through to their cash reserves. This buys
influence on foreign policy decisions.
You can often see this in action when political leaders seem to waffle on whether to
support our allies in the region or push an agenda of appeasement for Middle East oil
suppliers. Many times the effort is to get nations to push Israel into concessions of
land and power. These concessions help the enemies of Israel while straining
relations between Israel and her allies.
The cash from these huge oil sales is used to arm Middle East nations with state-of-
the-art arsenals of ships, jets, and artillery. Spending a few billion here or there
seems like small change to these oil rich lands. They are also able to help arm
various terrorists organizations that serve their political purposes. These can either
undermine Israel or work to weaken her allies. In some cases, they simply wear down
the resolve of these nations to stay on task of trying to build stability in the region.
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CAFE 18/45
1AC 12/14
Secureenergy.org ‘6/’5
(“Oil Dependence: A Threat to U.S. Economic & National Security”
http://www.secureenergy.org/reports/Briefing-OilDependence.pdf)
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CAFE 19/45
1AC 13/14
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CAFE 20/45
1AC 14/14
Contention III is I’m Out of Animal Farm References
The plan’s incentive is an effective way to increase FFV and
alternative fuel deployment – overcome structural issues with CAFE-
AMFA
Collantes, Science and International Affairs at Harvard Belfer Center,
‘8
(Gustavo, “Biofuels and the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program: The Statute,
Policy Issues, and Alternatives,” May)
Insofar as the AMFA provisions constitute the only incentives that automobile
manufacturers have to deploy alternative fuel-capable vehicles, and with the supply
of biofuels on the rise, there seems to be, in principle, a strong argument to keep (a
form of) them in place. Two overarching questions remain on the way of warranting
the AMFA provisions: a- What is the expected impact of flex-fuel vehicles on energy
security? b- Is the current incentive scheme adequate, and if not, how to revise it?
This section is concerned with addressing these questions. Figure 13 shows a
proposed logic sequence to assess whether to keep, eliminate, or revise the AMFA
provisions. The sequence starts with questions related to energy security and they
were broadly addressed above. Assuming positive answers to all the energy security
questions, the question of whether incentives are necessary for the market
introduction of FFV seems to follow naturally. It is widely accepted that incentives of
some type are desirable. The population of FFV has grown dramatically since the
adoption of AMFA. In addition to AMFA, factors that determined such growth include
the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 1992 and Executive Order 13149. EPAct 1992
requires that in FY 2000 and beyond, 75% of light-duty vehicles (defined as vehicles
under 8,500 lbs GVWR) acquired by Federal agencies must be flex-fuel. EPAct also
sets requirements on acquisitions of alternative-fuel vehicles by state agencies and
fuel providers that operate at least 50 light-duty vehicles. E.O. 13149, “Greening the
Government through Federal Fleet and Transportation Efficiency”, signed by
President Clinton on April 21, 2000, requires Federal agencies to develop strategies to
reduce their annual consumption of petroleum by 20% by the end of FY 2005, relative
to their consumption in FY 1999. Federal agencies’ 2000 purchases of AFVs totaled
7,949, bringing their AFVs inventory to 55,260—14% of the total in-use AFV
population in 2000 (U.S. DoE, 2000). Therefore, much of the increased demand for
alternative-fuel vehicles has been driven not by direct consumer interest but by
government incentives of various forms.
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CAFE 21/45
2AC Case Explanation
The plan sounds complicated because it’s technical, but all it really
does is create incentives in the CAFE act for high ethanol gas
stations to change the way the US produces ethanol - ethanol is
inevitable, but supporting the process allows better technological
innovations that make it more efficient and environmentally friendly
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CAFE 22/45
2AC – If You Have to Describe Implementation
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CAFE 23/45
manufacturer of 0.9 miles per gallon; or issue a Federal Register notice that justifies
termination of the incentive program. In March 2002, NHTSA issued an NPRM
proposing to extend the availability of the CAFE credit incentive for dual-fueled
vehicles for four years, through the end of the 2008 model year. A final rule will be
issued in 2003.
Are any vehicles exempted from CAFE standards?Light trucks that exceed 8,500 lbs
gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) do not have to comply with CAFE standards.
These vehicles include pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and large vans. A study
prepared for the Department of Energy, in February 2002, by the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory found that 521,000 trucks with GVWR from 8,500 to 10,000 lbs were sold
in calendar year 1999. The vast majority (82%) of these trucks are pickups and a
significant number (24%) were diesel. At the end of 1999, there were 5.8 million of
these trucks on the road accounting for 8% of the annual miles driven by light trucks,
and 9% of light truck fuel use.
How is a manufacturer’s CAFE determined for a given model year?A manufacturer’s
CAFE is the fleet wide average fuel economy. Separate CAFE calculations are made
for up to three potential fleets: domestic passenger cars, imported passenger cars
and light trucks. The averaging method used is referred to as a “harmonic mean”.
The regulatory language describes the calculation as: “the number of passenger
automobiles manufactured by the manufacturer in a model year; divided by the sum
of the fractions obtained by dividing the number of passenger automobiles of each
model manufactured by the manufacturer in that model year by the fuel economy
measured for that model.” The numerical example below illustrates the process.
Assume that a hypothetical manufacturer produces four light truck models in 2004,
where MPG means miles per gallon and GVWR means gross vehicle weight rating
measured in lbs:
Model MPG GVWR Production Volume
Vehicle A 22 3000 130,000
Vehicle B 20 3500 120,000
Vehicle C 16 4000 100,000
Vehicle D 10 8900 40,000
Because the Vehicle D exceeds 8,500 GVWR, it is excluded from the calculation.
Therefore, the manufacturer’s light truck CAFE is calculated as:=Average Light Truck
Fleet Fuel Economy The 2004 model year light truck CAFE standard is 20.7 mpg
therefore the manufacturer is not in compliance.
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CAFE 24/45
AT Specific Vehicle Low Mileage Good Turns
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CAFE 25/45
Agent (NHTSA)
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CAFE 26/45
2AC OSPEC
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CAFE 27/45
and establishing unique standards for them; enforcing fuel economy standards and
regulations; responding to petitions concerning domestic production by foreign
manufacturers and all other aspects of CAFE, including the classification of vehicle
lines as either cars or trucks; collecting, recording and cataloging Pre- and Mid-model
year reports; adjudicating carry back credit plans; and providing program incentives
such as credits for alternative fueled vehicle lines.
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CAFE 28/45
2AC T – ‘Incentives’
We meet –
a. CAFE standards carry a negative incentive for compliance
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, No Date
(“CAFE Overview – Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CARS/rules/CAFE/overview.htm)
The penalty for failing to meet CAFE standards recently increased from $5.00 to
$5.50 per tenth of a mile per gallon for each tenth under the target value times the
total volume of those vehicles manufactured for a given model year. Since 1983,
manufacturers have paid more than $500 million in civil penalties. Most European
manufacturers regularly pay CAFE civil penalties ranging from less than $1 million to
more than $20 million annually. Asian and domestic manufacturers have never paid a
civil penalty. For MY 2002, five passenger car fleets including BMW, DaimlerChrysler
import, Fiat, Lotus, and Porsche are projected to fail to meet 27.5 mpg passenger car
CAFE standard. In addition, two light truck fleets including BMW and Volkswagen will
likely fail to meet the light truck CAFE standard of 20.7 mpg. Final Reports for MY
2002 provided by the EPA to NHTSA in mid-calendar year of 2003 may adjust these
projections favorably.
b. the plan creates new incentives in the CAFE program that are
positive – tax breaks tied to ethanol
Members of the EQC at the beginning of the 2003-04 legislative interim expressed an
interest in studying the selected alternative energy sources. The stated rationale was
that given Montana's current energy situation, it is important to evaluate alternative
energy resources like biodiesel, hydrogen, wind, and ethanol to help diversify
Montana's energy options. The full EQC unanimously incorporated this expressed
interest into the Council's interim work plan. At the June 2003 EQC meeting, the
Council appointed a six- person subcommittee to investigate alternative energy
resources. The Council allocated .10 FTE (270 hours) of staff resources to this
subcommittee.
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CAFE 29/45
2AC Ban CAFE CP 1/2
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 30/45
2AC Ban CAFE CP 2/2
The points made by these critics are important, but they imply policies quite different
from those drawn. Specifically, the costs of market distortions and the external costs
stem from
the failure of current gas prices to reflect the full social costs of gasoline
consumption. Lutter and
Kravitz (2003), for example, argue that, at the margin, there are external costs of
10.4 cents per
mile associated with additional crashes (7.8 cents), congestion (2.4 cents), and
pollution (0.2
cents).5 If so, gasoline is under-priced dramatically, insurance markets are inefficient,
and
congestion policy needs fundamental reform. The authors do not explore the role of
the CAFE
program in generating these costs, nor do they offer any policy prescription for
mitigating them.
Given that the current realized fleet average fuel economy is 17 miles per gallon
MPG),6 a
corrective Pigouvian tax increase of about $1.75 per gallon would be needed to
internalize these
externalities.
Implementing a corrective tax would lower the critics’ cost estimates markedly. The
market distortions exist because, at current gasoline prices, consumers place a low
priority on
fuel economy. Higher gasoline prices would reduce these distortions by reducing
driving and the
associated externalities and by leading consumers to demand vehicles with greater
fuel economy.
Thus, we conclude that the recent criticisms are not as much an indictment of the
CAFE program
as a vivid illustration of the failure of current transportation policy to internalize
enormous
external costs.
The CAFE program has the potential to provide a useful signal to automakers
concerning what they will have to achieve in future years, giving them time to
perform the needed research and development and build the needed plant and
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 31/45
equipment. CAFE keeps automakers' attention on fuel economy, getting them to
figure out how to squeeze each tiny increment of fuel economy out of their vehicles.
Consumer desires for greater fuel economy would have the same effect, but signals
from buyers are scrambled by the range of consumers with differing desires.
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 32/45
2AC States CP
1. 50 state fiat is a voting issue –
a. no distinction between 50 states or 50 countries – if the negative
can pick a group of political bodies and fiat all of them, it justifies
any multi-actor fiat – its impossible to generate offense against
functionally utopian counterplans that have every actor in the world
except the USFG concur – kills debate and affirmative ground, makes
the activity meaningless
b. our interpretation is that the negative can fiat one alternate
agent from the aff – solves the warrants to 50 state fiat good, they
can read a similar counterplan if they find an agent that can compel
multi-state action – our interpretation preserves aff ground and
forces good neg research
c. pre-empt – federalism is not a warrant for the counterplan’s
theoretical legitimacy – even if evidence is written in context of
energy policy and federalism there’s plenty of debateable topic
ground aside from federalism – literature is secondary to
functionality of debate for determining theoretical concerns
Environmental policy analysts sometimes make broad claims about federal and state
environmental roles based on isolated, anecdotal examples. This essay suggests
that policy analysts should seek to distinguish events that are the result of particular
historical opportunities and context, from propensities and incentives that are more
stable and predictable under current forms of environmental federalism. Greater
attention should be paid to the array of regulatory actors and regulatory modalities.
Activity by one actor in one modality does not necessarily reveal much about “the
state’s” proclivities. This essay suggests that recent state enforcement activism
proves little about inherent state environmentalism, but instead reflects political
opportunities created by a shift on the federal level towards a more anti-
environmental position. Rather than seeing recent state actions as providing
support for the elimination or reduction of the federal environmental role, this essay
argues that these recent state actions reveal once again the benefits of regulatory
overlap, cooperative federalism structures, and redundant enforcement
mechanisms. These aspects of the American system of environmental federalism
reduce the risk of regulatory underkill that can result from failures to address
environmental ills, as well as failures adequately to fund, implement and enforce
written laws and regulations.1
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CAFE 33/45
2AC Gas Tax CP 1/2
After examining the arguments against CAFE, we discuss the economic arguments for
the program. First, most vehicle lines have a range of fuel economies where the
lifetime cost of vehicle ownership are roughly constant (NAS, 2002). That is,
technology exists to improve fuel economy at some up-front cost, and this cost will
be paid back in fuel savings over the lifetime of the vehicle. Current market
outcomes provide vehicles with lower up-front costs, though social preferences
would tend to favor vehicles with greater fuel economy. Second, most analysts
assume that private agents employ discount rates that are far higher than
reasonable social discount rates for fuel conservation. As a result of this discrepancy,
market outcomes systematically under-provide fuel efficiency. A combination of
higher gasoline taxes and modifications of the CAFE program would be superior to
either instrument on its own.
High gasoline prices from 1975 through the early 1980s provided consumers with the
incentive to purchase more fuel-economic vehicles. Gas prices fell dramatically in the
1980s, leading consumers to emphasize performance features such as power, size,
styling, and safety over fuel economy. Persistently low gasoline prices send
consumers a signal that contradicts social conservation objectives. Automakers must
simultaneously satisfy the CAFE standards and consumer demands for larger, high-
performance vehicles.
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CAFE 34/45
2AC Gas Tax CP 2/2
3. Saving the best for last – this evidence is offense for the perm
over the counterplan and it’s even better than your hot shit CP 1NC
evidence
Gerard and Lave, Center for Study and Improvement and Regulation
at CMU, ‘3
(David and Lester, “The Economics of CAFE Reconsidered: A Response to CAFE Critics
and A Case for Fuel Economy Standards http://aei-
brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/redirect-safely.php?fname=../pdffiles/phpAo.pdf)
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 35/45
vehicle lifetime. Social Versus Private Willingness to Pay for Conservation
Crandall (1992) recognized that differences in social and private discount rates are a
potential justification for minimum fuel efficiency standards. High discount rates lead
consumers to choose lower levels of fuel efficiency than society would choose with its
lower discount rate. If the divergence were small, the effect might be neglected.
However, CAFE critics assert that consumers have high discount rates. For example,
Kleit (2002) assumes that consumers discount at a rate of 20% for new vehicle
purchases, and Lutter and Kravitz (2003) argue that NHTSA should employ discount
rates of seven to 10%, or even higher, to reflect consumer discount rates in
evaluating the program benefits. Given Kleit’s assumption of a 20% discount rate for
consumer purchases, he calculates that the average vehicle is driven 55,000
discounted miles. A consumer would be willing to pay $275 for a two-MPG
improvement in fuel economy (a half-cent per mile cost decrease). Using a 7%
discount rate, society would see the vehicle as going nearly 100,000 discounted
miles, implying that the fuel sayings is worth $500. Thus society would value the fuel
savings at $225 more than the rational consumer for the same fuel-economy
improvement. Thus, the assumptions underlying recent criticisms imply that even if
there were no external costs, market outcomes would under-provide fuel economy.
Figure 5 illustrates the differences by contrasting the willingness to pay for a three-
mile per gallon increase in fuel economy using a private discount rate of 20 percent
and a social discount rate of four percent. We choose the four percent rate because
this is closer to typical social discount rates (and it is also the discount rate that Kleit
uses to analyze effects of gasoline savings). Assuming a fuel price of $1.50, the social
WTP for an increase from 22 to 25 MPG is approximately $400 more than private
WTP. Moreover, the divergence in WTP is highest for vehicles that get the poorest fuel
economy. For example, the adjusted average fuel economy for a large SUV is 17.2
MPG. Figure 5 shows that society would be willing to pay almost $660 more for fuel
economy improvements than the rational consumer. The significant divergence
between public and private discount rates creates a social inefficiency that could be
internalized either by a fuel tax increase that offsets the externality, by a CAFE
standard that is derived from the social discount rate, or by some other market
intervention. Justifying fuel economy standards on the basis of a divergence of social
and private discount rates opens the door to regulation of air conditioners, furnaces,
light bulbs, and any number of products that have tradeoff between up-front costs
and operating costs. We observe that the federal government has intervened in each
of these markets to regulate the efficiency of the units, prohibit units of lower
efficiency, or at least to inform consumers of the savings from the more efficient
units. As emphasized above, we do not view CAFE alone as an efficient mechanism
for internalizing social costs. We do note that CAFE opponents draw the wrong
implication for the large divergence in consumer versus social discount rates that
they assume. If new car consumers have discount rates that are much higher than
the social discount rate for fuel conservation, then consumers will choose vehicles
with too little fuel economy, resulting in a benefit to a market intervention to correct
the problem.
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CAFE 36/45
Politics – Plan Popular
Gerard and Lave, Center for Study and Improvement and Regulation
at CMU, ‘3
(David and Lester, “The Economics of CAFE Reconsidered: A Response to CAFE Critics
and A Case for Fuel Economy Standards http://aei-
brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/redirect-safely.php?fname=../pdffiles/phpAo.pdf)
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CAFE 37/45
Case 1NC 1/
1. Cafe standards jack car prices and lead to more fuel consumption
– turns case
Galt, Economics graduate from U Chicago, 3
(Jane, March 03, “Cafe Standards”
http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004002.html)
Kevin Drum asks a good question: WHY ARE SUVs SO EXPENSIVE?....So I watched 60
Minutes tonight, and in the segment on SUVs I heard once again about how the profit
margin on these vehicles is anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 or more. This
compares with ordinary cars, which we are lead to believe are practically sold at a
loss. I've heard this so many times that it must be true, but what's the explanation
for this? The same companies compete in both the car and the SUV market, so
shouldn't competitive pressures force the profit margins to similar points? Isn't that
how this whole free market thing is supposed to work? Can anybody out there who
works for a car company explain this? I believe I can, in two words: CAFE standards.
CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency. And what that means is that
rather than setting a baseline below which no car can fall, the regulators examine the
average efficiency of the entire fleet in order to see whether they're making their
target. There are several current ways to make cars more fuel efficient: 1) You can make the engine
smaller. This makes the car hard to get up hills, reduces its carrying capacity, and decreases its safety,
since averting accidents sometimes requires the ability to accelerate quickly. 2) You can make the car
lighter without reducing its size. This is very hard and very expensive to do, and it makes the car much
less safe, because less metal around you to absorb the kinetic energy of an impact means that that energy
gets absorbed by you. Advocates like to argue that this is only because other people are driving heavy,
inefficient SUVs, but this is a canard: lightening the car makes it less safe even in an accident with a car of
similar weight. The problem is the velocity, not the weight of the other car. 3) You can make the car
smaller. Americans don't like small cars, and they're also less safe. Compact and sub-compact cars are, as
SUV-critic Gregg Easterbrook points out, death traps. However, they have the advantage of being cheaper
to make than light big cars. 4) You can get creative with the design. The Honda Insight combines all teh
abovementioned: it's smaller (two seater with no luggage space!), lighter, underpowered. It also has an
innovative engine design. However, I've heard estimates that Honda's losing 20K on every model it sells
(no one seems to know the true figure, as Honda and Toyota are very tight with their figures on their
hybrids). Basically, what it boils down to is that in order to get cars to consume less fuel, you
have to sacrifice features that Americans like, like size, power, and safety. You can't
just decree that everyone only make tiny underpowered cars, because that would not
only focus the ire of the people on Washington instead of automakers; it would create
problems for people who genuinely need the features you're eliminating, because for
example they live on a ranch in Wyoming. So the regulators set an average (and also,
I believe, a low floor), and told the automakers to figure it out. Well, they've got the
same problem that Washington does -- no one wants to buy a death trap with no
luggage space. So they make small cars and sell them to people who wouldn't be
able to afford a more powerful one. Flexible people who don't mind cramming eleven
people in a Geo from New York to Maine. People without a lot of stuff to put in the
trunk. People who don't care about safety because they think they're immortal. Your
kids, in other words. The only problem with kids is that they can't afford cars. So the
automakers lower the price to the point where a kid with a modest after-school job
can make the payments. Now we begin to see the perverse logic of fiat solutions.
Have we lowered the total output of carbon emissions here? No, we've raised them,
because in order to placate the customers who don't want less power & room, the
automakers have increased the number of cars they sell. Now kids who would
otherwise be riding the schoolbus are zooming around until all hours, merrily spewing
carbon dioxide as they go. The fact that they consume less gas than a family sedan
doesn't really matter, because in a lot of cases they're consuming gas that wouldn't
have been consumed at all, as those of us who made it through high school without
cars can attest that we were not given unlimited access to the family minivan to
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 38/45
gallivant around the highways with. (Actually, my family had a brown 1976 Chrysler
Cordoba, and I was probably the only child in America who was offered the
opportunity to borrow the car and refused it. It was not only radically uncool; parking
it was like trying to parallel park the Love Boat.) Anyway, in order to make up the
money they're losing on the compact and sub-compact market, the automakers jack
up the rates on the rest of us. Especially in the most price-insensitive part of the
market: the SUV owners, who have proven that they're sufficiently oblivious to cost
that they're willing to buy a car that costs $50 to fill the tank.
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CAFE 39/45
Case 1NC 2/
Congress may soon decide to increase the standards for fuel economy imposed on
manufacturers of vehicles sold in the United States. 1 This would be a mistake.
In 1975, Congress reacted to the 1973 oil embargo imposed by the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by establishing the Corporate Average Fuel
Economy (CAFE) Program as part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The goal
of the program was to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil and consumption of
gasoline. Advocates also hoped it would improve air quality. But the evidence shows
that it has failed to meet its goals; worse, it has had unintended consequences that
increase the risk of injury to Americans. Instead of perpetuating such a program,
Congress should consider repealing the CAFE standards and finding new market-
based solutions to reduce high gasoline consumption and rising prices.
There is significant pressure on Members of Congress, however, not only to continue
this failed program, but also to raise fuel efficiency standards even higher. The
current CAFE standards require auto manufacturers selling in the United States to
meet certain fuel economy levels for their fleets of new cars and light trucks (pickups,
minivans, and sport utility vehicles, or SUVs). The standard for passenger cars is
currently 27.5 miles per gallon; for light trucks, it is 20.7 mpg. 2
Manufacturers face stiff fines for failing to meet these standards based on the total
number of vehicles in each class sold, but compliance is taken out of their hands. The
government measures compliance by calculating a sales-weighted mean of the fuel
economies for the fleets of new cars and light trucks a manufacturer sells each year,
and it measures domestically produced and imported vehicles separately.
Clearly, the CAFE program has failed to accomplish its purposes. Oil imports have not
decreased. In fact, they have increased from about 35 percent of supply in the mid-
1970s to 52 percent today. Likewise, consumption has not decreased. As fuel
efficiency improves, consumers have generally increased their driving, offsetting
nearly all the gains in fuel efficiency. 3 Not only has the CAFE program failed to meet
its goals; it has had tragic even if unintended consequences. As vehicles were being
made lighter to achieve more miles per gallon and meet the standards, the number
of fatalities from crashes rose. 4
Politicians should stop distorting the marketplace with unwise policies and convoluted
regulations and allow the market to respond to consumer demand for passenger
vehicles. In addition to free-market considerations, there are other compelling
reasons to reject the CAFE standards. For example:
CAFE standards endanger human lives;
CAFE standards fail to reduce consumption; and
CAFE standards do not improve the environment.
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CAFE 40/45
Gas Tax CP 1NC 1/2
Solves the entirety of the case – net benefits are econ, politics, and
solvency
Hamilton, UCSD Prof of Economics, 7
(James, March 3, “Cafe Standards”
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2007/03/cafe_standards.html)
Featuring prominently in the new energy plan from President Bush is a call for
changes in the corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards that the
Administration claims could reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 5% over the next
10 years. Here are some of the reasons I'm not thrilled by that suggestion.
CAFE standards are based on the premise that auto manufacturers and consumers
are making inappropriate decisions about the kind of vehicles that get produced. The
clearest way to motivate this from an economic perspective would be to suggest that
there are costs to using gasoline beyond those paid directly by consumers, such as a
geopolitical cost when the U.S. relies on imported oil or possible consequences for
the world climate. But if that is the motivation, an economically more efficient way to
accomplish the objective would be to tax the gasoline use itself so that the after-tax
price paid by consumers completely reflects whatever these true costs are deemed
to be. This has the benefits of providing an incentive not just to purchase more fuel-
efficient cars, but also to encourage more fuel conservation in the use of the existing
fleet through such measures as driving slower, driving less, or getting more of the
existing mileage from the more fuel-efficient vehicles. And it allows consumers and
firms the maximum flexibility to figure out how to do this in the least disruptive way.
When you force consumers to buy something other than their first choice, the
consequences may not be quite what the policy-maker originally envisioned. One
example sometimes given is the shift to SUVs. Because the initial CAFE standards
were different for "light trucks" as opposed to "cars", one way Detroit responded to
CAFE was to create a new supersized vehicle that in practice is used the way a
"passenger car" used to be, but that wasn't similarly regulated. A second example of
a possible unintended consequence of tightening CAFE is that if American cars no
longer have the characteristics sought by consumers, they will buy more imports.
There is an interesting new study of this by Mark Jacobsen, an economics Ph.D.
student at Stanford whom we're trying to persuade to join our faculty at UCSD.
Jacobsen notes that auto producers generally fall into one of three groups, as
exemplified by Toyota, Ford, and BMW in the diagram below. The fleet of a Japanese
producer like Toyota usually has an average fuel economy that is higher than the
existing CAFE standard, meaning that a modest increase in the standard would not
affect them directly. European producers like BMW fail to meet existing CAFE
standards, and choose to just pay the fine that is required for any company that fails
to comply. The third group is the U.S. producers like Ford, who feel that violating the
CAFE standards would expose them to unwanted publicity, litigation, or further
undesirable legislation, and therefore stay just inside the standard. It is thus the U.S.
auto producers who do the adjusting when CAFE standards are tightened.
Jacobsen builds a detailed model of the American new and used car market based on
the choices consumers make between different kinds of cars. His simulations suggest
that one consequence of tightening CAFE standards is an increase in the number of
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LMDIT 2008 Chase
CAFE 41/45
imported cars and a decrease in the fuel efficiency of those cars. Essentially the
European producers have an advantage over the American producers in being more
willing to flaunt their violation of the CAFE standards, and the Japanese producers
have the advantage of selling enough compact vehicles to be allowed to expand less-
efficient models such as the Acura. Thus, people who like bigger cars end up buying
more of them from the importers when the standards are tightened.
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CAFE 42/45
Gas Tax CP 2NC Overview
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CAFE 43/45
Gas Tax 2NC CP Solves / Case Solvo Turn
More recently, there have been concerns that fuel-economy improvements increase
the external costs associated with driving. Because CAFE reduces marginal driving
costs and encourages more driving, there are costs associated with the CAFE-
induced vehicle miles traveled. An average point estimate is that a 10 percent
increase in fuel economy (or decrease in fuel prices) leads to a two percent increase
in driving (Greene, Kahn, and Gibson, 1999). The “take-back” or “rebound” effect
cuts into the conservation benefits of improved fuel economy. Moreover, because
there are significant externalities associated with driving, e.g., crashes, congestion,
and pollution, any additional driving generates enormous social costs. The rebound
effect has figured prominently in recent attacks on the CAFE program. Figure 4
illustrates the private and social benefits and costs of fuel economy improvements
and the rebound effect. Fuel economy improvements reduce the price of driving
($/mi) from P0 to P1, inducing a movement along the demand curve and vehicle
miles traveled (VMT) increase from VMT0 to VMT1. The private benefit of the
improvement is represented by the trapezoid bounded by P0, P1, and the demand
curve (VMT1 * ∆P – 0.5*∆P*∆VMT). Assuming that the performance and size of the
vehicle are unchanged, there will be an additional manufacturing cost to increase
fuel economy. Thus, the net private benefit is the trapezoid less these up-front
capital costs. With per-mile external costs, S, the CAFE-induced social costs from the
additional VMT are S * ∆VMT. Economists generally support gasoline tax increases as
the most efficient means for increasing fuel economy. The intuition is
straightforward. First, CAFE standards apply only to new vehicles and therefore the
effects are introduced over fifteen or more years. Second, fuel efficiency increases
reduce per-mile fuel costs, thus encouraging more driving. In contrast, fuel taxes
both encourage consumers to drive less now, and demand more fuel-efficient
vehicles in the future. The cost estimates are also difficult to argue with: Gasoline
taxes achieve the same fuel conservation levels at costs that are seven to 10 times
less than those of the CAFE program (Crandall, 1992).
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CAFE 44/45
CP Solves Oil Shocks
Increasing fuel economy is by far the best tool we have for cutting our oil
dependence. It will deliver fast results. It has been proven to work from experience—
we roughly doubled the fuel economy of our cars between the 1970s and the late
1980s. We can do this right now. The technology needed to increase the average fuel
economy of our cars and trucks to 40 miles per gallon (mpg) has already been
developed, but for the most part is collecting dust on automakers' shelves. If we
increased fuel economy to 40 mpg over 10 years, then within 15 years we would
have saved more oil than we would ever get out of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge over its
entire 40-50 year life. And the savings from better fuel economy would keep on
growing indefinitely, while the oil wells would dry up.
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CAFE 45/45
AT Artificially Competitive / Perm Out of Ban
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