Say what?! U. S. Department of Transportation asks: ‘How might climate change increase the risk of fatal crashes in a community?’
2015 Traffic Fatalities Data Has Just Been Released: A Call to Action to Download and Analyze
Posted by DJ Patil, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Dr. Mark Rosekind, Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
This post is cross-posted at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog.
35,092.
That is the number of people who died on our nation’s highways in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2015. Your neighbor driving to work. Your niece walking to the park. Your brother biking home. Every day, nearly 100 people die from vehicle-related accidents.
Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation is releasingan open data set that contains detailed, anonymized information about each of these tragic incidents. As the new data being released show, and as DOT reported earlier this summer, 2015 showed a marked increase in traffic fatalities nationwide.
To be precise, 7.2% more people died in traffic-related accidents in 2015 than in 2014. This unfortunate data point breaks a recent historical trend of fewer deaths occurring per year.
Under the leadership of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, we’re doing two things differently this year.
One: We’re publishing the data through NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) three months earlier than last year.
Two: We’re directly soliciting your help to better understand what these data are telling us. Whether you’re a non-profit, a tech company, or just a curious citizen wanting to contribute to the conversation in your local community, we want you to jump in and help us understand what the data are telling us.
Some key questions worth exploring:
- How might improving economic conditions around the country change how Americans are getting around? What models can we develop to identify communities that might be at a higher risk for fatal crashes?
- How might climate change increase the risk of fatal crashes in a community?
- How might we use studies of attitudes toward speeding, distracted driving, and seat belt use to better target marketing and behavioral change campaigns?
- How might we monitor public health indicators and behavior risk indicators to target communities that might have a high prevalence of behaviors linked with fatal crashes (drinking, drug use/addiction, etc.)? What countermeasures should we create to address these issues?
A number of private sector firms and educational institutions have …
1,690-Page ‘Climate Change’ Reg Increases Cost of Tractor-Trailer Up to $15,119
The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration jointly issued a new regulation last week that is meant to help protect the world from “climate change” by limiting “greenhouse gas emissions” and improving fuel efficiency in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles operated in the United States.
The 1,690-page regulation is approximately 700,000 words long.
A “regulatory impact analysis” published by EPA and NHTSA estimates the regulation will add an average of as much as $13,749 to the cost of a tractor truck and $1,370 to a trailer, making some tractor-trailer combinations $15,119 more expensive in 2027 than they would be under current regulations.
While admitting that the regulation will increase the cost of trucks and the other vehicles it effects, the administration argues that the owners of these vehicles will actually save money by using less fuel and that the regulation “will result in up to $230 billion in net benefits to society.”
These “net benefits to society” include what the administration calls “health benefits” and “energy security benefits.”…
Obama: ‘Much more to do’ on climate change
Obama: ‘Much more to do’ on climate change
President Obama praised his administration on Saturday for the progress it has made combating climate change over the past seven-and-a-half years, but pressed Americans to step up their resolve to save the environment in his final six months in office.“There’s still much more to do. But there’s no doubt that America has become a global leader in the fight against climate change,” Obama said in the weekly White House address. “And if we keep pushing, and leading the world in the right direction, there’s no doubt that, together, we can leave a better, cleaner, safer future for our children.”
The progressive president cited a number of domestic victories that have decreased Americans’ energy bills, including multiplying the availability of wind power threefold and solar power thirty-fold, lowering the price of clean power sources and bringing carbon pollution levels from the energy sector to its lowest level in 25 years.
While the auto industry has experienced record sales in recent years, that surge is not hurting the environment despite more vehicles on the road. The Obama administration has implemented new standards to ensure the distance cars and light trucks go on a gallon of gas increases every year through 2025.
But the changes Americans have seen unfolding all around them are only the beginning, Obama explained.
The White House plans to release a second round of fuel efficiency standards, but these will be for heavy-duty vehicles. In addition, the U.S. will move forward on its goal to achieve 50 percent clean power across North America by 2025 through partnerships with Canada and Mexico.
“Together, we must continue to work domestically and build upon the progress we’ve made along with other countries – such as the Paris Agreement, the most ambitious climate change agreement in history,” Obama said.
Top Story
Nearly $300 Billion: The 7 most expensive regs in Obama’s climate plan
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-7-most-expensive-regs-in-obamas-climate-plan/article/2598653
By 8/8/16 12:01 AM
It has been just over three years since President Obama announced his extensive climate change agenda, called the Climate Action Plan.
The plan was his answer to Congress’ failure to pass comprehensive climate legislation, after action stalled in the Senate during his first term. Instead of relying on Congress, with its increased Republican opposition, Obama decided to enact regulations using his executive authority to meet his climate goals.
The Climate Action Plan directed the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department and other Cabinet-level agencies to begin working on new regulations, while speeding up existing programs to reduce greenhouse gases, which many scientists blame for driving man-made climate change.
The most notorious piece of the president’s plan is the rules for existing power plants, called the Clean Power Plan. The regulations for the first time use the EPA’s authority to hold states accountable for regulating carbon dioxide emissions, rather than just the owners and operators of power plants. While the EPA says it is not the most expensive of Obama’s climate rules, many critics beg to differ.
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy was charged with expediting energy-efficiency standards for appliances, placing more stringent requirements on manufacturers.
Increasingly stringent regulations for building low-emission vehicles are also a big part of the president’s agenda, including new rules that go into effect when model-year 2017 cars hit showroom floors.
The cost of the regulations is high, with critics arguing that the rules won’t do much to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising.
Other rules outside of the president’s climate plan, such as those for smog-forming ozone emissions, have been criticized by business groups as the most costly regulations in history because of their potential far-reaching impact on cities’ and regions’ economic growth. But there is no government pricetag for the rules, because the EPA said in the final 2015 rule that it does not have to assess their cost.
From now on, every government agency will have to consider climate change
In the past several weeks alone, the Obama administration has made multiple new moves to fight climate change. The administration announced new steps to help fill U.S. roadways with electric vehicles. It ruled that greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft endanger human health and welfare. And on the international stage, it moved the world closer to a deal to phase out super-polluting HFCs, chemicals in refrigerants and other industrial substances that warm the climate.
But as Obama’s term dwindles, the act isn’t over — on Tuesday the White Housereleased yet another policy to fight climate change, one with potentially far-reaching consequences. The White House’s chief environmental office, the Council on Environmental Quality, finalized a six-year process of shaping how the government’s agencies, across the board, will factor climate change into their decisions.…
‘No Authority’ – Inhofe Takes On Obama’s Latest Global Warming Order
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/03/inhofe-takes-on-obamas-latest-global-warming-order-no-authority/
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe is challenging the White House’s latest order on how federal agencies take global warming into account in reviews of government actions or projects.
Inhofe argues the White House guidance has no force since the Council on Environmental Quality’s chairman has not been confirmed by the Senate. CEQ hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed chairman since 2014, which means their guidances have no force under federal law.
“Under the Vacancies Reform Act, no person may perform the duties of the vacant CEQ Chairman position until the President has nominated a candidate who is subject to Senate confirmation,” Inhofe said in a statement.
Obama to make it tougher to build roads, bridges – all in thevname of ‘climate change’
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/2/obama-make-it-tougher-build-roads-bridges-name-cli/
Building that bridge or expanding that highway just became more difficult under a rigorous standard issued Tuesday by the Obama administration that will make it easier to block a wide range of projects in the name of climate change.
The final guidance broadens the National Environmental Policy Act by requiring agencies to quantify the impact of activities that require federal permits not just on the environment but also on “projected direct and indirect GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.”…
Little Green Lies: Why Electric Cars Won’t Save the Environment
…You Could Pay More to Fly Under This EPA ‘Climate Change Rule’
http://joemiller.us/2016/07/pay-fly-epa-climate-change-rule/…