Estimates that drove environmental regulation off by 340%

[dammitgibs]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BAOF1FDMRV.DTL

Anyone familiar with the California Air Resources Board knows what a joke it is but this is just awesome. My favorite part was:

Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, offered no explanation when The Chronicle questioned her about the diesel emissions miscalculation. She was recently asked why the air board estimate of a nitrous oxide source was off by at least a factor of two - air board scientists have since revised their numbers, and data show the estimate was off by 340 percent. Nichols' response: "I can't answer that for you."

Nichols was emphatic, though, when asked whether she has concerns about other scientific calculations made by air board scientists.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no and no," she said.

Might as well have a bunch of witchdoctors tossing bones on the floor and then interpreting them to write new taxes and laws for the state. The religion of green is destroying science.

 

[SAWYER]

 

[Drako]

Yeah, but make sure you vote no on Prop 23

 

[bfdd]

I might just vote yes on prop 23, even though I don't agree with the ridiculous 5.5% number. Just because these idiots keep fucking everything up.

 

[theeedude]

5.5% is ridiculous. If you want to repeal it, put that in the prop. Going to vote no on 23 just to stop this kind of tactic.

 

[bfdd]

5.5% is ridiculous. If you want to repeal it, put that in the prop. Going to vote no on 23 just to stop this kind of tactic.

True true, maybe I shouldn't have been to hasty. 5.5% is ridiculous, but so are a ton of the idiotic environmental regulations we have in this state. 7-8% would have got my vote though.

 

[werepossum]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BAOF1FDMRV.DTL

Anyone familiar with the California Air Resources Board knows what a joke it is but this is just awesome. My favorite part was:



Might as well have a bunch of witchdoctors tossing bones on the floor and then interpreting them to write new taxes and laws for the state. The religion of green is destroying science.

I dunno, witchdoctors sometimes have a sense of shame . . .

 

[DominionSeraph]

Might as well have a bunch of witchdoctors tossing bones on the floor and then interpreting them to write new taxes and laws for the state. The religion of green is destroying science.

Their latest estimate for sources of nitrous oxide found that off-road vehicles are burning 228 million gallons of diesel fuel per year. The previous estimate was 1 billion gallons, which means the first estimate was 340 percent higher than the new calculation. Sax said roughly half of that is due to the recession but the other half is due to a revised method of calculation that focuses more directly on the amount of fuel sold instead of estimates about equipment use.

How is calculating by estimating vehicle use the methodology of a religion?

If I estimate that I'll drive 500 miles this week, at my average MPG of 22.6, that would be 22.12 gallons of gasoline.

*Damn, I all prepared to go all out and convert gallons to pounds of exhaust components and then break it out by PPM going by my emissions report, but I just checked and all they give you now is a pass/fail.
DAMN YOU, DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA!

Anyway, so they overestimated by ~170%. It happens. And that's the number you should be using. The economic downturn idling the construction industry being responsible for the other half is not a fix for off-road diesel pollution, unless you like the economy at this level. You may like this economic recession because the reduction in pollution associated makes it look as though environmental regulations are overboard, which lines up with YOUR religion; but that has nothing to do with the actual regulation of emissions. It doesn't change the paradigm. Once the economy picks up, construction will resume, and pollution involved will ramp right back up.

 

[werepossum]

How is calculating by estimating vehicle use the methodology of a religion?

If I estimate that I'll drive 500 miles this week, at my average MPG of 22.6, that would be 22.12 gallons of gasoline.

*Damn, I all prepared to go all out and convert gallons to pounds of exhaust components and then break it out by PPM going by my emissions report, but I just checked and all they give you now is a pass/fail.
DAMN YOU, DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA!

Anyway, so they overestimated by ~170%. It happens. And that's the number you should be using. The economic downturn idling the construction industry being responsible for the other half is not a fix for off-road diesel pollution, unless you like the economy at this level. You may like this economic recession because the reduction in pollution associated makes it look as though environmental regulations are overboard, which lines up with YOUR religion; but that has nothing to do with the actual regulation of emissions. It doesn't change the paradigm. Once the economy picks up, construction will resume, and pollution involved will ramp right back up.

Although I disagree with your points and despise anime, I have to admit that "DominionSeraph" is the coolest sounding tag I've seen in awhile. Not that I have the slightest idea what it means, and I'd probably hate it if I did, but it just sounds so darned cool.

 

[alphatarget1]

Anyway, so they overestimated by ~170%. It happens.

170% is an unacceptable overestimation for public policy making, IMHO.

The SF Bay Bridge is overbudget by... um. Let's see: 780 million initial, now it's 6.1 billion. That's 780% overbudget. All of these policies have an impact on people's everyday life. If these CARB fucks are out there to promote their holier than thou green agenda then they should all be replaced by unbiased scientists who do good work.

 

[bfdd]

170% is an unacceptable overestimation for public policy making, IMHO.

The SF Bay Bridge is overbudget by... um. Let's see: 780 million initial, now it's 6.1 billion. That's 780% overbudget. All of these policies have an impact on people's everyday life. If these CARB fucks are out there to promote their holier than thou green agenda then they should all be replaced by unbiased scientists who do good work.

Agreed. We can't afford to overestimate by that much. It costs shit loads of money, OUR money.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

How is calculating by estimating vehicle use the methodology of a religion?

If I estimate that I'll drive 500 miles this week, at my average MPG of 22.6, that would be 22.12 gallons of gasoline.

*Damn, I all prepared to go all out and convert gallons to pounds of exhaust components and then break it out by PPM going by my emissions report, but I just checked and all they give you now is a pass/fail.
DAMN YOU, DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA!

Anyway, so they overestimated by ~170%. It happens. And that's the number you should be using. The economic downturn idling the construction industry being responsible for the other half is not a fix for off-road diesel pollution, unless you like the economy at this level. You may like this economic recession because the reduction in pollution associated makes it look as though environmental regulations are overboard, which lines up with YOUR religion; but that has nothing to do with the actual regulation of emissions. It doesn't change the paradigm. Once the economy picks up, construction will resume, and pollution involved will ramp right back up.

So the cost to businesses of refitting, overhauling and buying new equipment based on a 340% miscalculation has not factored into this entire mess in your mind? What about the cost of businesses shutting down, moving out of state or new start-ups not being able to get off the ground because of this error? Or better what about the cleaner burning diesel engines which were not allowed into the state because they were effected by this faulty data? Data which end up setting the standards to high for their introduction and thus preventing cleaner diesel engines from being imported, You seem to want to overly simplify or ignore the gravity of this error but on a state level such a mistake has the potential to cost tens, if hundreds of millions/billions in tax dollars not to mention thousands of jobs either lost, moved out of state or never created, etc.

 

[bfdd]

So the cost to businesses of refitting, overhauling and buying new equipment based on a 340% miscalculation has not factored into this entire mess in your mind? What about the cost of businesses shutting down, moving out of state or new start-ups not being able to get off the ground because of this error? Or better what about the cleaner burning diesel engines which were not allowed into the state because they were effected by this faulty data? Data which end up setting the standards to high for their introduction and thus preventing cleaner diesel engines from being imported, You seem to want to overly simplify or ignore the gravity of this error but on a state level such a mistake has the potential to cost tens, hundreds of millions and billions in tax dollars not to mention thousands of jobs either lost, moved out of state or never created, etc.

This is California we're talking here. The amount of damage this may have possibly caused to business is most likely in the billions.

 

[CycloWizard]

So the cost to businesses of refitting, overhauling and buying new equipment based on a 340% miscalculation has not factored into this entire mess in your mind? What about the cost of businesses shutting down, moving out of state or new start-ups not being able to get off the ground because of this error? Or better what about the cleaner burning diesel engines which were not allowed into the state because they were effected by this faulty data? Data which end up setting the standards to high for their introduction and thus preventing cleaner diesel engines from being imported, You seem to want to overly simplify or ignore the gravity of this error but on a state level such a mistake has the potential to cost tens, if hundreds of millions/billions in tax dollars not to mention thousands of jobs either lost, moved out of state or never created, etc.

In his mind it's not an error - it's simply a failure of the premise used for the calculations due to the economic downturn (if I'm reading him right). Still, there's no way usage of any fuel has decreased by such a large margin.

 

[DominionSeraph]

170% is an unacceptable overestimation for public policy making, IMHO.

Why is that necessarily so? (And actually, it's 120% higher. (2.2x) I miscalculated.)

If I take the number of traffic accidents and multiply it by 2.2, does that mean that you don't need to wear a seatbelt because you are less than half as likely to be in an accident than my calculation shows?

I can multiply by a million and it doesn't change anything.

Policy can be affected by numbers but that doesn't mean that policy is made out to the decimal point. There are often levels, and within a level the difference is meaningless.
This is California we're talking about. A segment using 500 million gallons in a normal economy is NOT going to fall beneath the notice of their environmental regulators. So what's the difference between 1 billion and 500 million gallons? There's only a difference if we're coming up on a hard limit with 1 billion. If X total amount of pollution is the absolute limit of what is acceptable, and 1 billion gallons produces 2X, then regulating to get things under the limit would demand 1/2 the emissions assuming 1 billion gallons, but 500 million gallons could get away with nothing.

But that's not how environmental regulation works. It is largely, "less pollution is better."
If it is worthwhile to reduce the emissions of 1 billion gallons, reducing emissions on 500 million gallons is still good. At no point is dumping pollution into the environment a good thing.
There's a sliding scale between level and scope of enforcement below which it isn't the most efficient use of the government's resources to regulate, but somehow I don't think that is at 500 million gallons in an easily isolatable sector such as construction machinery.
Those things tend to be big and yellow with lots of people around who can tell a man with a clipboard who they belong to.

The SF Bay Bridge is overbudget by... um. Let's see: 780 million initial, now it's 6.1 billion. That's 780% overbudget.

That's an entirely different thing. When contractors can basically hold the project hostage, is it any wonder things go over time and over budget?
Construction milks the HELL out of government work.

despise anime

|Anime| is independent from <heart>ing Rukia.

Everybody <hearts> Rukia.

 

[DominionSeraph]

So the cost to businesses of refitting, overhauling and buying new equipment based on a 340&#37; miscalculation has not factored into this entire mess in your mind?

The cost and the economy are factored in, as shown by the delay in implementation due to the revised numbers.

What about the cost of businesses shutting down, moving out of state or new start-ups not being able to get off the ground because of this error?

How do you do construction work in California out of state?

California: We need a road built in San Francisco.
Contractor: Ok, I'll go to Utah and build it there.

Construction tends to not be very portable. It isn't something you can outsource to China to get around environmental regulations.

If you need a hole dug, you pretty much have to dig it where you need it to be. Digging it elsewhere tends to be a waste of time. The technical term is, "Digging in the wrong place," or, more professionally, "Haha look at what Johnny did!"

Or better what about the cleaner burning diesel engines which were not allowed into the state because they were effected by this faulty data?

Does your brain just throw things together at random?

Also, "affected."
And you don't have the right object. "Faulty data affected the engines," is wrong. Now if it the data was a fuel map it could affect an engine's operation. If it was a blueprint it could affect the engine's construction, but that's as close as you're going to get.
Anyway, you're talking about affecting sales/availability. Not engines.
Keeping track of which nouns you're modifying is important.

 

[alphatarget1]

Why is that necessarily so? (And actually, it's 120% higher. (2.2x) I miscalculated.)

If I take the number of traffic accidents and multiply it by 2.2, does that mean that you don't need to wear a seatbelt because you are less than half as likely to be in an accident than my calculation shows?

I can multiply by a million and it doesn't change anything.

Policy can be affected by numbers but that doesn't mean that policy is made out to the decimal point. There are often levels, and within a level the difference is meaningless.
This is California we're talking about. A segment using 500 million gallons in a normal economy is NOT going to fall beneath the notice of their environmental regulators. So what's the difference between 1 billion and 500 million gallons? There's only a difference if we're coming up on a hard limit with 1 billion. If X total amount of pollution is the absolute limit of what is acceptable, and 1 billion gallons produces 2X, then regulating to get things under the limit would demand 1/2 the emissions assuming 1 billion gallons, but 500 million gallons could get away with nothing.

But that's not how environmental regulation works. It is largely, "less pollution is better."
If it is worthwhile to reduce the emissions of 1 billion gallons, reducing emissions on 500 million gallons is still good. At no point is dumping pollution into the environment a good thing.
There's a sliding scale between level and scope of enforcement below which it isn't the most efficient use of the government's resources to regulate, but somehow I don't think that is at 500 million gallons in an easily isolatable sector such as construction machinery.
Those things tend to be big and yellow with lots of people around who can tell a man with a clipboard who they belong to.



That's an entirely different thing. When contractors can basically hold the project hostage, is it any wonder things go over time and over budget?
Construction milks the HELL out of government work.

There is a cost to safety and pollution. At what point does the scale tip so far to one side that it adversely affects healthy economic activity? If we use flawed science to estimate impacts, then the outcomes could harm either the economy or the environment.

As for the Bay Bridge, how about Caltrans and MTC picking a bridge that's not so damn hard to build (so that no contractors want to bid on it because no one has the expertise to do so)? The original budget is less than 1 billion dollars scheduled for 2010 completion, now it's projected to cost 6.7 billion dollars scheduled for 2013 opening. That is NOT OK.

 

[DominionSeraph]

There is a cost to safety and pollution. At what point does the scale tip so far to one side that it adversely affects healthy economic activity? If we use flawed science to estimate impacts, then the outcomes could harm either the economy or the environment.

When the data shows action is needed, the government should act. You can't wait around forever just because you might be committing a Type II error.

Yes, I realize conservatives are stupid, and that they've learned to be afraid of their decisions because anything that comes out of their head is generally wrong, and so live their lives frozen in fear. But that just doesn't hold true for smart people. We're generally right, so action isn't a problem.
In the rare instance we happen to be wrong, we fix it. It's not rocket science.

 

[monovillage]

I thought that this was one of the more important facts in the story

"Nichols, who acknowledges she knew about the falsification prior to the vote, has apologized for not sharing that information with her fellow board members."

She knew ahead of time about it, but concealed it from the other board members before they voted.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

The cost and the economy are factored in, as shown by the delay in implementation due to the revised numbers.



How do you do construction work in California out of state?

California: We need a road built in San Francisco.
Contractor: Ok, I'll go to Utah and build it there.

Construction tends to not be very portable. It isn't something you can outsource to China to get around environmental regulations.

If you need a hole dug, you pretty much have to dig it where you need it to be. Digging it elsewhere tends to be a waste of time. The technical term is, "Digging in the wrong place," or, more professionally, "Haha look at what Johnny did!"

The construction industry was not the only industry effected by this skewed data which was put out in 2007. The construction industry was just the industry highlighted in the article which has come forward to state how they were affected. In case you didn't know diesel powered vehicles are used throughout many industries in the state outside of the construction industry for example farming, shipping, manufacturing industries etc.

Does your brain just throw things together at random?

Also, "affected."
And you don't have the right object. "Faulty data affected the engines," is wrong. Now if it the data was a fuel map it could affect an engine's operation. If it was a blueprint it could affect the engine's construction, but that's as close as you're going to get.
Anyway, you're talking about affecting sales/availability. Not engines.
Keeping track of which nouns you're modifying is important.

Chillax with the bullshit nit picking because you aren't proving anything other then how you can deflect on minutiae. Oh and AB32 and AB 1493 were both bills which cited and/or were influenced by this faulty data partially used to push through both bills. So yes this faulty information put out in 2007 did indeed effect what could and could not be imported engine/vehicle wise based on its emission output and the erroneous data used to factor in the decision making process which has been crafted to regulate California's emission standards by the CARB board.