Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Gas-price hikes will never, ever, ever cut into consumer spending. It’s a mathematical impossibility. Here’s why: Gas prices are a component of consumer spending.

You see, when gas prices climb from $2 a gallon to $3 a gallon, one of the components of retail spending goes up. . . .

Sure, if people spend more money on gas, they may very well spend less on soft drinks. But that’s a substitution, not a decrease in overall spending. The spending simply shifts from one retail category to another.

So why don’t we ever hear this? Well, with a few notable exceptions, mainstream TV commentators don’t know the facts, which often are buried in the details. You can’t just read a financial press release from a government organization (or worse yet, the blurb about the press release) and understand what the data are saying. A Larry Kudlow, a Steve Forbes, a Dan Yergin, a John Rutledge, an Art Laffer, a Brian Wesbury — these folks actually read the reports, including the tables in the back. They look at rows of numbers; in the case of a consumer-spending report, they note the row that is devoted to gas stations.

Meanwhile, the . . . only numbers they master are the phone numbers of their favorite producers. Good at getting on the air is not remotely the same as good at getting it right.

-- JERRY BOWYER

New idea for a sitcom: "Everybody Hates the Saudi Ruling Family."

Ok, so it doesn't roll off the tongue like "Everybody Loves Raymond," but, seriously, in more than three years as a blogger I've seen no political issue that more unites liberals and conservatives than dislike of having to put up with Saudi Arabia's repressive regime. Can anybody think of a way to take these people out of power without mass casualities or jacking oil prices to $400 a barrel?

-- WILL BUNCH

How can we break the OPEC oil cartel for $100 a car? Engineer Bob Zubrin has the answer -- by requiring all new cars sold in the United States to be flex-fuel vehicles that can run not just on gasoline, but on ethanol and methanol.

-- GLENN REYNOLDS

DaimlerChrysler paid a $30 million fine in 2007, the most ever by an automaker, for failing to meet federal fuel-efficiency standards.

-- BLOOMBERG NEWS

California sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging its recent decision to block California rules curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from new cars and trucks.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California has the right to set its own standards on air pollutants, but must receive a waiver from the E.P.A. to do so. The environmental agency broke with decades of precedent last month and denied California a waiver to move forward with its proposed limits on vehicular emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California" from adopting new standards.

California officials argue that the agency had no legal or technical justification for blocking the new standards. The E.P.A. administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said when announcing the decision that a new federal fuel-economy mandate would be more efficient in curbing pollution than the state standards.

The lawsuit also challenges the agency's contention that California is not uniquely affected by global warming and so lacks the "compelling and extraordinary" conditions that would allow it to regulate greenhouse-gas pollutants.

-- FELICITY BARRINGER

In Stockholm, the heat will be sucked out of the bodies of the thousands of people who pass through the Central Railway station to heat the buildings.

-- GREG LADEN

As we approach the elections of 2008, a clear gap has emerged between the major Republican and Democratic candidates on the issue of environment. Call it the "climate gap."

A look at the websites of the candidates as well as media coverage reveals that all of the Democratic candidates for President have presented detailed plans for addressing climate change that include four components: carbon caps and targets; fuel efficiency measures; renewable electricity standards; and efficiency targets. They also generally oppose coal power plants unless greenhouse gases are sequestered. . . .

In stark contrast to the unified Democratic position, the Republican field largely defies easy classification even after significant scrutiny.

-- KENNETH GREEN