Nolan Finley

China benefits from Obama's fuel mandate

The Chinese must think we're chumps.

On the same day President Barack Obama marched the Big Three auto executives smiling to the guillotine, China announced it will not set mandatory emissions standards and instead will attack greenhouse gases with a strategy that doesn't threaten its ferocious economic growth.

America has chosen a sharply different tack, as was apparent this week at the White House, where Obama announced he would make the harsh California emissions mandates the national standard.

The automakers, now wards of the federal government, had no choice but to cheer the mandates, even though a senior Ford executive told the L.A. Times the mandates would likely put the automaker out of business.

China isn't so willing to throttle its growth for the good of Mother Earth.

China says it will combat global warming by planting carbon-absorbing forests and developing clean coal technology, but not with anything resembling Obama's mileage mandates or the carbon cap-and-trade plan moving through Congress.

The Heritage Foundation estimates the cap-and-trade bill, drafted by the two most reckless environmental toadies -- Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass. -- would cost America $9.6 trillion in economic activity and 1.1 million jobs by 2020.

Those jobs will go to China and India, where lifting their people out of brutal poverty is a greater priority than sparing a polar bear from a sweaty summer.

While states like Michigan are slamming the door on coal and pretending they can rebuild a vigorous economy with windmills, China is building new coal plants at the rate we used to open drug stores around here. Those plants are far dirtier than the American ones they'll replace.

India is embarking on an aggressive effort to upgrade its existing nuclear power plants and build more. Likewise, the Indian nuclear plants are more dangerous than ours.

And yet here in the Saudi Arabia of coal, the eco-warriors have pressured pansy politicians to stop talking about clean coal and keep the new generation of nuclear reactors on the furthest back burner. Obama's budget, in deference to Senate honcho Harry Reid, D-Nev., cuts off funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, effectively limiting prospects for that green fuel.

As we strangle our own energy production, it will shift to places that are far less environmentally conscious, increasing the damage.

Energy will be the capital of the 21st century. Jobs -- particularly manufacturing jobs -- will go where energy is plentiful, reasonably priced and can be freely used.

China understands this. We don't. China has 1.3 billion people. We have 300 million.

Are we really so arrogant to think we can save the planet by strangling our economy and committing our people to poorer lives while China continues to burn, baby, burn?

We are following this radical path without fully considering the costs and consequences.

The emissions policy Obama forced on the automakers will raise the price of vehicles by $1,300 to $3,000. Cap-and-trade will raise the price of every single product.

In the end, we won't have cooled the earth an iota. But we will have transferred most of our wealth to China, where it will be used to keep churning out greenhouse gases.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com or (313) 222-2064.