The Majority Of Evansville Police Department Officers Declared That They Have No Confidence In Chief Billy Bolin
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
OFFICIAL NEWS RELEASE FROM LOCAL FOP
On September 18, 2019, officers of the Evansville Police Department (“EPDâ€) declared by vote that they have no confidence in Chief Billy Bolin as Chief of the EPD. All active officers of the EPD are members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 73. This is the first time in its history that the FOP Lodge 73 has held a vote of no confidence in its chief.
Chief Bolin has alleged on social media that the FOP leadership has “made fun†of his motto of “Be Nice.†This vote had nothing to do with whether Chief Bolin is a nice guy. Instead, the question is whether he effectively leads the EPD to ensure the safety of Evansville citizens and of the police officers who work under him. EPD officers have overwhelmingly stated that he does not.
The questions presented on the ballot and the results were as follows:
1. As an Evansville Police Officer, do you believe the citizens of Evansville are safer and crime has been reduced under Chief Bolin?
78% NO
2. Do you believe Chief Bolin ensures adequate staffing of motor patrol to provide for the safety of citizens?
84% NO
3. Does Chief Bolin prioritize the duties of law enforcement officers and the everyday functions of the Evansville Police Department over media relations?
82% NO
4. Has Chief Bolin’s elimination of the traditional chain of command improved performance and morale within the ranks of the Evansville Police Department?
80% NO
5. Are taxpayer dollars appropriately allocated within the Evansville Police Department under Chief Bolin?
72% NO
6. Our policies and procedures, including those pertaining to discipline, administered fairly and consistently within the Evansville Police Department under Chief Bolin?
77% NO
7. Do you have confidence in Chief Bolin’s ability to effectively lead the Evansville Police Department?
74% NO
Between 2010 and 2012, prior to Chief Bolin’s appointment as chief, Evansville recorded an average of 5 homicides per year; under Chief Bolin, the homicide average has risen to 13 per year. Prior to Chief Bolin’s appointment, the average number of assaults per year totaled 280; that average increased to 507 in 2016 and 2017. Perhaps most notably, the violent crime rate in Evansville has nearly doubled from 235.5 per population of 100,000 in 2011 to 402.1 in 2017. Meanwhile, the national crime rate during that same time frame remained steady.
Despite the rising crime rate, the number of motor patrol officers working the street has decreased. In 2011, the EPD employed 138 motor patrol officers. At the beginning of 2018, the EPD employed only 110 motor patrol officers. On most days, the EPD is at minimum staffing levels of patrol officers. This lack of manpower has resulted in slower response times and decreased the safety of our citizens. Officers often cannot proactively patrol our neighborhoods because there are too few of them to do anything other than respond to calls. The back-up times for officers are much slower because of the lack of manning, posing a risk to the safety of those officers. Although the FOP has attempted to address the manning issue with Chief Bolin many times, he consistently denies that the lack of staffing of motor patrol is an issue.
Rather than focusing on the safety of our citizens and the day-to-day operations of the department, Chief Bolin chooses to expend his energy, efforts, and taxpayer dollars on projects that are important to him. Although the FOP certainly agrees that community outreach is very important, the Chief’s projects and relationship with the media should not take precedence over public and officer safety. The Chief is quick to pay overtime to officers who work his special events; yet, the number of patrol cars available for officers to use to patrol our streets is grossly inadequate. Many officers are required to “double-up†in patrol cars or drive rundown vehicles because Chief Bolin chooses not to allocate funds for vehicles.
Chief Bolin’s poor decision-making with regard to personnel issues has also led to low morale within the EPD. Under Chief Bolin, good officers who perform their jobs well have been removed from their positions or reassigned contrary to the best interest of the department.
In short, the officers of the FOP have no confidence in Chief Bolin’s ability to effectively lead the EPD. Unfortunately, in the past, Chief Bolin has dismissed the officers’ concerns, stating to the FOP leadership that the concerns they have brought to him are the concerns of only a few who like to engage in, as Chief Bolin calls them, “boogeyman theories.†The FOP hopes that the outcome of this vote will lead Chief Bolin to realize that the concerns that have been brought to him are, in fact, real and need to be addressed. The FOP further hopes that this vote will effectuate change to better ensure the safety of Evansville citizens and police officers and improve the operations of the EPD.
The FOP President will hold a press conference at 3:30 p.m. on September 19, 2019, at the FOP Lodge, located at 801 Court Street.
Hidden Dropouts: How Indiana Schools Can Write Off Struggling Students As Home-Schoolers
Hidden Dropouts: How Indiana Schools Can Write Off Struggling Students As Home-Schoolers
written by Dylan Peers McCoy, Â staff reporter for Chalkbeat Indiana
Almost from the start, Tyris struggled at Indianapolis’ Emmerich Manual High School.
Ready or Not
The school stood out in Chalkbeat’s analysis of students leaving high school for homeschooling. Manual reported that its class of 2018 numbered 83 graduates, six dropouts, and 60 students who left at some point during their high school years to be home-schooled.
“What? Yeah, there is no way,†said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, when presented with the data on Manual. “It sounds like the distinction between home-school and dropout is really disappearing,†she added.
Charter Schools USA officials and former school leaders stressed that no one is urged to leave, that homeschooling is a parental choice, that the school lays out a range of options, and that parents often choose to homeschool to avoid consequences from truancy or behavioral issues.
Colleen Reynolds, a company spokeswoman, attributed the high number of students exiting to home-school at Manual and at another low-performing Indianapolis school the company operates, Thomas Carr Howe Community High School, to the schools’ “exponentially high number of high-risk students.†Still, officials are concerned about the large numbers and introduced a new initiative this year to address them, Reynolds wrote in an emailed response to questions.
“Our ultimate goal,†she wrote, “is to have every student graduate.â€
Rising Grad Rate And More Home-Schoolers
Manual is one of the oldest high schools in Indianapolis and was once known for its vocational education. But it was hit hard by enrollment declines that rippled across Indianapolis Public Schools and lost about half its students between 2005 and 2011.
After years of low test scores, Manual was one of several campuses the state seized control of in 2012. Indiana officials brought in Florida-based Charter Schools USA, which operates 87 schools in six states, to attempt to improve Manual, Howe, and an Indianapolis middle school. The campuses are not charter schools, but the state severed them from the district and took on oversight.
Tyris enrolled at Manual four years into this experiment.
He started having problems almost immediately, according to records Candy shared with Chalkbeat that cataloged his behavior and attention issues. “Tyris refused to do his work today. He put his head down and wouldn’t respond,†wrote a teacher in the spring of his freshman year. “This behavior is becoming routine.†Yet there were glimmers of hope. A report described Tyris as polite, and his gym teacher called him a “model student.â€
Tyris received special education services at Manual. He was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, oppositional disorder, and depressive disorder, according to a special education case conference report from 2017. Candy said Tyris also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
In his sophomore year, Tyris had a teacher he was especially close to, and that made school better, he recalled. He liked talking with her, and she would make sure he knew what he needed to do to pass classes, Tyris said. But she eventually left for another job.
From Candy’s perspective, Manual failed Tyris. Staff was constantly calling her over what she considered petty disagreements with him, asking her to pick him up from school, she said.
“They didn’t care enough,†Candy said.
Though Candy urged Tyris to take online credit recovery classes to catch up during his junior year, he saw little hope in continuing at Manual.
“I felt like there was no point in me going because I wasn’t going to pass,†Tyris said.
After the school called to let her know his absences stretched into weeks, Candy decided to let her 17-year-old dropout. At least then, she reasoned, he could get a job.
When students want to leave Manual, school staff walk families through their options, then-principal Misty Ndiritu told Chalkbeat in an interview in May.
As required by the state, Ndiritu said the school informs prospective dropouts of the negative consequences of that choice, including that students who drop out earn significantly less money, are more likely to land in prison, and cannot get a driver’s license until they turn 18.
When students leave to home-school, staff tell parents they are taking on the responsibility to educate their children, Ndiritu said. Manual does not label students as leaving to home-school to boost its graduation rate, she said.
“A family has a choice to go through and sign dropout forms, to sign out to home-school, to transfer out of state, to transfer to adult ed,†Ndiritu said. “We just do our best to educate them on what options they have and listen to what issues may be causing them to leave our school and make recommendations to them.â€
According to Candy, that didn’t happen the day she withdrew Tyris. She said the school receptionist gave her paperwork to sign, and she was done in minutes. Only later, Candy said, did she learn that Tyris was recorded as leaving Manual to home-school after she sought her son’s educational records at Chalkbeat’s request.
In fulfilling her records request, the school provided Candy a form saying Tyris was leaving to home-school. The front page of the form includes her name, Tyris’, and their contact information. In a box saying where he is transferring, someone wrote in “homeschool,†and the bottom of the page outlines the legal requirements for home-schooling, such as that students have 180 days of instruction. Candy said the handwriting on the form is not hers, although she said the back does bear her signature. The space for the principal’s signature is blank.
Reynolds of Charter Schools USA wrote that while she cannot discuss Tyris specifically, under the previous policy, the registrar would customarily complete the “demographics section†of withdrawal forms.
“No parent is required to sign a home school form,†Reynolds added. “If a parent signs a form, it must be legally assumed that they have read and agree with whatever is on the form.â€
Candy, however, said she does not recall seeing the form before getting it with Tyris’ school records, and she did not discuss homeschooling with any staff from Manual.
“There’s no way in a million years I would agree to homeschool,†said Candy, who says she has a hard time helping her children with homework. “What am I going to do to be able to help them?â€
In the seven years since the state took over Manual and turned management over to Charter Schools USA, some problems persist: Teachers continue to rotate in and out, and many students have discipline problems, are persistently absent, or transfer in or out mid-year, according to state data.
There have, though, been gains in that time. Most notably, the school’s state letter grade has risen from an F to a C. One factor in that grade is graduation rates, which have improved at Manual to 78% in 2018 up from 69% in 2012, the year before the school was taken over.
Manual achieved that increase while having the highest proportion of students who left to home-school, compared to graduates, out of all traditional high schools in the state, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.
If every student on the books as exiting for homeschooling were counted as a dropout, Manual’s graduation rate could have plummeted to 50%. If even one-third of them were counted as dropouts, the school’s graduation rate could have dropped to 66%.
High Stakes For Charter Schools USA
For many families, homeschooling is a welcome and effective alternative to traditional schools.
About 1.7 million children are home-schooled in the U.S., according to a survey from the National Center for Education Statistics, a number that grew rapidly during the early 2000s. The same survey found that 15% of children who are home-schooled don’t have a parent who has completed high school. That’s a shift from a time when families who home-school were typically more educated, said Coleman of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.
Nationally, it’s impossible to draw broad conclusions about outcomes for students who are educated at home because it is so loosely regulated and tracked.
Concerns about whether students recorded as leaving to home-school are truly getting an education, meanwhile, have arisen in a handful of other states. They include Texas, where advocates have repeatedly raised alarms that the state is undercounting students who drop out; Kentucky, where a state report last year found the number of students leaving to home-school climbed when districts raised the dropout age from 16 to 18; and Florida, where the state department of education recently reprimanded a district leader for allegedly instructing staff to inaccurately code students who withdraw as moving to home-school.
In Indiana, the number of high schoolers recorded as leaving to home-school has been declining in recent years. But at some schools, including Manual and Howe high schools, the numbers are rising.
While the number of graduates at Manual has fluctuated over the last six years under Charter Schools USA’s management, the number of students leaving to home-school has more than tripled.
The other Indianapolis high school managed by Charter Schools USA, Howe, also saw a big increase in its graduation rate, accompanied by a large number of students leaving to home-school.
The graduation rate at Howe jumped to 92% last year, the highest rate in over a decade. But if students who left to home-school are included in the calculation, the rate could have dropped 17 percentage points. The school had 56 graduates, 14 students who left to home-school, and zero dropouts in the class of 2018, according to state records.
Of the 14 students who left Howe to home-school, 13 were seniors.
In an interview this spring, then-Howe Principal Lloyd Knight said school officials never suggest students withdraw, and many families are familiar with leaving to home-school as an option from prior schools.
When parents are cited for truancy, they will often withdraw their children to home-school to avoid having to go to court, said Knight, who left Howe this summer for a job with another Indianapolis charter network.
But Knight also said there are situations where it might be appropriate for a student to leave to home-school. “If a student is struggling with behavior at a mighty rate, and there are other interventions that have been put in place and things like that, there have been times when we say, ‘Hey, you know, home-school may be an option for you,’ †Knight said.
Reynolds, the Charter Schools USA spokeswoman, attributes the unusually large numbers of students leaving to home-school to the population of the schools. “unfortunately, ly have the highest number of students who either have been transferred to us from other institutions or who believe we are the last chance,†she wrote. “Usually this decision is made based on personal situations such as pregnancy or need to work to support the family.â€
But several campuses with comparable populations don’t report nearly as many students leaving to home-school as Howe and Manual. At nearby Arsenal Technical High School, 335 students graduated, 57 dropped out, and six left to home-school from the class of 2018. At Roosevelt High School, a campus in Gary that was taken over by the state at the same time as Howe and Manual, 51 students graduated, 36 dropped out, and three left to home-school.
Reynolds said Manual instituted a new policy this school year requiring parents to meet with an administrator before withdrawing their children to home-school. She said school leaders “recognized that there were some potential gaps†after meeting with state officials in light of a new law singling out schools with high numbers of students leaving to home-school.
It’s a pivotal time for both Manual and Howe. State oversight of the schools is coming to an end. And in a show of confidence in Charter Schools USA, the state board of education voted in March to instruct the company to seek charters that would allow it to continue running the campuses next year.
Although state education officials oversee the schools, state education board Chair B.J. Watts said he was not aware of how many students at Howe and Manual were leaving to home-school until Chalkbeat requested an interview for this story. He described the numbers as “alarming.â€
“That’s a big number, and we want to make sure that we understand what’s happening there,†Watts said.
As the schools pursue charters, however, they could draw new scrutiny. The large number of students leaving to home-school could cast doubts on the high schools’ improvement, said former Indiana schools Superintendent Glenda Ritz, a Democrat who campaigned against state takeover in 2012.
“They’ve been showing improvement on paper,†Ritz said. “But it doesn’t give a clear picture of, perhaps, what’s going on.â€
‘Our System Has Failed Them’
The number of Indiana students, particularly high school seniors, leaving to home-school has captured state lawmakers’ attention. A bill last legislative session would have changed graduation rates to count those students as dropouts.
“Our system has failed them,†said Rep. Bob Behning, an Indianapolis Republican who chairs the House Education Committee. “Their opportunities in life are going to be significantly diminished, especially when it comes to income, by not having a high school diploma.â€
Ultimately, however, lawmakers substantially weakened the bill. Home-schooling supporters don’t want families who provide a thorough education to be lumped in with those who let their children drop out of school. At the same time, traditional public school advocates are worried schools will be penalized when students leave to home-school, which could hurt the accountability grades of high schools.
Lawmakers instead approved a much narrower plan that requires high schools with large numbers of students leaving to home-school to demonstrate “good cause†to the state board before removing them from the graduation calculations. High schools with more than 100 students in the graduating class will face extra scrutiny if more than 5% left to home-school and those students are not on track to earn diplomas. For schools with 100 or fewer students in the graduating class, the threshold is 10%.
State officials are still working out how they will determine “good cause†and enforce the new law. But they say their intervention in schools is unlikely to include the kind of in-person interviews with students and parents that would reveal the experience behind the paperwork.
“At the end of the day, we are not going to interfere between a conversation or communication between a school guidance counselor and a parent or family,†said Ron Sandlin, senior director of school performance and transformation for the state board of education.
Instead, lawmakers and officials say they hope shining a light on the issue will be enough to deter any potential abuse and push communities to pay attention to how many students are leaving their high schools without diplomas.
Indiana’s legislation may be a politically palatable way to mitigate the problem, said Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, which conducts research and provides support for increasing graduation rates. But he believes focusing on whether schools fulfill paperwork requirements is not good enough.
“The state needs to really be invested in getting accurate measures of how many people are actually earning diplomas,†Balfanz said. “If our public education system is not graduating our kids positioned to support families, that undermines whole communities.â€
For Tyris, the future remains uncertain. When he turns 18 this fall, he plans to get a job in landscaping or working in a warehouse. And recently, he started talking about enrolling in a virtual school, which gave his mom a little burst of hope and pride. But he’s still far from graduating.
Charter Schools USA officials say school staff follows up with Manual students who leave to home-school to encourage them to finish school, whether at Manual or an alternative program.
Candy said she heard from the school several times during the summer break, but they weren’t checking in on Tyris.
They were calling to recruit her younger son, who was entering ninth grade.
VANDERBURGH COUNTY DEMOCRATS ANNUAL DINNER
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USI Runners Surge In Nationals Polls
University of Southern Indiana Men’s and Women’s Cross Country made big jumps in the first regular-season U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association Top 25 polls, which were released Wednesday afternoon.
The Screaming Eagles’ men jumped three spots from their preseason ranking to No. 8 in the latest USTFCCCA Top 25 poll, while the women moved up four spots to No. 12.
USI’s men rolled to a first-place finish at the Stegemoller Classic this past Friday evening at Angel Mounds. Junior Gavin Prior (Mattoon, Illinois) won the race as the Eagles recorded the top eight finishes and nine of the top 10 in the four-team, 57-competitor field.
Senior Jennifer Comastri (Indianapolis, Indiana) cruised to a first-place finish in the women’s race as the Eagles finished first in the four-team, 51-competitor field. USI recorded the top two finishers and had six runners in the top nine in a field that included defending Great Lakes Valley Conference champion University of Indianapolis.
USI returns to action September 28 when it competes at the Trevecca Division II Showcase in Nashville, Tennessee.
Deadline Approaching To Join Aces In The Bahamas
Trip Is Going On As Scheduled
With basketball season quickly approaching, Purple Aces fans have several unique opportunities coming up, including the chance to join the University of Evansville squad in the Bahamas in November.
The Bash in the Bahamas will be held in Nassau with three games taking place between November 22-24. Despite the damage caused to the Bahamas by Hurricane Dorian, the impact to Nassau was minimal and the tournament will go on as scheduled.
Two packages remain on sale for the Bash in the Bahamas with the final deadline to sign up and pay set for October 18. To join the team on the flight and utilize your own accommodations, the cost is $1,350 per person. This includes a direct flight from Evansville to the Bahamas on a private charter 737 jet. The flight leaves on Thursday, November 21 and returns on Monday the 25th.
As an added incentive, this package includes an all-session pass for the entire tournament, which features four games per day over the three days of the event.
A package is also available that includes the flight, all-session pass, and accommodations. This package features a 4-night stay at the Courtyard by Marriott Junkanoo Beach. Located in the heart of Nassau, the hotel just steps away from the beach. The hotel includes WIFI, two bar drinks and two bottles of water per room per day. A UE charter bus will also take fans from the hotel to the tournament for all three games. The cost of this package is $2,500 per person in a double occupancy room and $2,750 for a single.
The month of October will see a pair of events being held starting on October 10 with Hoopfest. Set for 6 p.m. inside Meeks Family Fieldhouse, the annual exhibition will feature the Aces men’s and women’s basketball teams. It includes contests, scrimmages, autographs and more. Adult admission is $5 with 100% of the proceeds benefitting the United Way with a check presentation taking place during the event. Children ages 12 and under are admitted free while the first 100 UE students who check-in that evening with the Purple Reign Rewards App will receive free admission.
A Tip-Off Dinner is set to take place on Oct. 17 at Rolling Hills Country Club in Newburgh. This exclusive event will feature a plated dinner, two drink tickets per person and the opportunity to preview the 2019-20 Aces men’s and women’s basketball seasons. Cost is $100 per plate. Men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes will join the guests at their table.
Administrator Wheeler Addresses National Automobile Dealers Association
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler addressed the National Automobile Dealers Association. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:
“Good morning, it’s a pleasure to be here today. I want to thank Peter Welch and Andy Koblenz for the opportunity to be here and to speak to you today.
In the very near future, the Trump Administration will begin taking the steps necessary to establish one set of national fuel-economy standards. I think it’s important to explain to you what we’re doing and why, because there will be a lot of misinformation in the press.
Let’s set the stage first because context and history are essential for this issue.
Only weeks before President Trump took office, the outgoing administration rushed through the Midterm Evaluation nearly a year and a half before it was due.
One of the first things we did was to reexamine the midterm evaluation. When we took another look at the MTE, we came at it from the mindset that there’s a point where efficiency and emissions gains come at the expense of other important factors, like human safety. We also realized the previous administration made assumptions about consumer demand and other factors – like the price of gasoline – that were wrong.
It’s no secret that the approach behind the current standards focused almost exclusively on energy efficiency and carbon dioxide reductions. Our proposed SAFE rule reflects what we believe is the right approach – right for public safety and the environment. I will give four reasons why.
First, revising the standards will reduce the price of new vehicles.
The average sticker price of a new vehicle reached $39,500 in the first half of 2019 – this is simply out of reach for many American families.
The current trajectory of the standards is one of the factors driving costs higher. In order to comply with the Obama standards, auto makers need to sell many more electric vehicles. By some counts, they will need to produce lineups that are 50 percent electric or more over the next seven years.
However, electric cars cost $12,000 more to make than the average vehicle, according to a McKinsey analysis. Those costs are passed on to consumers. Which is one reason why electric vehicles are still – despite billions of dollars in subsidies – less than 2 percent of new vehicle sales.
There is also some research that shows that nearly half of consumers who purchase an electric car do not buy another because of challenges with range and recharge times. But one way for auto makers to meet the standards is to lower the price of electric vehicles and raise the price of other, more popular vehicles, such as SUVs and trucks.
In other words, American families are paying more for SUVs and trucks so automakers can sell EVs at a cheaper price.
It’s one thing for the American public to directly subsidize electric vehicles through tax incentives. It’s another thing to use the nation’s vehicle emissions standards to prop up a product that has minimal impacts on the environment and only the wealthy can afford.
Of the roughly 57,000 households that received the EV tax credit in 2016, nearly 80 percent had at least a six-figure income. If these people want to buy an EV, I think they can afford one, without asking low- and middle-income Americans to help pay for it.
Compared to keeping the 2012 standards in place, the preferred option in our SAFE proposal would reduce the price of new vehicles by thousands of dollars.
Which leads directly to my second point: revising the standards and reducing the price of new vehicles will save lives.
Research shows that passengers are more likely to be killed in older vehicles compared to newer ones.
According to a NHTSA study, a driver of a vehicle that is 8 to 11 years old is nearly 20 percent more likely to be fatally injured than the driver of a vehicle that was 3 years old or less. A driver of a vehicle 12 to 14 years old is 32 percent more likely, and a driver of a vehicle 15 to 17 years old is 50 percent more likely to be fatally injured.
By revising the standards and reducing the price of new vehicles, we will help more Americans purchase newer and safer cars and trucks. In 2016 and 2017 – the two most recent years of data, more than 37,000 lives were lost on our roads. We estimate that our proposed revised standards in the SAFE rule could save hundreds of lives annually.
Third, we are revising the standards in a manner that will have a negligible impact on the environment compared to the current standards.
Here are two facts you will probably not get from the mainstream press.
First, even the most stringent vehicle standards imaginable will have only a minimal impact on global temperatures.
According to the Obama EPA’s 2012 analysis, even a much more stringent version of their rule than the one that they eventually finalized would have only lowered global temperatures by two-one hundredths of a degree Celsius by 2100.
So it’s important to put things in context. We’re talking about changes in the hundredths of a degree Celsius, in 2100, under a more aggressive scenario than what the previous administration actually finalized.
Here’s the second fact: Most automakers cannot comply with the trajectory of the current standards.
For Model Year 2016 (the most recent data available), domestic passenger vehicle manufacturers paid more than $77 million dollars for noncompliance with DOT’s CAFE standards.
And in Model Year 2017, most large manufacturers used banked credits, along with technology improvements, to maintain compliance with EPA’s greenhouse gas standards.
Only three large manufacturers complied based on the technology levels of their vehicles alone.
While the compliance penalty data for 2017 and 2018 is not yet available, the most recent DOT data on surplus credits and the magnitude of the shortfall between the fleet and CAFE compliance suggest that this figure may rise dramatically due to the increasing stringency of the Obama standards. For example, the total shortfall in CAFE credits for model year 2018 is the equivalent of almost $1.3 BILLION dollars, more than 10 times higher than the equivalent shortfall for model year 2011 (just over $100 million).
This begs the question: Why keep standards that automakers can only comply with through credits and fees? We believe that changes are needed, and the SAFE proposal set forth our view of what changes are appropriate.
And because our rule would remove certain credits and fees, our standards would have a negligible impact on the environment compared to the current standards.
Fourth, and finally, revising the standards will help more Americans purchase newer, cleaner, and safer cars.
The average age of vehicles on the road today is at a record high 12 years. In 1990, the average age was eight years.
Either consumers cannot afford the price of new vehicles or they are not interested in purchasing certain types of new vehicles. Either way, the lack of fleet turnover creates a host of problems – the most important of which is passenger safety.
By revising the standards, we will reduce the price of new vehicles. And as prices fall, more Americans will be able to purchase newer, cleaner, and safer cars. Promoting and accelerating fleet turnover is good for the auto industry, good for consumers, and good for public safety.
Before I close, I’d like to set the record straight on California.
Our goal from the beginning was a 50-state solution. I met with CARB three times since taking the helm of EPA over a year ago. But despite our best efforts, we could not reach a solution and decided to end discussions.
We embrace federalism and the role of the states, but federalism does not mean that one state can dictate standards for the nation.
To borrow from Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, CAFE does not stand for California Assumes Federal Empowerment.
So we will be moving forward with one national standard very soon. We will be taking joint action with the Department of Transportation to bring clarity to the proper – and improper – scope and use of the Clean Air Act preemption waiver.
Our actions will not impact California’s health-based standards and programs. California will be able to keep in place and enforce programs to address smog and other forms of air pollution caused by motor vehicles. This will allow the State to redouble its efforts to address its air quality problems and finally achieve compliance with EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
One national standard will provide much-needed regulatory certainty to auto makers, dealers, and consumers.
And it sets the stage for our final SAFE rule that will reduce the price of new cars and trucks and get more Americans into newer, cleaner, and safer vehicles – vehicles they actually want to purchase.
17th Annual “Funk In The City”
September 21st, Haynie’s CornerThis weekend, head down to Haynie’s Corner for the
17th Annual Fall Funk in the City!
Join us as for a fabulous day of art, featuring over 80 artists from around the region and multiple states! The art festival will also feature food vendors to satisfy your hunger, live music and more!
Admission is $5 and kids are free! Rain or shine event!