Obama ignores science & Back from the Brink?

Obama ignoring science:

President Obama's push to force Americans into smaller cars ignores one big problem -- small cars are less safe than big cars. Ignoring this fact will cost lives.

Mr. Obama announced new miles-per-gallon regulations on May 19 that mandate that automobiles achieve 42 mpg by 2016. During last year's presidential campaign, Mr. Obama's Web site boasted that his positions on fuel economy were "science-based." Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, said on Jan. 15 that efforts "to reduce global warming and our dependence on foreign oil ... must be based on the science ...." Apparently, this faith in science does not apply to the science of auto safety.

The scientific evidence on car size and safety is overwhelming. The National Academy of Sciences, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Congressional Budget Office, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and numerous academic studies are all in agreement on this point: Higher miles-per-gallon requirements lead to more deaths from car accidents . . .

On May 12, the White House withdrew the nomination of Chuck Hurley to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Mr. Hurley had a long record of backing hyperregulation as chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and as a board member of the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running. Environmental groups reportedly opposed his nomination because he had said that increased Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards made cars less safe. Contradicting environmentalist orthodoxy carries a price.

A May 13 headline in the National Journal explained the politics of Mr. Hurley's political demise: "Enviros Forced NHTSA Nominee to Withdraw." This saga shows that even proponents of the nanny state take a back seat to greens in the Obama administration..

From the Washington Times:

President Obama declared Wednesday that "we have stepped back from the brink." Who knows what numbers brought him to that conclusion.

Fundamental economic statistics are worse than they were months ago. Any growth economists were predicting in December and January to start in midyear is expected to be weaker.

Consumer confidence and the stock market have been rising, but that is because the president and the press are no longer misleadingly bashing the economy and now are misleadingly cheering things on. Lawrence H. Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, was right when he said on March 13 that an "excess of fear" had driven down the economy and the stock market, but it was Mr. Obama who led the pack getting people to panic. For months, he hammered away that the economy was in an "unprecedented crisis." . . . .