Rick Wagoner Quotes

Everyone would have bigger and safer cars if they didn't have those CAFE standards: corporate average fuel economy.

The war on driving includes calls for carbon and gas taxes, tens of billions of gas tax money diverted to inefficient and little-used mass transit projects, and opposition to building new roads and highways.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

The gasoline tax is a user fee, but it does not fill enough of the need, and you want cars to be more efficient.

I have advocated an entirely different approach than cap and tax, which would be worldwide in application and which emphasizes technology as a way of reducing total emissions.

Motorists who want to save money on gas will demand and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. We should not limit their freedom with more government regulations.

Unlike fuel-economy standards, the most common method of reducing demand for oil over the past thirty years, a gas tax doesn't tell people what kind of car to drive. It simply raises the price of gasoline and lets people adjust their behavior accordingly.

The gas tax has been the backbone of the transportation system since the inception of the Interstate highway system in the 1950s.

People don't want to give up their SUVs. They don't want to turn the thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer.

One of the things we worry about when we cut the tax on gasoline is that it basically stimulates additional use.

If we were driving pure hydrogen automobiles, that automobile would actually help clean up the air because the air coming out of the exhaust would be cleaner than the air going into the engine intake.

The European auto industry made a commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 140 grams per kilometer. But then there was a significant change in what customers wanted in their vehicles.

The whole purpose of CAFE standards is to make cars more efficient that people are actually buying.

Part of what the carbon tax does is make Canada less competitive.

Switching over to a hybrid car is one of those right things, but, unfairly or not, it still has a reputation among car enthusiasts as something you have to pedal really fast when you're on the ramp merging into traffic on the 401.

If you tell people, 'that old banger of yours, we're going to tax the hell out of it,' they'll rightly tell you to get lost. But if you tell people that when they next buy a car, the tax will be adjusted so that the cleanest ones will cost less and the polluting ones will cost more, most people would say 'fair enough.'

Many scientists and economists also say putting a price on carbon through carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade is necessary.

Cuts in carbon emissions would mean significantly higher electricity prices. We think the American consumer would prefer not to be skinned by Obama's EPA.

Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored companies.

The country needs a gas tax.... That's good for the country.... What's good for the country is good for Chrysler.

We should tax what we burn, not what we earn.

We could live in a much better society if there was less personal car ownership.

By taxing CO2, firms and households would have an incentive to retrofit for the world of the future. The tax would also provide firms with incentives to innovate in ways that reduce energy usage and emissions - giving them a dynamic competitive advantage.

Many retailers have complained bitterly to me about the complexity of the Carbon Reduction Commitment. It's not a commitment; it's a tax.

I believe those that produce the least emissions in autos will also be those who have the greatest success worldwide.