There’s a Senate bill going through the motions (or at least gearing up to), that would give Texas drivers extra incentives to purchase low-emission cars, rather than keeping up with older vehicles. This is pretty similar to what the governor (Rick Perry) was talking about last month.

Basically, it comes down to the state offering us Houstonians and San Antonians money to switch out from our older rides into newer ones for a yet to be determined amount of money. I’m thinking that the amount would be somewhat substantial, but an amount dependent on your specific location and current model of car. Both republicans and democrats alike are supporting this bill and at this point it does seem that the initiative has enough support behind it to go all… the… way.

As you’d imagine, environmental advocacy groups are in high spirits in regards to the aforementioned. You can bet that there would be a world of local liberal outcry if this falls through, but realistically I think the vast majority of folks simply don’t care. Enough of us, particularly young people just starting out, have enough hassle just keeping our cars and trucks running smoothly. Although monetary compensation for an upgrade is a positive, it’s such for only a small percentage of Texans.

When you think about who has enough money to thrown around for a new car at any time (whenever the bill will potentially pass), it boils down some in the older, well-to-do crowd. Boil this down ever further into who would truly want a low emissions vehicle over their current preferred choice of vehicular self-image, and you find yourself with a small percentage of the well-to-do liberal-leaning folks.

I’m all for forward thinking and doing what we realistically can to help out with our environmental issues but I’m just not seeing too much potential with this. Do you feel I’m being a bit too cynical, or do you agree that perhaps there are indeed more down-to-earth (forgive the pun) solutions to decreasing city and state-wide vehicle emissions?