Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 07-23-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Morning news and opinion into Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric Peters at Ep Autos dot com with the Review of the ELectric Microbus, should there be a cap on collision insurance liability? other news and views.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling dot com. Here's Bill Meyer. 11 minutes after six. So glad to have you here on Wheels Up Wednesday. Going to be great conversation with Eric Peters. And I'm looking forward to talking more with him about the ID.

Is it the ID buzz or whatever? And anyway, it's the buzz about the electronic, the electric Volkswagen micro bus which, you know, even let me tell you, we'll just say it. I mean it looks really good and it seems to drive really well but is it gonna be one of these sustainable kind of motoring investments? I don't know. It's like about, you know, 60, $65,000 if you want it completely loaded. Now, you know, even back in the day, you know, the Vanagon was a relatively expensive vehicle. You know, my 1982 Vanagon, the elderly ancestor of this new Volkswagen, but they were even expensive compared to

American ones but I think it had to do more with with tariffs or maybe it could have been the exchange rate you know the value of the German dollar it was always it was always more expensive to buy the Volkswagen in the 1980s I remember that part about it but we'll see what Eric has to say about this but we'll have that coming up also this morning. Brian Boutel is going to be joining me from the Gospel Rescue Mission in Grants Pass. We're going to catch up on the Mission Village Project. I wanted to kind of touch in on the homelessness projects that are underway here in southern Oregon, especially focusing on the ones that are taking

care of elderly, people who are elderly, no family, and having some problems because there's a lot of that. It's been a big growing problem here in southern Oregon and we have these various ministries that are working hard to take care of it. And Gospel Rescue Mission is doing this program in Grants Pass. I think it's called Mission Village, I believe is what it is. And we'll get a catch-up with Brian on this one. Now, the big national, and I'm sorry, not the big national, but the big state story is that Governor Tina Kotec has announced a special session to raise taxes. Of course, they call it in the Oregonian, securing additional transportation dollars. Yeah, it's raising your taxes. And they weren't able to

pull this off before the regular session, six months, six months, all that. And they weren't able to pull this off before the regular session. Six months, six months with all that and they couldn't make it happen or almost six months or whatever. And so ODOT supposedly $350 million in the hole, yada, yada, yada. And I guess supposedly reconvening to pass a package, lawmakers will ensure that nearly 500 state transportation agency workers who got layoff notices this month can keep their jobs. So that is what is the latest. A state agency with 5,000 employees that doesn't really build freeways any longer, but it's happy to build, I guess, what, routeabouts and bicycle paths. We need 5,000. All 5,000 are great.

Oh, and if we are going to lay off 500 people, 10% of the workforce, we're going to make sure and lay off the ones that you actually see. People who work hard and actually plow the roads, which are actually useful individuals here. Yeah, yeah. But this is the way they always do this stuff. It's just like when it's time to shut down the government in Washington, D.C., we're closing the Washington Monument. Every tourist trap. The Smithsonian is closed. Well, frankly, given how woke they are, unless Trump gets control of that,

I think people would be better educated not going and listening to the Smithsonian people. But I digress, all right. Anyway, so we'll see what happens. They want to do this Labor Day weekend. They want to call the Democrats and the Republicans back to the state house, the state legislature, for a special session, Labor Day weekend. August 29th is when they want to start this. Now, what I'm wondering, and I opined on this last night on Facebook, is whether or not this could even happen if the Republicans were just to stay away. I know you're saying, Bill, they have to be there to do their job.

Measure 113 passed by the stupid voters. Yes, it was passed by a certain percentage of the stupid voters, even though I was imploring you not to. But the quorum power is still there. If the Republicans don't show up, the way I understand it, if the Republicans don't show up, and I mean all the Republicans, and that means even the Cyrus, Javadie, the Rhino squishes up, and even Kevin Maddox, they'd have to stay away. If they stayed away, they couldn't gavel in. And if they don't gavel in, there wouldn't be

unexcused absences. So the Republicans could actually have an influence on whether or not this special session actually even starts. I'm going to talk with State Representative Dwayne Younger about that. I want to find out if my numbers are correct on that. And he's going to join me after 8 o'clock this morning, junkyard Dwayne. Okay. So we got him coming up. Patent attorney, intellectual property attorney, Christian Roberts is going to join me too, because there's an interesting case that is moving forward. Federal judge ruled that three authors have been suing an artificial intelligence company for copyright infringement. Because essentially, AI is, you know, what we're told here is it's a matter of national security

that anything anybody has ever done, whether it is your books, your information, your music, whatever it is, must be fed into the Big Brother AI so that, I think ostensensibly so that the high-tech bros can make lots of money and I guess replace jobs with with robotics and AI. I don't know. There's all sorts of ways we can parse this. But anyway, the authors and the content creators, the people out there, people who actually have copyright, start to fight back. And Kristen Roberts is a great attorney on these matters. And I always enjoy our conversations.

It's a good talk on the law. And she'll be wrapping up the show this morning, around 8.30, we'll get her in here. All right, besides the special session, let's see, speaking of big deficits, RVTD is going to vote tonight. They're getting together in their board of directors meeting. Tonight's going to be going on.

KOBI 5 reporting that 82 RVTD employees, of course, got layoff notices last month. And that's supposed to happen September 2. And it was federal funding freezes that started in April, which ended up making this problem happen. What was really interesting though, is that COBE reporting that RVTD was already

in the hole $10 million between now and the next year, and was already looking at having to make cuts to service. Now, the latest federal funding freezing, I believe has to do with sanctuary state kind of stuff. Your sanctuary state, Trump administration is not looking as pleasantly onto sending more money. And there was talk that there were even some RVTD, non-emergency transport, I don't know if it's Valley Lift or something else involved with them.

I'm doing a little spitballing on this one, on this particular comment. But some listeners have been writing me saying that some of their services for disabled have been cut back. Transportation services provided through RVTD. And reportedly, it's because of Oregon not not keeping illegal immigrants from getting some of these services. That's what it's all about. Because we just talk about

Oregonians. Oregonians are created just by magically being here, according to state law, in the way we tend to look at this. Everybody who is an Oregonian who just happens to be breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide is a magic, is a magic Oregon citizen. That's the way they tend to look at it, right? But yeah, it's having some real issues. But even before then, RVTD was in the hole. And that's even with our transportation district giving them a pretty good chunk of money. But they've been working at expanding it. And it shows though, once again,

how unsustainable public transit, at least in the current model, is. Is the job about moving people from point A to point B? Or is it about having people piloting around half million dollar hybrid electric buses? I think they're about a half million dollars. They're very expensive. Federal government has been writing the checks for those mostly, and it appears that that gravy train is pretty close to being gone. I'd be curious, what is RVTD, what will even Josephine Transit have to do when they no longer can consider the lifespan of a Transit bus? What is it, eight to 12 years? That's all they think that a Transit bus, and they cost about a half million a piece, eight to 12 years, depending on which agency you talk to.

And then after that, oh, it's just junk needs to be sold off to some nonprofit to serve as homelessness camps. I'm just kidding with you about that, but who knows? Another interesting story also kind of down this, the same federal government deal, it hasn't received a lot of play yet. New York Times reported this story and it just kind of went by unnoticed. But it's a big deal. The Trump administration has drafted a plan, I'm reading from their news release yesterday, Trump administration has drafted a plan to repeal a fundamental scientific finding that gives the

United States government its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The proposed EPA rule rescinds a 2009 declaration. Now this 2009 declaration, the New York Times people of course look at as the scientific law and truth, but this was one of those rules that the EPA just created and said that it's an endangerment finding which specifically establishes that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives. That finding is the foundation of the federal government's only tool to limit the climate pollution

from vehicles, power plants, and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet. Yes, the same carbon dioxide, which was four to five times higher, a number of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years ago too. And somehow the planet survived although it was a lot greener back in those days and a lot more plants grow. But you know we're not supposed to talk about that only that carbon dioxide and methane will kill us all. Now sometimes if it's human-produced methane and it's you know in your bedroom or in the house with a friend you know letting loose yes it sometimes it feels like it could be in danger of your health but I don't know this could completely knock the stuffing out of

everything that has been shoved down from the federal of federal cloaca plopping out on us about climate change, climate change, climate change, because they were conflating once again carbon dioxide and inert gas necessary for plant growth and necessary for the survival of humanity. They were equating that to a poison. They were equating that to or conflating it with something which is a real pollution, let's say, such as nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen oxides are a problem.

You know, and they've really done a good job over the years of knocking a lot of that stuff out, and because of the acid rain potential of it. But that's just it. The EPA has cleaned up a whole lot of stuff and they've done a reasonably good job, frankly, over the years that now it's like, okay, well, the job's never over. What can we do? Everything's never clean enough. So they had to go to this. They had to go to this. And the Trump administration is looking to completely blow that rule out to smithereens. And if the Trump administration is successful in repealing the carbon dioxide is a poison rule which has enabled the EPA and I'm sure the DEQ will continue to do this even if the EPA doesn't but if the Trump administration pulls this out they really are you know

pulling the the rug out from underneath the gang green grift. And I hope that they do this. And needless to say, the New York Times and their breathless reporting, which I was reading from, is on the other side of that argument, but they can't prove that argument. Just a nice theory, along with a lot of other scientific theories out there. This is the Bill Meyers Show on KMED. Hi, this is Dr. Emily Sander with the Well Integrative Wellness Center.

You do. Seven, three, zero. This is Randall with Advanced Air, and I'm on KMED. 625, Eric Peters joins me in about 10 minutes for our great Wheels Up Wednesday talk. I sent him an article, I don't know if he had a chance to read it yet, I'm gonna talk with him about it.

There's a guy that took this really expensive vintage Porsche, gutted it and turned it into an EV. And they're actually trying to sell these to rich people now that this is the sustainable way to have a collectible car. So you take this, that's amazingly expensive, collectible Porsche and you take out everything that makes it a Porsche and you turn it into a device. But yeah, that's the craziness, I guess. This will be the new electronic art. Just wild. But we'll kick around that in the new Volkswagen review and a bunch more here on Wheels Up Wednesday. Thomas here. Tom, you wanted to weigh in. I was mentioning New York Times had reported

a big story, which actually I think is a big story, which looks like the Trump administration is looking to kick out the carbon dioxide is a threat to humanity and life on the planet rule that the EPA has been operating under for the last 16 years or so. Yeah, and that of course is being refuted by the Rogue Valley Times, whose lead editorial is, a climate bill will protect public workers' foster growth. And it's just this whole big long spew about how dangerous climate change crisis is and fossil fuels and so forth and so on.

And they're basically, the article is commending Jill Steiner, the secretary of treasury, for really getting into the Climate Investment Act that they've passed. So my biggest question is, how can we refute this nonsense? The Rogue Valley Times won't publish anything I send in to them. And people just out there looking at this, they have no idea that the Rogue Valley Times is just another communist rag that's warping the viewpoints of its citizens and so forth.

How in the world can we counteract the stupidity and I'd say almost diabolical insanity of the Rogue Valley Times? uh... insanity at the broke out a time to consider they're really anti uh... rogue valley there and tight people anti science or and k uh... what's best for the community and so forth there basically uh... uh... i i i thought the band organization tom you know i get that though but isn't that a lot of the uh... of the media world people would call me a propaganda

operation to but at least i i say that my opinion is my opinion, but their opinion ends up being promoted as fact. That's nothing new about this, but you gotta understand this is the church. They are true. I honestly believe they are true believers, true believers in this cause. And there are certain just blind spots within the left. And I don't know if it comes into a human self-loathing. Carbon dioxide that would naturally come out of the ocean because of warming trends, because of warming cycles, that's good carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide that comes out because of warming cycles, that's good carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide that comes out of your water heater, that's bad. The human version of it's bad somehow.

But it is kind of a self-loathing thing, wouldn't you say? I wouldn't say it's just anti-Rome Valley, but it's just a... Would misandry be the proper term? You got me there, Bill, because I have no idea why people can't put a scientific question on the table, look at it from all different sides, and come up with a scientific, a logical conclusion. They're not doing that. Instead, it's all this believing in authoritarian dictates to some bureaucrat that has no idea what's going on or why they're doing it. You know, there's like two camps. There's people who are at the top who are deliberately putting out misinformation

and then they have all the clones and I probably would put the Rogue Valley Times in that category of just being the stooges. Yeah, exactly. I don't look at them personally in the people that that push this I don't look at them personally as bad people. I don't I look at them as just misguided and wrong Is the way I tend to look at it and and the thing is I think what will help in is you see look What are they doing? They're praising the grift, right? All of the climate resiliency What are they doing? They're praising the grift, right? All of the climate resiliency investments, which means taxpayer money going to pay for overly expensive stuff that won't generate much power. Our money is going to fight it.

Yeah, I know. I get this. Something tells me though that when you have this situation, if the Trump administration kicks out this linchpin, the entire linchpin which ends up driving that climate resiliency act kind of money grift might be going away. And there's already been a number of clawbacks of other billions of dollars and of course a lot of other rescissions need to be made too. And I guess I don't know how you convince them other than to not give them money. How about that? That's boy. That's that's something that would be you know a local papers really good thing. They It's it's very sorry to see them

Being so they won't even take any of my submissions and and so forth It can only be on their side and so forth. One other point here is that also in the paper there's a story about how the Trump administration, this refutes what you're saying, but all the postal service trucks are going to next year are in process of being converted to all-electric, which is going to cost us all kinds of money to have this very inefficient service done to us. That's why our stands are going up.

All right, all right, all right. I just wanted to ask you though, what the local trucks, because I was talking with a local mail carrier the other day because she was driving one of those old Cushmans that have been reliable, but they are kind of pokey and also they're inefficient by today's standards, right? They're very old design, but they've got tons of them around here. And she told me that they were replacing them with newer vehicles, but they were coming,

but she didn't say anything about them being electric. I wasn't aware of that. Well, we'll take a look at what do you see rolling down the street but yeah that's but you know when they the thing about this whole climate crisis crap is is that it is really hitting us in the pocketbook you know they close down the coal plant and electric bills are going up and they're going to keep skyrocketing and so forth. Yeah, the one thing I will say just to be gentle on the postal service in this particular issue of all the services out there that could actually take advantage of the advantages

of electric powered vehicles, I think the mail service actually works because they go on a rapid stop and go kind of situation. So you have regenerative braking. They're on fixed routes for the most part, and they all go back to the same hive at night. And I would say of all the kind of services that could probably benefit and make that pencil, especially when it comes to fuel costs and everything else, EV might work for the Postal Service, even if they are a little more expensive. Just saying, okay? Here's the question though, well do you have to take that vehicle, stay in the middle of the day and go back and recharge it? We

don't know how long that... I mean if you can drive it all day and do the deliveries and then charge it up overnight, that's one thing. Yeah, I think that probably would be the case. You look at, I mean even the the least vehicle has about 90 to 100 miles and I'm sure that's probably more than your typical Cushman is driving around Medford or Grand Spass each day. But hey, conversation for another time. We got to get to Eric here in just a minute, okay? So we'll continue to chew on that, Tom, but thank you for the call. Okay. All right. All right, Tom from Talon. It is a 6 33 rest of the news coming

up and then wheels off with Eric. If you're searching for a property with a well, don't make a decision without a well flow test from Siskiyou pump service. Well flow testing is necessary. Or they call you. Visit MontanaRoofingServices.com. You're here in the Bill Myers show on 1063 KMED. 638 Ozzie's gone but we love him. Ozzie passed away yesterday 76. I didn't realize he was that close. They had that big send-off, the big fundraising concert a couple of weeks ago. Did you see any of that, Eric? Eric Peters was with me. I did. I'm sad to see Ozzy gone, but I'm going to be very happy when the paperweight that's sitting in my driveway goes later today. Okay, the paperweight in your driveway. What would that be? By the way, Eric Peters is an automotive journalist at epautos.com and we have a Wheels Up

Wednesday every day. So which wheels are stuck in the sand over on your Virginia property? Well, it's 6,000 pounds of Airzats VW micro bus. I refer to the electrified version of it, the modern incarnation, which Volkswagen christened the ID Buzz, which is a name I unable not yet been able to decrypt and the reason it at that it's a paperweight is because they didn't give me a charge cord so i can't charge the thing and i attempted to charge it twice at fast chargers downtown in roanoke the problem was one of the the fast charger kiosk places was completely coupled they were doing something to it the other one would not

accept my credit cards plural six of them i tried six different credit cards to try to get the thing to work and they demanded that i download an app on my phone which i'm just not willing to do i don't want them to have access to my phone or anything else but alone my bank account so i creeped the thing home and managed to get there with about eighty nine miles of indicated range remaining and that's just enough for the driver, poor guy, when he comes to pick it up to figure

out how he's going to put some charge in it to take it back to the press pool. All right. I do have to ask you about this. How much was the ID buzz that Volkswagen sent to you? It starts just literally $5 shy of $60,000. So it starts at $60,000. So it starts at $60,000. Now, I would imagine there are still some federal tax grift and also state tax grift. There's probably a bundle into these now to reduce the cost. I don't know if that's that way. No, they're not eligible any longer. So you've

got to pay the full freight for it. And that might be why Volkswagen wants $645 extra for a freaking charge cord. Which it bores me because the one thing that they put out there as a benefit to owning an electric vehicle is, oh, you don't have to stop at a gas station anymore. You can just plug it in overnight and it'll be ready to go the next day. Well, that's great, but if you don't have a charger, you can't do it. It just astounds me that in a $60,000 vehicle, A, the charging cord would be $646, and B, they wouldn't give you one. And what, just assuming that you're going to be charging at public fast chargers all the time, which would not be good for the battery.

Right, but that's the assumption. And I think that they're trying to nudge people into doing that for some reason, which I don't get. Because even if you are able to use these things, it still means you've got to go there. It still means you're not at home. It still means you're going to have to sit there for at least 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes to get a partial charge. Most people don't want to do that. Like the main thing is, hey, you know, I can drive my EV and when I get home in the evening, I'll plug it in, I'll be charged up in the morning, and I can go. That's like the big attraction. And by you know taking away the charge cord you've taken away the biggest attraction. And to do this you

need one of those almost like what a another electric dryer circuit to be able to do this properly, right? Well not necessarily. You can plug in to any household 120 volt standard three-prong outlet. If you want to do it, they call it level two, then you do need the doubled up 240 volt outlet. But still, that's not that big a deal. The big deal, I think, is that they're charging you extra for something that amounts to a conventional vehicle manufacturer charging you extra for tires. Here's your car, but if you want some tires, they're going to cost you X for tires. Like here's your car but if you want if you want some tires they're gonna cost you X dollars more. By the way if you would like a seat in there that's also extra charge too. Yeah and you know the icing

on the cake is that they did this to me and not just me, other journalists. But they also realize that you've had doubts about the EV juggernaut that has been force-fed into people and sent you a car without a charging cable. Well, yeah, I mean think about that. Okay, so yeah, they know I have doubts, so they want to amplify the doubts. You know, by putting me in the position, I don't live in the city. I don't live near a fast charger. So it's highly inconvenient for me to have to interrupt my day and my work to go sit somewhere at a fast charger, even assuming it works. But the other aspect of this is the force

feeding of the fast charger and then you go to the fast charger and the fast charger requires that you download an app that you have a cell phone that you have credit cards so there's no ability to actually charge an electric vehicle by just going someplace and having cash and giving cash to it somehow? No, no. Cash is out of the question, which is interesting because there's no reason they couldn't do that. There are all sorts of machines that accept cash. Everybody knows that. They just decided they didn't want to. Now the first superficial reason is simply because they're greedy because if they did have to accept, if they had cash accepting

kiosks, then they'd have to send a guy out there to collect the cash and then that guy would have to take the cash to a bank and it'd have to be counted and processed. And I get that. That costs money. But it's not even that. I think ultimately what they're trying to do is nudge and push us into this digitized cash-free type of purchasing where they know everything that you do and they can control

everything that you do and they can control everything that you do. Other than the fact that, well, you know, they didn't give you a charge card, a charge cord or anything else with this, what could you tell me about the modern incarnation of the so-called micro bus? Because the micro bus was kind of a, you know, kind of all clunky, every person's kind of vehicle and it had a cult following. People loved them in the day. Well the interesting thing is they're playing on nostalgia for the microbus in terms of the visuals. When you look at it, it is a happy-looking thing. People do look at it and they look at it favorably. The problem is beyond that, it's exactly the opposite of everything

that the microbus was. The micro bus was very affordable. Almost anybody could get one. It was very simple, very basic. It was a vehicle that could be serviced by the owner. Now you're looking at something that starts at $60,000, which automatically puts it out of reach of all the affluent people among us. Not very practical. It has 234 miles maximum best-case range, which isn't very far. You know that isn't very far for something like that. My PT Cruiser, even in around town driving, gets about 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, 300, vehicles the indicated range the advertised range is often a lot less than the range that you actually get in real-world driving than the secondary factor is you have to keep something in reserve just as a practical matter because of all of this this problem these problems that you've got with the infrastructure you don't know whether you're going to be able to get a fast

charge you'll think oh I'm going to my usual station but what if it's not open you know what if there's some glitch? And then you're stuck. It's not like a gas-powered car. You run out, well, no big deal. There's a gas station a mile down the road. I'll walk down there and get some gas and be on my way. It's a hassle, but it's a minor hassle.

With EVs, it can be a massive hassle if you run out of charge. To be fair, though, isn't this been the reason why the governments and the various controllers, the world improvers, haven't tried to force feed the electric charging agenda everywhere to try to kickstart that, so to speak? No pun intended. No question. The problem is it's not the same thing as a gas station. You can build a gas station literally anywhere because you can truck the fuel to a gas station,

put it in the underground tanks. It's much more difficult to do it with these EV fast chargers because they have to be physically connected to high voltage electricity. You can't just put one out somewhere. You have to have the other infrastructure available to provide the electricity. That's why they're pretty much limited to urban areas and places along interstate highways. What was your impression of the actual dri driveability of this Volkswagen? I would imagine it was pretty peppy. Very peppy.

My 82 Vanigen camper, I believe, is 48 seconds from zero to 60, right? Yes, I exaggerated a little bit in my review. I pointed out that the original microbus took about 60 seconds to get to 60, and that's not far off. This one gets to 60 in about six seconds. So it's very quick. It's very comfortable. And of course, unlike the

original, this thing has AC, you know, and it also has heat that actually works. The problem is if you use either of those things, your range is going to go down even farther. And then I found out something that I thought was just hilarious. As I'm looking through the vehicle, I popped open the glove box and I sent you a picture of this. You remember that little, the fan that I showed you? glove box and I sent you a picture of this. You remember that little fan that I showed you? Yes. They give you a handheld battery powered fan which I suppose you're supposed to use when you don't want to use the AC because you don't want to lose too much range. Okay, here's your fan. Okay, what is the next

thing? Do they give you some of those little, you know those little warmie things that they sell in the camping stores that have... Oh yeah, like the warm mitts. I didn't see any. Put them under your seat so you don't have to use the seat warmer in the wintertime. The real tragedy though is that it's a good-looking little vehicle and not so little vehicle, but you know if they had made it with a conventional powertrain, my god if they had been able to put one of their great TDI engines in the thing, you know you'd have a cool little Latter-day microbus that probably would have gone 600 miles on a tank, and they probably could have built the thing and sold it at a profit

for around 35-40,000 bucks. Interesting. And what if they had a TDI engine in it and a hybrid system? Even a hybrid system would have probably helped. And you would have had some great mileage out of that maybe, huh? Yep yep you know at the end of the day this is going to be a disaster for Volkswagen I think because regardless of how you feel about electricity and electrically powered vehicles there are only so many people out there who have $60,000 on the low end to purchase a vehicle. Okay now what is the high end on this if you have 60,000 is the low end for the micro bus the electric micro bus what's the high end on this? If 60,000 is the low end for the microbus, the electric microbus, what's the high end?

Oh yeah, well over 70,000. If you get the dual motor setup, which they call 4Motion, and a little more power and some other amenities, you're at $70,000, $75,000. It's a rich person's car. There are only so many rich people. It's not a matter of it being electric. It's about the money. They just are not going to sell very many of them.

And then you factor into that, but it's also just not a very practical vehicle, and it hurts it even more. Okay. Well, I wanted to hear what was going to be going on with the new microbus because everyone was making buzz. It was making buzz in the world. Now, I'll be right back with you here in just a minute, Eric. And if anybody had a question about a car maybe they're looking at or some other issue involving being out on the open road, call in, 770-5633-77-OK-MED. And before I go to the break, what are you going to review for next week? Just curious. Yeah, we've got a Santa Fe hybrid coming.

And I can't wait because I'll actually be able to drive the thing. Okay, yeah, and you're not going to have to worry about the range, will you? Yep. All right. We'll see you then, Eric. Hang on. Firefighters, it's that. D, this is the Bill Meyers Show. And it's Wheels Up Wednesday. We. All right. We'll see you then, Eric. Hang on. Firefighters. It's that. This is The Bill Meyers Show. And it's Wheels Up Wednesday. We're talking transportation. Interesting review

there of the Volkswagen microbus there. And I guess next week it's going to be the Santa Fe. So we'll look forward to that then. Hey, I wanted to talk about an article that you wrote up a couple of days ago, and it was the insurance cost crucible. And I think this brought up a really good point. We have kind of touched in, we have touched on this off and on over the years though. And it has to do with one of the greatest threats for us being able to drive our own vehicles and to not have to go into the sustainable development globalist 15-minute city model of getting around has been the soaring cost of automobile and truck insurance and van insurance and it's required by state law and the premiums

have been soaring. I've been able to work some pretty good deals through my own agent Steve Yancey but we're required to do this. We're required to have this because of the actual government laws that do this, we're required to have this because of the actual government laws that do this. The problem is though, is that other government laws have been helping make the insurance more expensive. It's interesting when you go down the rabbit hole. What did you find out? Well, yeah, they're using this as a tool

to push people, particularly people who live modestly or simply don't have the means to live above modestly out of out of cars by making the insurance so expensive that they essentially have to give it up because legally you can't keep and drive a car if you don't have insurance and what's been happening over the past several years is that as everybody knows the cost of new cars has gone through the roof about fifteen thousand dollars we've got a lot of these of these EVs come onto the market and even ordinary cars now are extraordinarily expensive to repair if they're damaged. In fact I think that I heard an article yesterday that the Mitsubishi Mirage is

the very last vehicle that will be available for under $20,000 at this point in time. Everything else is more expensive. That's right. And even it, it has these compound LED type headlights that can cost hundreds of dollars. So what happens is people buy these cars. They choose to buy them, frankly, and then they have an accident or somebody hits them and the cost of that is very, very high. Now you and I didn't choose to buy one of these things yet because the

unity of the argument is well we might hit one of them and because we might hit one of them we therefore have to pay higher premiums i think that's a little outrageous i think one of the reforms that might help it'll never happen of course because they don't want this would be to cap the liability about thirty thousand dollars so in other words if a person chooses to buy a vehicle uh... with price tag higher than $30,000, well, any liability beyond that, that would be on them. You know, it's I think

reasonable to say, okay, you know, me, you know, if I hit you, all right, I'm going to pay for a certain amount, but not just open-ended amount because you went out and decided to buy a $50,000, $100,000 car. Well, yeah. Well, you think about that and let's say someone is in an F-150 or whatever it is, and then you end up hitting a Tesla Cybertruck. And you end up, maybe you dent a panel to the point where it catches on fire. Things like that happen.

We know about that part in the electric vehicle world. I'm just using this as an example, right? And the point is, is that they're fragile, they have problems. You have a vehicle which is a very modest value and you cover yourself and that is just fine. But you have to have enough juice to be able to cover their purchase. And I agree with you wholeheartedly and now I can understand to an extent the need for liability insurance that you have some liability and you know if there is some I can almost go with the government on this but needless to say that part is there. This idea that you should have to make the the most expensive vehicles in the world or whatever it might be that whoever chooses a hole it strikes me that if you choose those kind of vehicles you

should have skin in the game about ensuring the property value of that vehicle in my opinion. Well I think so too what they've done is to separate you know the the checks and balances you know somebody who goes out and buys a very extravagant vehicle you know like this this somebody who goes out and buys a very extravagant vehicle, you know, like this, this ID bus goes out and spends $75, $80,000 on the thing. You know, they get to offload some of the portion of the cost, including hypothetical costs, not even actual ones, on people who, who are really trying to live within their means, you know, who don't want to buy a $75,000 or $80,000 vehicle and can't afford it. They're just trying to keep their vehicle, you know, they're, their old truck in my case, you know, something like that.

Yeah, someone's driving the 2005 Toyota Camry and just eking it out, but their insurance has to be able to cover the cost of replacing a cyber truck or more, right? Of course, and we're going to get to a point where it's no longer just a matter of grumbling about it. It's going to be a matter of, I can't do this anymore. You know, you get to the point where an average person, a working class, middle class person is looking at paying several thousand dollars a year for a basic liability policy on a vehicle that maybe is worth six or seven thousand dollars. It's not, as they say, sustainable.

Indeed. All right. I think that's a good article. It's the insurance cost crucible on epautos.com. Is this something which would have to be done federally or could states do this on a local basis? That's a good question. I don't know off the top of my head.

I don't think this is a federal matter. I think that states could do something on their own. There might be a parallel here. What is it, the Proposition 18 thing in California with regard to the the property taxes is it 18 or 13? I can't remember exactly which one it was. I can't either. But you know what I mean? They passed a law limiting the extent to which the insurance mafia can raise the cost of the property tax thing and how much they can do that and maybe this is something along those lines that they could do.

Yeah, I think it would be a good idea to cap the damage liability, the property liability, on someone's other vehicle. Because accidents will happen. We are humans. Things like this will happen. But the way it is structured right now, and with the soaring cost of new vehicles,

it's making it next to impossible for people of modest means to be able to insure for the property of others. I guess that's what we're talking about. Sure, and I think it's really important that people who do have the means to go out and buy something like an ID buzz or any of these expensive vehicles, that they understand what they're buying into. I think a lot of people don't. You know, they'll buy one and then they'll get into some little vendor-bender thing that ends up costing them 10 or costing the insurance company 10 grand, 15 grand, and then a couple of months later they get their adjusted premium

and the premium went up by you know 50% 75% to reflect the cost. Eric Peters with me this morning happy to take your calls and we're gonna head to those right now on Wheels Up Wednesday. Good morning, Caller. You're on with Eric. Who's this? Hey Bill, it's David. David, good to have you back. What are you thinking? Well I think someone should go after these car companies under the Right to Eric, who's this? Hey Bill, it's David. David, good to have you back. What are you thinking? Well, I think someone should go out to these car companies under the Right to Repair Act because they are, like Eric said,

they are so expensive to fix. If you scratch your fender or crack a fascia or a headlight, you know, you've gotta go to the dealer because now, you know, your Toyota Camry and your Subaru Forester, they've got like four different headlights, so nobody can make them aftermarket. And the dealer wants like $700, $800 for one of them.

And if you had to go build a car for what these car companies sell the parts for, you would spend twice as much as the car costs. So I really think it might be a place where someone needs to do some right to repair lawsuits against these companies. Because the average person, if you didn't have insurance, you can't believe what these parts cost. Even a cheap car has such expensive parts on it nowadays. Absolutely, and not just the parts, it's the fragility, which is something that we got

courtesy of the government and its regulations, particularly with regard to things like fuel economy, which require effectively the manufacturers to put very, very thin gauge panels on the vehicle and to use these plastic fascias, as they call them. And these fascias, the front and rear clips, are so fragile. They're designed to be just torn off the car, even in a minor impact. Hey, David, before you... I wanted to interject on something like that. David, you're a mechanic, so you repair this stuff. When did you first start seeing the going away from actual headlights with headlight bulbs and then everything going into a glass headlight with some other bulb behind it? You know? When did that start?

I don't know. It really depends. Like a Ford truck, you could get it with regular bulbs for a long time. And I think nowadays, if you buy a base model you still can but what I noticed is I think every single manufacturer Pretty much by about 2015 was on board with just I mean you look at these 2015 Chevy trucks The paint is literally coming off the trucks now, you know at 10 years old is delaminating off the truck You know, I don't blame the government I think the manufacturers are doing things to create repair bills, to create obsolescence, and to, you know, to make you buy a new truck. It's to make something you can't afford to keep on the road more than about many years. All right, David, I appreciate the call. You agree

with David on that one, Eric? Yeah, I do, certainly. One hand washes the other. But, you know, again, they're trying to desperately eke out more profits. It's more expensive than ever to manufacture these vehicles. So sure, they use thinner paint and the paint doesn't adhere as well and it doesn't last as long and it's relatively fragile. So once it starts to go, it all goes. And then the cost of repainting the car, have you checked that out lately thanks to all the environmental regs? Oh my gosh, I did that then because I have the clear code on my Chrysler that has just gone to

hell and it looks like it has cancer right so what am I going to do with this and I was quoted I think it lasts a quote was $3,000 which I'm sure is more than the car itself is worth on the market. There was a time when $3,000 would buy you a pretty high-end paint job for a classic car. Yeah this was just paint this was just clear coat That's all I was told. Just clear coat. And respray the clear, right? Yeah, that's all it was. Wow. All right, let me grab another call here on Wheels Up Wednesday. You're with Eric. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Yeah, I comment. This is Oregon. And the big thing, I think, on insurance here is the people that do not have insurance have been without a

license for years. Okay, and you're saying people without insurance have been without a license for years? Any evidence on that or is it just kind of an anecdotal thing? Well, when they do the police reports on the news, drunken disorderly, driving without a license, towed the car, no insurance. You know, there's actually a solution to this problem. I know that a lot of people... Thank you, Caller, by the way. A lot of people favor the government requiring people to buy insurance for exactly that reason, even though some don't, because they're afraid, afraid you know that they're going to get hit by some guy who doesn't have insurance well why not just then buy some uninsured

motorist coverage for yourself if you're that worried about it now we have that in Oregon it's it's required you're required to have a certain amount of uninsured underinsured motorist coverage here sure but I mean I'm speaking generally you know if people bought that then the only people who would have to worry are the people who just ignored that law and didn't buy it. They would end up holding the bag for whatever damage they caused. Now the way it works in our semi-socialized, soon to be maybe socialized kind of government system is that, well, gosh, we have to force you to buy insurance because if we didn't,

then taxpayers would be forced to take care of you when you get into a wreck. You understand that, that concept? Yeah, but how about getting rid of the socialized part? because if we didn't then taxpayers would be forced to take care of you when you get into a wreck. You understand that? You know that concept? Yeah, but how about getting rid of the socialized part? And you know, there's also the arbitrary part. So you know, you go after people on that basis for not having insurance because they might impose costs on society.

Well, how about we have the fat police? And they'll go out there and whenever they see somebody with a beer gut, and I'd be vulnerable too at this point, I get a ticket because I might impose costs on society. I'm in trouble. Doesn't it follow? Isn't it logical? You know, I just, the arbitrariness of the way the system works always makes my teeth ache. Yeah, I do like the idea of the insurance reform though and capping the property damage then at least for the other person's car. You know, you want to drive a quarter of a million dollar vehicle, absolutely, but you're going to have to get some extra insurance to cover that yourself, really.

All right. But anyway, don't worry about it. We're going to have more things to pay attention to, Eric, and no doubt, I'm sure they're going to be, as you write in EP Autos, they'll lock them up. They'll be locking up Obama anytime soon. Check out my Super Speeder article. I think you'll enjoy that. Maybe we can talk about that some next week. Oh, okay. Yeah, super speeder. What is a super speeder defined as, huh?

Well, in Florida, this law just went into effect. And, you know, they frame people. It's like the Patriot Act. You know, they always have to use this verbiage to make you seem like you're a very bad person somehow. Anyway, so the law is that if you are caught driving a hundred miles an hour on a Florida highway or any other road, you know, you're subject to arrest and jail and all these other heavy-handed penalties. And I know some people who are listening will go, oh my god, a hundred miles an hour. Well, the speed limit on the roads out there is what, 70? And we know everybody's typically driving 80 anyway, so 100 really isn't that fast.

And the point is, all these speed limits are just completely arbitrary. We have a system in which back in the 50s and 60s, most highways were posted 70-75. Then we went to drive 55 arbitrarily, just change the law. So all of a sudden, it's unsafe speeding to go 65 or 70 on a road that had a 70-75. Then in the 90s, they got rid of 55. Now we're back to 70-75 again, but it's 2025. Oh, I know. It was safe to drive 70-75 back in 1965.

How can it be that it's not safe to drive faster than 70-75 today? And I was driving 120 miles an hour on back roads in cars that arguably didn't have the crash standards of vehicles today. Well, arguably, heck, back then they had drum brakes all around. They had 14-inch wheels and bias-ply tires. They certainly didn't have ABS or stability control. And actually we had to learn how to to brake ourselves. That was the only anti-lock brakes that

we had was learning how to actually do it correctly. All right, one more call and then Eric goes back to his day job here, right in there. How you doing, Nikola? Who's this? Good morning. This is Don. Don, go ahead. Good to hear from you. The American motoring public gets what it deserves and David talked about seal beam lights. That was a big advance, advancement in lighting, but when we went to acrylic and other plastic headlights that are $1,200 a side now, it's a wear item. It wears from ultraviolet exposure and you can't stock enough parts. But if you look at an earlier era, Ford and Chevrolet, 67 to 79 pickups. All the parts center changed. Windshields didn't

change doors, beds. They changed the trim and the color. So we're buying this new stuff. And it's true, we're not. So, but then again, I'm going to cite Sadie Hopkins in former member of parliament in England yesterday showing showing where to buy cordless angle grinders, because a new member of parliament has these 20 mile an hour signs up all over England and people are cutting them down. And she's saying we have to stop the sale of these angle grinders, and she shows where to buy them. Okay?

All right, so in other words, we're not going to stop the tyranny. We want you to, we want to put grinder control so you don't cut the speeding tickets or the speeding signs down, right? Got to watch Kitty. Thank you. All right. I appreciate the call. Hey Bill. Yeah. The caller raises a really important point, which is I think best expressed as a change in attitudes. There was a time when most americans uh... considered what they could afford before they bought now it's a matter of considering whether they can afford the monthly payment and there's a difference

you know we've gotten as a society as a culture far more used to living in perpetual debt and can we make our monthly payment even if it's for six or seven years rather than paying off a car in three to four years and the result of that is that you know you see cars that comes standard with things that used to be luxury items, AC, power windows, locks. My truck has manual roll-up windows. You can't buy a new truck with manual roll-up windows. They all have power windows because everybody's comfortable, apparently, with signing up for a $30,000 or $40,000 vehicle rather than a $12,000 vehicle,

which is what my truck cost when it was new. I don't know if that will change or if the manufacturing world will do this or not. I don't know. Maybe it's going to be a come to Jesus because we know that Stalantis has announced huge losses. General Motors, what was it, more than a billion dollars loss in the last quarter? And that was about, now they they were blaming the tariffs on you know on that particular issue And I don't know what was it about Stellantis you you knew more about that than I do Yeah, well, they're reeling because the the electric charger has been a catastrophe for them. They're literally not selling any of them The hornet which is their only other model right now besides the Durango it, which is their only other model right now besides the Durango SUV, is going to be crippled by the tariffs. So they're talking about suspending production and

not selling it at all for the 2026 model year, which will leave them with the Durango and the EV charger that nobody wants. That's just not sustainable. Dodge and Chrysler now are basically in the position of having one model each to sell, and you can't keep a dealership open on that basis. I would agree with you. Now I just mentioned a story that the New York Times ended up breaking yesterday and it hasn't received a lot of play, but EPA is now in the process of drafting a plan to end its ability to, now this is the scary air quotes from the New York Times, fight

climate change, right? So they are ready to get rid of the carbon dioxide rules and to completely get rid of that and that would be one of the best things that could happen. I don't know if it'll save General Motors or save Stellantis but it might actually save the industry. Well it might, you know, if it holds, if it lasts, but I think fundamentally they've got to get rid of the underlying thing, which is the regulatory regime that makes it possible for those things to exist in the first place. Because if they don't, you know, unless we're going to have the orange emperor for the

left for what, the third term, and then he'll be succeeded by somebody who's simpatico. If he were to lose, let's say in 2028, and we ended up with President Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom... Remember right back to where we are, exactly. Well, okay, I know what we do. We upload Trump into Trump Orange GPT. What do you think? Well, it could happen.

President-Chad Orange GPT. I'll tell you, inside baseball, the people that I know in the car business, at the manufacturing level, the car companies, they are just waiting to see what happens. They have to. They can't just pull up the parking brake and rejigger everything because all of a sudden Trump has decided to change the regulatory requirements. They have to have a longer term view. They need stability and this is chaos.

And that's very important, that stability. That is very important. You can't plan into the chaos. Got it. All right, Eric, appreciate the articles as always. We'll talk next week and more on the 100 mile per hour super speeders, okay? I think you and I would have been convicted as felons several times over. Many times over. Okay. Southern Oregon's home for conservative talk. Mornings on KMED at 99.3 KBXG.

Call Bill at 770-5633. That's 770-KMED. Here's Bill Meyer. 11 minutes after 6. So glad to have you here on Wheels Up Wednesday. Going to be great conversation with Eric Peters. And I'm looking forward to talking more with him about the ID. Is it the ID buzz or whatever? Anyway, it's the buzz about the electronic, the electric Volkswagen microbus, which, you

know, even, let me tell you, we'll just say it. It looks really good and it seems to drive really well, but is it going to be one of these sustainable kind of motoring investments? I don't know. It's like about $60,000, $65,000 if you want it completely loaded. Now, even back in the day, the Vanagon was a relatively expensive vehicle. You know, my 1982 Vanagon, the the elderly ancestor of this of this new Volkswagen, but they were even expensive compared to American ones, but I think it had to do more with with tariffs or maybe it could have been the exchange rate, you know, the value of the German dollar. It was always, you know,

it was always more expensive to buy the Volkswagen in the 1980s. I remember that part about it. But we'll see what Eric has to say about this. But we'll have that coming up also this morning. Brian Boutel is going to be joining me from the Gospel Rescue Mission in Grants Pass. We're going to catch up on the Mission Village Project. I wanted to kind of touch in on the homelessness projects that are underway here in Southern Oregon, especially focusing on the ones that are taking care of elderly, people who are elderly,

no family, and having some problems because there's a lot of that. It's been a big growing problem here in southern Oregon, and we have these various ministries that are working hard to take care of it. And Gospel Rescue Mission is doing this program in Grants Pass. I think it's called Mission Village, I believe is what it is. And we're going to catch up with Brian on this one. Now, the big national, and I'm sorry, not the big national, but the big state story is that Governor Tina Kotec has announced a special session to raise taxes.

Of course, they call it in the Oregonian, securing additional transportation dollars. It's raising your taxes. And they weren't able to pull this off before the regular session, six months, six months of all that, and they couldn't make it happen, or almost six months or whatever. And so ODOT, supposedly $350 million in the hole, yada, yada, yada. And I guess supposedly reconvening to pass a package, lawmakers will ensure that nearly 500 state transportation agency workers

who got layoff notices this month can keep their jobs. All right? So that is what is the latest. You know, a state agency with 5,000 employees that doesn't really build freeways any longer but it's happy to build, I guess, what, roundabouts and bicycle paths. Yeah, we need 5,000. All 5,000 are great. Oh, and if we are going to lay off 500 people, you know, 10% of the workforce, we're going to make sure

and lay off the ones that you actually see. You know, people who work hard and actually plow the roads, which are actually useful individuals here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, this is the way they always do this stuff. It's just like when it's time to shut down the government in Washington, DC, we're closing the Washington Monument. Every tourist trap. The Smithsonian is closed. Well, frankly, given how woke they are, unless Trump gets control of that, I think people would be better educated not going and listening to the Smithsonian people, but I digress. Anyway, so we'll see what happens. They want to do this Labor Day weekend. They want to call the Democrats and the Republicans back to the state

House, the state legislature, for a special session, Labor Day weekend. August 29th is when they want to to start this. Now what I'm wondering and I opined on this last night on Facebook is whether or not this could even happen if the Republicans were just to stay away. I know you're saying, Bill, they have to be there to do their job. Measure 113 passed by the stupid voters. Yes, it was passed by a certain percentage of the stupid voters, even though I was imploring you not to. But the quorum power is still there, and if the Republicans don't show up, the way I understand it, if the Republicans don't show up, and I mean all the Republicans, and that means even the Cyrus, Javadie, the Rhino Squishes, and even Kevin Maddox.

Kevin Maddox, they'd have to stay away. If they stayed away, they couldn't gavel in. And if they don't gavel in, there wouldn't be unexcused absences. So the Republicans could actually have an influence on whether or not this special session actually even starts. I'm going to talk with State Representative Dwayne Younger about that. I want to find out if my numbers are correct on that. And he's going to join me after 8 o'clock this morning. Junkyard Dwayne, okay? So we got him coming up. Patent Attorney, Intellectual

Property Attorney, Kristen Roberts is going to join me too because there's an interesting case that is moving forward. A federal judge ruled that three authors have been suing an artificial intelligence company for copyright infringement because essentially AI is, you know, what we're told here is it's a matter of national security that anything anybody has ever done, whether it is your books, your information, your music, whatever it is, must be fed into the big brother AI so that, I think ostensibly so, that the high-tech bros can make lots of money and, I guess, replace jobs with robotics and AI.

I don't know. There's all sorts of ways we can parse this. But anyway, the authors and the content creators, the people out there, people who actually have copyright, started to fight back. And Kristen Roberts is a great attorney on these matters. And I always enjoy our conversations. It's good talk on the law. And she'll be wrapping up the show this morning around 830. We'll get her in here. All right, besides the special session, let's see, speaking of big deficits, RVTD is going to vote tonight. They're getting together in their board of directors meeting. Tonight's going to be going on. KOBI 5 reporting that 82 RVTD employees, of course, got layoff notices last month, and

that's supposed to happen September 2nd. And it was federal funding freezes that started in April, which ended up making this problem happen. What was really interesting, though, is that COBE reporting that RVTD was already in the hole $10 million between now and the next year, and was already looking at having to make cuts to service. Now, the latest federal funding freezing, I believe, has to do with sanctuary state kind of stuff.

Your sanctuary state, the Trump administration is not looking as pleasantly onto sending more money. And there is talk that there were even some RVTD non-emergency transport. I don't know if it's Valley Lift or something else involved with them. I'm doing a little spitballing on this one, on this particular comment. But some listeners have been writing me saying that some of their services for disabled have been cut back, transportation services provided through RVTD, and reportedly it's because of Oregon not keeping illegal immigrants from getting some of these services. That's what it's all about.

Because we just talk about Oregonians. Oregonians are created just by magically being here, according to state law, and the way we tend to look at this. And, yep, everybody who is an Oregonian who just happens to be breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide is a magic, is a magic Oregon citizen. That's the way they tend to look at it, right? But, yeah, it's having some real issues. But even before then, RVTD was in the hole. And that's even with our transportation district giving them a pretty good chunk of money.

But they've been working at expanding it. And it shows though, once again, how unsustainable public transit, at least in the current model is. Is the job about moving people from point A to point B? Or is it about having people piloting around half million dollar hybrid electric buses? I think they're about a half million dollars. They're very expensive. Federal government has been writing the checks for those mostly, and it appears that

that gravy train is pretty close to being gone. I'd be curious, what is RVTD, what will even Josephine Transit have to do when they no longer can consider the lifespan of a transit bus? What is it, 8 to 12 years? That's all they think that a transit bus, you know, and they cost about a half million apiece, eight to 12 years, depending on which agency you talk to. And then after that, oh, it's just junk needs to be sold off to some nonprofit to serve as homelessness camps. I'm just kidding with you about that. But you know, who knows? Another interesting story also kind of down this same federal government deal, it hasn't

received a lot of play yet. New York Times reported this story and it just kind of went by unnoticed, but it's a big deal. The Trump administration has drafted a plan, I'm reading from their news release yesterday, Trump administration has drafted a plan to repeal a fundamental scientific finding that gives the United States government its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The proposed EPA rule rescinds a 2009 declaration. a 2009 declaration. Now, this 2009 declaration, the New York Times people, of course, look at as the scientific law and truth, but this was one of those rules that the EPA just created and said that it's an endangerment finding, which

specifically establishes that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives. That finding is the foundation of the federal government's only tool to limit the climate pollution from vehicles, power plants, and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet. Yes, the same carbon dioxide which was four to five times higher, you know, a number of what, hundreds of thousands if not millions of years ago too. And somehow the planet survived, although it was a lot greener back in those days and

a lot more plants grow. But you know, we're not supposed to talk about that, only that carbon dioxide and methane will kill us all. Sometimes if it's human produced methane and it's in your bedroom or in the house with a friend letting loose the acid, sometimes it feels like it could be endangering your health. But I don't know. This could completely knock the stuffing out of everything that has been shoved down from the

federal cloaca plopping out on us about climate change, climate change, climate change, because they were conflating once again carbon dioxide and inert gas necessary for plant growth and necessary for the survival of humanity. They were equating that to a poison. They were equating that to, or you know, conflating it with something which is a real pollution, let's say, such as nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen oxides are a problem, you know, and they've really done a good job over the years of knocking a lot of that stuff out and because of the the acid rain potential of it. But that's just it. The EPA has cleaned up a whole lot of stuff and they've done a reasonably good job frankly over the years that now it's like okay well the job's never over what can we do?

Everything's never clean enough so they had to go. So they had to go to this. They had to go to this. And the Trump administration is looking to completely blow that rule out to smithereens. And if the Trump administration is successful in repealing, the carbon dioxide is a poison rule, which has enabled the EPA. And I'm sure the DEQ will continue to do this, even if the EPA doesn't. But if the Trump administration pulls this out, they really are pulling the rug out from underneath the gang green grift. And I hope that they do this. And needless to say, the New York Times in their breathless

reporting, which I was reading from, is on the other side of that argument, but they can't prove that argument. Just a nice theory along with a lot of other scientific theories out there. This is the Bill Meier Show on KMED.