Roy sees way to drive fear
Re: “Tech in cars might cut drunken driving,” Dec. 26, and “Resolve to fight DWIS this New Year’s,” Dec. 31:
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy and other representatives are using scaremongering to defund what they call a “kill switch” mandate.
With a little research, Roy would have realized that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as directed by Congress, is sponsoring technical research into ways to detect and prevent inebriated people from starting their cars or to use dashboard warnings to urge such drivers to pull over and stop.
No signal would be transmitted from so-equipped vehicles, and thus “Big Brother” wouldn’t be able to stop vehicles remotely.
But whether that technology pans out, Roy never misses a chance to try to whip his constituents into an antigovernment frenzy.
Stephen Shackelford, Austin
Some Republicans are talking about secession. Even former President Donald Trump proclaimed he would love to see a market crash in the next 12 months so Biden would get the blame.
What happened to electing representatives to represent the people and our nation?
John B. Francis
Climate change ignorance
Re: “Oil lobby denounces Biden’s energy policies,” Business, Thursday:
After 97% of climatologists have long said the climate crisis is beyond urgent for the safety of civilization, Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said, “Imagine if a president blocked development of farmland, disrupting our domestic food supply and making us more reliant on foreign countries to feed our families.” What a simplistic analogy!
Then Sen. John Hickenlooper, Dcolo., said it’s a complicated issue to know where to drill due to concerns over a “divine, aesthetic value” of federal land.
By implying the worry is for aesthetics, isn’t he helping the simplistic analogies like the one API’S president invoked?
It’s clear neither one of these two understand climate change. It’s another example of “contempt prior to investigation.”
Bill Hurley