In the category of "you can't make this stuff up," Peter and I are collaborating on this post to tell you about a proposed mandate by your friends at the California Air Resources Board (also appropriately known as CARB), California's equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency.  The new mandate will have enormous unintended consequences for businesses large and small.  On the heels of their recent losing effort to ban black cars because they absorb more heat causing their owners to use more air conditioning, CARB has come up with yet another ridiculous regulation to supposedly save energy.  This time they're proposing mandating that automakers install metallic reflective glazing on the windows of all new vehicles weighting under 10,000 pounds and sold in California beginning in 2012.  They claim that using less air conditioning increases fuel efficiency and prevents about 700,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by 2020, which equates to taking about 140,000 cars off the road.  Of course, one major wildfire can produce more harmful emissions than all the cars in California produce in one year.  But we digress.

On its face the regulation may not sound unreasonable since we all want to save energy wherever we can.  But the devil is always in the details, and the devil really had fun with this one.  For example, automakers claim that this regulation would force them to build cars just for California at a time when they're struggling to survive.  Furthermore, this legislation is going to be the king of unintended consequences, directly and negatively impacting numerous California businesses, and millions of people. Here are just some of the problems:

• It will raise the cost of vehicles under 10,000 pounds by at least $250 by 2016.
• It will take you five to seven years to recoup the cost through reduced gasoline consumption.
• The glaze affects your ability to use garage door openers, cell phones, satellite radio systems, and GPS. Oops, those Domino Pizza and computer fix-it vehicles are going to have a problem finding your business.
• It will save you on average a mere $16 a year---wow, that's an extra lunch at McDonalds.
• No more sunroofs and convertibles because they won't meet the stringent requirements.

And if that isn't enough to make your blood boil, California is currently considering releasing approximately 23,000 inmates over the next two years because of budget problems.  Unfortunately, the electronic ankle bracelets they will wear so they can be tracked don't work in cars with metallic glazing.  Oops!

Oh, and by the way, Japan tried this back in the 1980s and then dropped it because of the problem with blocking radio waves.

Those of you who do not live and do business in California better keep your eyes on this.  If it passes in California, the federal government just might decide that the rest of the nation needs it as well.  Can't we become energy independent in more significant ways?  Do we really want to pound one more nail in California's economic coffin?  As we said, you can't make this stuff up.