CAFE Crap

Well, it's an election year...

Gas prices are up (although I have a suspicion that they may trend down from here) and the politicians are foaming at the mouth to "do something" about it.

Why of course ... mandate higher fuel economy standards.
Rather than letting high prices nudge consumers into changing their behavior, we can beat up on the Auto Companys. Those "bad guys" who offer consumers what they want.
No consideration for the replacement cycle and lag time.

If the contry is "addicted" to oil, maybe we should RAISE the price.
Cigarettes are bad for you, so the govenment raises the price (taxes).

Kevin Wilson (Autoweek) puts it well:
"In case you missed the news, Congress recently revised the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law, raising the mile-per-gallon standards for light trucks. Never mind the howling about how the standard isn’t stiffened by nearly enough. Just ask yourself why this law passed now.

The answer has naught to do with global warming or our dependence on imported oil. Congress ignored CAFE for most of 20 years but passed a revision now because this year members want to show voters they have done “something” about those issues so we’ll send them back in November.

It doesn’t matter that the last thing an intelligent person would do to address these problems is to fiddle with CAFE. It doesn’t work and hasn’t worked for more than 20 years, because it tries to dictate supply without doing anything about demand. It does nothing about consumer choices or behavior. So, since 1985 automakers (mostly European luxury and sports car makers) have paid more than $650 million in fines for violating CAFE—just another cost of doing business, built into the price tags. "

Kevin concludes:

"As much as we preach personal responsibility, though, American voters prefer a Congress that regulates over one that lets us face the consequences of our choices. The philosophy appears to be: “Don’t let them tempt me with a 6-mpg truck so I won’t buy one.” As long as that is the case, we’d better find a way to run our cars on meaningless legislation, a waste product we’ll have in abundance."