Eek! Environmental Visionaries!
This past week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) unveiled their comprehensive plan to regulate the fuel efficiency of all cars and light trucks that operate in the United States. The operative measure for these calculations is known as the corporate average fuel economy (or CAFE) standard. In my weekly column for the Hoover Institution publication, Defining Ideas, I argue that it's time to replace CAFE standards with a better mix of regulatory and market-based solutions.
Congress first introduced the CAFE program in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo that was imposed following the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The ostensible purpose was to force an increase in domestic fuel economy that would reduce the United States dependency on imported oil from the Middle East. The energy and automotive landscapes have changed much in the ensuing 38 years. Now, the dominant justification for tightening the CAFE standards is no longer to counter our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but to secure technical innovation and control air pollution, including pollution attributable to carbon dioxide. The CAFE program fails on all three counts.
Continue reading at Defining Ideas.
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Feb '11
Re: Eek! Environmental Visionaries!
"[P]ollution attributable to carbon dioxide?" Isn't that an EPA determination that the rest of us should be refusing to accept? Or do I misunderstand?
Sep '10
Re: Eek! Environmental Visionaries!
I'm having trouble picturing our esteemed Richard Epstein typing the following word into any manner of word processor or text editor:
Eek!
Dec '11
Re: Eek! Environmental Visionaries!
I have long been a proponent of replacing CAFE with a regulation that maps emissions to fully loaded (people, cargo, and tow capacities included) vehicles. This would allow the market to choose the types of vehicles with what kinds of features, without manufacturers being forced to game the system by offering cars people dont want and are outside of their institutional core competencies. The fleet average is just bad regulation.