Trump reset CAFE. Now Congress should repeal it
by Michael McKenna · The Washington TimesOPINION:
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation issued final rules last week on the corporate average fuel economy standards for cars and trucks for model years 2022 to 2031.
The CAFE program, created by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act way back in 1975, was ostensibly an attempt to reduce American dependence on gasoline derived from oil imported from overseas, especially the oil we purchased from the Middle East.
From the beginning, however, the law was really all about the federal government gaining control over one of the nation’s most important industries. Indeed, EPCA was the first large-scale peacetime effort to place the federal government squarely and decisively inside the planning and decision processes of a major industry.
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If you have doubts about that, think about the world we live in now, 50 years after the original legislation. Today, the United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and exports both crude and refined products.
Under Team Trump — as in most of the past 15 years or so — American oil production has increased.
Unfortunately, the prevailing narrative, which Americans have heard for most of their lives, simply repeats that we are running out of oil, which means we must wean ourselves off the resource.
Here is the reality: About 85% of the world’s primary energy comes from coal, oil and natural gas, just like it has for the past 60 years or so.
Team Trump has done a good job with cars and trucks. It led the charge to repeal the electric vehicle tax credit, which was almost entirely used by the rich. It has reset the CAFE rules. To the maximum extent possible, it narrowed the ability of California’s special authorities under the Clean Air Act to damage other states.
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One chore remains: repealing the CAFE program in its entirety.
The CAFE standards are a relic of a time when people were sure we were running out of oil, food, water, arable land and everything except people, of which we had too many. The politics of scarcity ruled the day.
Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand how the government overseeing the production of essential industries (such as automobiles) might deem the standards necessary.
Two generations on, however, the vibe and reality are very different. We have more oil and natural gas than we could use in hundreds of years. Per-person calorie consumption on this planet is steadily increasing. One hundred million people enter the middle class each year.
The politics and reality of abundance rule the day.
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Still, it can be difficult for the government to let go. Even the Trump team at DOT is a pitchman for the new rule, stating (without too much evidence) that it “restores integrity to the national fuel economy program, balancing vehicle affordability and energy conservation goals while improving safety on our roadways.”
Could all that not be done by the marketplace and consumers? Are they not the ones who must balance all that?
Why do we need the federal government to tell the automakers which cars to build? Who in the federal government has the wisdom, experience and skill necessary to be an automaker? Whose wisdom and foresight can match the intellectual power of 300 million people making their own decisions? Why do we still have this statutory relic from 1975 guiding us?
More simply, who should make decisions about what kinds of cars you should buy: you or the federal bureaucracy? The answer to that is simple. Consumers should be able to buy whatever kind of car they want.
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Team Trump has done great so far with cars. It needs to finish strong and repeal CAFE.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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