Posted on 08/24/2005 1:50:08 PM PDT by wayoverontheright
Drumbeat
Of all places I could expect to see a “drumbeat” for raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, (Drumbeat Grows Louder For Fuel Efficiency, Patrice Hill, Monday, August 22, 2005.), the last was the front page of the Washington Times. As a matter of fact, it should have been on the op-ed page, as the first paragraph of the article clearly shows:
The recently approved energy legislation excluded the biggest item that would have cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil as well as help lower record-high oil and gasoline prices: higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and sport utility vehicles.
What bothers even more is the fact that some within the Bush Administration probably agree with the thrust of that assertion.
The government solution has for some time been the exclusive, hard-earned property of the left; since when did our side begin to trespass? Not only is it well known within conservative circles that government solutions tend to have unintended consequences, generally working to exacerbate the very problem they profess to address, this particular one has a history to observe, making it even more stupefying that someone on our side of the fence would propose that we pay it another visit.
In 1972 the most fuel-efficient passenger car that General Motors could field was the Chevrolet Nova. One gallon of gas secured for its owner, being generous here, maybe 16 miles per gallon…..HIGHWAY. Ford and Chrysler (This was when Honda was the name of a motorcycle, and Toyota and Datsun were yet to enter the American lexicon) were similarly ill prepared for what was to come, abruptly and unexpectedly, in 1973. CAFE was passed and phased in by 1981. The auto engineers did indeed come through, such that by the early eighties what Detroit turned out was about twice as fuel-efficient. Problem fixed, right? Are we less dependent on foreign oil today than then? Or more?
In his book, APPLIED ECONOMICS, Thomas Sowell tells of a teacher at Harvard who, while young Thomas was still a student there, taught him a valuable lesson. Mr. Sowell had proposed some sort of government measure which he felt would deal properly with the particular problem the teacher had asked the students to attempt to address. Young Thomas put a lot of thought into dealing with the problem and made his proposal. The teacher said, “fine, Mr. Sowell, then what would happen?” So Thomas thought a little bit, and said, “well, such and such would then happen”. Teacher came back, “all right, if what you say would happen is what would then ensue, what would happen…THEN?” This went on until young Sowell realized that his original proposal was rendered inoperative by what we (conservatives, at least) now have come to recognize as UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.
Did the doubling of fuel economy and the corresponding reduction in the cost of miles driven have zero effect on consumer behavior? Republicans lament that the CBO’s static analysis of tax policy renders a distorted prediction, isn’t this much less complicated? If the cost of something goes down, (I am talking here about the cost per mile driven-not the price of fuel) might consumers and businesses alike find reasons to use more of it? And if making a vehicle more fuel efficient removes some of the elements that consumers desired in their vehicles, is it possible that they will then be willing to sacrifice fuel efficiency to get the other attributes they deem more important? Does anyone see those SUV’s on the road?
I have seen estimates on these pages that indicate that Americans drive 30% more today than prior to the Arab oil embargo. Not only are they driving more, they are doing it increasingly in vehicles which have the attributes they want, and fuel economy simply isn’t one of them. The “company car” was unheard of before that day, and now they are ubiquitous. Suddenly, “getting close to the customer”, meant driving there instead of opening another office. Everyday decisions by travelers began more and more to exclude the option of using mass transportation. If you owned a mass transit company (and as taxpayers, lamentably, you and I both do) then you would be fighting against increasing the Corporate Average Fuel Economy targets, as it will give your competitor (the automobile) more of the same advantage it has punished you with for three decades. How can the same voices that exhort us to do something to increase the use of mass transit, simultaneously clamor for measures that make it impossible for it to compete?
CAFE didn’t create urban sprawl, but it accelerated it at hyper-speed. How else could people afford to drive from Warrenton, Va. to DC, to work? They moved there, BECAUSE THEY COULD.
We use more gasoline today than ever before. We tried forcing Detroit’s engineers to solve this problem for us, and they can’t do it because their purview does not encompass consumer behavior.
In which alternative universe would the hoped-for conservation of a commodity be made more likely by making its use less expensive?
Increased CAFE would only serve to enable some consumers to move further from work, choose to drive more for leisure, and use their vehicles for more tasks. For others, it will cause them to be willing to put up with less fuel-efficient vehicles in order to get more of what they want in a vehicle. Corporations will have yet another reason to add company cars, and forego opening regional offices. Who will ride the train? Who will ride the bus anymore?
I am not a liberal, so I will offer a solution: a conservative solution, which has to date no history of exacerbating the problem. I propose that we leave the market alone. There is nothing that will foster conservation, reduce driving, cause business to rethink the company car versus the regional office, and have the desired impact on consumer vehicle choice, quite like $2. 75 a gallon, Let’s give it more time before we repeat an old mistake, and an anti-conservative one at that.
I am aware that many on this forum also favor increasing CAFE, I hope you understand that I respect your views, I only hope to offer the benefit of some observations which have convinced me it is the wrong way for our country to go.
link to article here....http://washtimes.com/business/20050822-122511-5121r.htm
Awful lot of unabashed vanities lately. Is it safe to go back in that water? I only very rarely try to float a rant these days.
IMHO, CAFE is responsible for the virtual demise of the old family-mover, the full size station wagon. Automakers discovered that minivans and SUVs were considered trucks while wagons (that got the same gas mileage) were considered cars. This created an incentive to push "trucks" since they fell into a different category under CAFE.
Having now read your vanity, your best argument is that higher fuel efficiency is bad because it allows people to drive more? But in any event I think whichever way CAFE goes, there is about to be a revolution in the use of high efficiency hybrid vehicles. You can debate the pros and cons of that all day but I sense it is happening.
I will tell you why I disagree with you.
Our dependence on oil is a national security issue.
The billions we spend on oil go straight to the most evil government supporters of terrorism and insurgencies like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
There is a significant cost to our government, and by extension every citizen, for this high consumption and dependency on oil.
It a matter of national strategic importance for us to reduce our dependency on oil. We should do many things, even if each one only helps the slightest amount. Increase CAFE standards, explore for oil offshore and in alaska, build oil refineries, increase nuclear power plants, and keep research going on cleaner burning coal and other fuels.
If oil is a nonrenewable resource, what makes more sense national security-wise, using up Saudi Arabia oil's first or ours.
You'd think that with gas prices this high that the real driving force to higher mileage cars would be consumer demand, not contrived government regulation.
I agree CFAE is what got us into the mess we are in now. Dont worry at $3.00 a gallon Americans will soon demand higher efficiency cars.
Absolutely! And, the rear wheel drive v-8. Why do I drive a Cadillac and an SUV now? Because I can't get a safe, moderately priced full sized car anymore. Thanks to the government, the Olds Cutlass or Buick Skylark is not an option.
CAFE created SUVs. And killed about 50,000 people. http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/WM85.cfm
Not quite. In 1972 I bought a Honda 600 Coupe, which got 42 MPG -- and a friend had been driving his Honda 600 Sedan for a year or two already.
It wasn't a big car (but it was big enough to hold three frat brothers, a Little Sister, and our luggage and presents to get to another frat brother's wedding), and too small for the American market in general. But the following year I was offered rather more than I'd paid for it -- cash.
(It was stolen 8 years later, with 169k on the odometer.)
Why do you think Honda is preparing to bring over a variant of the Honda Fit/Jazz that has been hit everywhere that car is sold? Or the fact Ford is seriously looking at selling the next-generation Fiesta model (smaller than the current Focus) in the USA? Or the fact that automotive engineers are rapidly developing technologies for gasoline engines such as direct fuel injection, lean-burn combustion, better spark plug designs and more advanced variable-timing valvetrain designs that in the long run could improve gasoline engine efficiency as much as 35 percent over today's engines?
All CAFE standards do is get auto manufacturers to produce lines of small, lightweight, dangerous cars that few people want or buy. They are a tremendous waste of resources.
Must not be many Dodge Rams Hemi's on that chart....
The BEST mileage I've got was an avg of 12.8 over 2700 miles...with the tailgate down to Idahoe and back.
And it's runs just fine.
You're free to make your point.
I think we need to mandate higher fuel efficiency and develop alternative fuels for the most conservative of reasons, namely to not have our nation be beholding to any other nation for something so important.
Let's be honest about something. We have nothing in common with the Saudis. They share none of the same ideals as we do and they represent the pinnacle of what can happen when a severely backward culture suddenly encounters great wealth and with it power. Does any American in their right mind really think that Saudi Arabia is a country worth emulating?
Yet we have to be nice to them and for one reason only. Oil. They have it and we need it and so we put up with their repressions, their overt support of the worst kinds of terrorists, and their horribly backward culture because of it.
If we find another workable source of fuel they, and many other regimes, lose their power to influence us because frankly that's the only card they have to play. Quite frankly world peace begins when the Saudis and their ilk run out of money and we already have the capability with fuels like E85 to put a major crimp in their cash flow.
In WW2 there were posters everywhere encouraging car pooling and energy conservation that said "If you ride alone you ride with Hitler." We need to face that again and realize that if you drive a big gas guzzling vehicle for no real reason you are, in fact, riding with Osama Bin Laden and giving aid and comfort to people who are trying to kill our men and women in uniform.
That's a very stark way to put it but it is true.
Interesting - I know a few people who own Rams with a HEMI. They griped about the mileage when they got them... but after all was said and done, it wasn't all that bad compared to my Ram (1500 with the 4.7L V8).
I averaged just a little over 15 MPG in combined driving, and an average of right at 20 MPG in pure highway driving.
The average I have heard from HEMI owners around here - 12-13 MPG city/15-17 MPG highway.
Now - actually USING that extra horsepower will significantly reduce those numbers!
I disagree with the stipulation that increased
CAFE standards would exponentialy and unlimitedly
increase "sprawl. And suggest a diffeent analogy.
We now have TV with Cable, and even Satellite TV.
Moving from 3 channels to hundreds of channels.
But there are still only 26 hours a day, and only
so many hours in a day, that most people can
devote to watching TV, and continue to effectively
run their lives....while true, with greater choices
availiable to watch, viewing may have increased on
average, it is still limite by other constraints
that are involved. If gas were back to 32 cents a
gallon, there is still only so much time availiable
in any persons life to spend commuting, or travelling
to and from vacation spots. Diversity of choice, may
offer uninteded consequences, but self limitation,
for the sake of itself, sounds an awful lot like
stagnation instead of conservatism. Better milage
from the same amount of fuel, a better fuel with
lower colateral costs, sounds more conservative
than radical to me.
Ooops! I meant 24...(one redfaced Nick)
<8o)
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