OPINION:
The Trump administration last week perpetuated one of the most pointless federal policies: an updated set of rules requiring automobile manufacturers to meet certain standards of efficiency, the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards.
At the moment, cars and trucks in the United States average around 24.4 miles per gallon. The administration’s proposal would require that number to climb to 34.5 miles per gallon by 2031. That seems like a lot, especially in just 60 months.
The CAFE program was created by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act way back in 1975. That legislation was, ostensibly, an attempt to reduce American dependence on gasoline derived from oil imported from overseas. Especially of concern at the time was the amount of 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, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act was the first large-scale effort in peacetime to place the federal government squarely and decisively inside the planning and decision processes of a major industry.
If you have doubts about that, you should take a hard look at the reality of the world we live in now, 50 years on from the original legislation. The United States is now the world’s largest producer of oil, and we export both crude oil and refined products. Under team Trump — and in the majority of the past 15 years or so — American production of oil has increased. The Middle East is no longer a legitimate threat either economically or militarily.
Unfortunately, the prevailing narrative, which Americans have heard most of their lives, simply repeats over and over that we are running out of oil, which consequently means we absolutely must wean ourselves from the resource. Here’s the bad news for the doomers: About 85% of the world’s primary energy comes from coal, oil and natural gas, just as it has for the past 50 years or so. Alternative energy sources have grown in absolute terms, but their percentage of total primary energy production has remained modest.
Despite all this, no one has made any effort to revisit — or better yet, simply dismember — the collectivist, crazy idea that the federal government should tell consumers what kinds of cars they should buy. At this point, the law serves no useful purpose and, in fact, damages American consumers by making them pay more for larger vehicles (the kind they prefer to buy) to subsidize those who purchase smaller ones.
The Biden administration was clear about this when it pointed out that the standards it proposed would have added an additional $3,000 (on average) to the price of cars. Although those numbers might have changed incrementally, the math remains the same for the current administration.
The CAFE standards are a relic from a time before precision drilling made America an energy superpower (again). It is a fossil from the era when an unfortunately large number of policymakers believed that a small clique of government experts could make better decisions than millions of consumers. The entire program and the law that underpins it should be repealed.
Fortunately, Congress is working right now on permitting reform, especially focused on making the permitting of energy projects better, cheaper and more predictable. Getting rid of the CAFE program — the most nonsensical energy policy ever created by the United States, which is saying something — would be an excellent indication that Congress and team Trump are serious about establishing and maintaining both energy dominance and the primacy of consumer preferences and market discipline.
This Congress has already taken the first step by voting to eviscerate the penalties that are imposed on companies (and paid by consumers) for not meeting the CAFE standards. Congress should finish the job and send to the president legislation that eliminates the CAFE standards. This would preserve consumer preferences, save consumers money, get the government out of the business of telling automakers how to do their jobs, and recognize the simple reality that the United States and the world have plenty of oil and will for the next few hundred years.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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