Editorial: President Obama Joins America’s CAFE Society

[Chris]

Editorial: President Obama Joins America’s CAFE Society

Politics is the art of the possible. In other words, it’s the art of manipulating expectations. In other other words, Barack Obama didn’t achieve the highest office in the land by doing things. He became president by promising to do things. And now that he’s actually got to do stuff, Obama must resort to the politician’s best weapon in their endless fight to reconcile expectations and reality (i.e., special interests): loopholes. Those exquisite exceptions that allow those supposedly affected by a piece of legislation to avoid the law’s intent—to the point where you wonder why anyone bothered to write it in the first place. The answer to that question is obvious: so that the politicians who crafted the law could be seen to be doing something that meets with public approval. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new CAFE standards.

Let me cut to the chase: the feds could mandate a 100 mpg fleet-wide corporate average fleet economy (CAFE) standard and the carmakers would meet it. All they’d have to do is do whatever they have to do to not do it while appearing like they’ve either done it or gave it a damn good try, then pay the damn fine (if necessary), pass on the cost to their consumers and get on with it. Again.

Which means that today’s pre-announcement announcement that the federal government will eventually adopt California’s CAFE standards—42 mpg for cars, 26.2 mpg for trucks by 2016—is meaningless. You know, in the real world. In the political sphere, it will be a major victory for environmentalists, supporters of the president, Chrysler and GM.

Yes, there is that. The president will soon have new CAFE standards AND control of two car companies that can build the vehicles that conform to those standards. I mean, they’ll have to do that, right? Otherwise, a taxpayer-funded automaker may have to pay a large penalty to the taxpayers, using taxpayer’s money, for failing to meet a standard set by the government who owns them (the carmakers, not the taxpayers).

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