President Obama, like Secretary of State John Kerry, worships at the Church of Global Warming but chooses a different form of grandstanding to profess his faith.
In a speech at a Maryland supermarket warehouse, Obama said he was using his authority to direct the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency to tighten fuel economy standards for trucks as a measure to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief alleged earth-warming gas.
He clearly intended to be seen as going around a stalemated Congress. Big whoop. This is a little like the rooster claiming credit for the sunrise.
Congress long ago gave the Transportation Department authority to set mileage standards. If anybody thinks these two agencies — especially the EPA — weren’t eager to regulate further, that person doesn’t understand politics.
“Light” trucks have come under the same standards as automobiles for 40 years. Other truck fuel economy standards were adopted in 2011 for the 2014 through 2017 model years.
Manufacturers and truckers pushed back, but only gently; everybody knew that fuel economy gains would be significant. The agencies estimated costs of the new standards at $8 billion and savings at $50 billion over truck lifetimes. (You don’t have to believe that number to recognize that it will be large.) Fuel usage was expected to fall by anywhere from 9 percent to 23 percent, depending on the size of the truck.
Obama said nothing about what gains and costs could be expected from further regulations. In 2010, the National Research Council estimated that available technologies could cut mileage by almost 50 percent — but noted the costs of many could be very high.
It could be the 2011 standards gathered all the low-hanging fruit. Congress should kill any future regulations that impose unreasonable costs for only incremental improvements in fuel economy.
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