Get Americans to drive less by raising gas taxes

Tougher CAFE standards won't make a dent in US oil consumption because those with more fuel-efficient cars tend to drive more.

By Randy Salzman

from the June 26, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 2

Charlottesville, VA. - As an environmentalist, I was among the first to get a hybrid car, which helped me be among the first to admit that government-imposed fuel standards – known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) – don't work.

Before I bought my 2001 Toyota Prius (which gets 46 m.p.g.), I drove my old, low-mileage Suzuki rarely because I wanted to save on gas and pollution. I opted to commute as much as possible on my bicycle, as well as ride it for pleasure. Then I picked up the Prius, and before I knew it, I seemed to be driving everywhere.

I was proof of economist David Greene's "rebound effect" – that buyers of high-mileage vehicles drive more. With high-mileage cars, we pollute less per mile, but we cancel that benefit by spending more time behind the wheel. But with the rebound effect in mind and a son who was serving in Iraq, I cut back my driving to roughly its previous level. I am in the minority, however. The fact is that after more than 30 years of CAFE, oil consumption, pollution, and traffic congestion have soared, and automakers have found ways around the tightest standards.

Sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), for example, are "a truck without the benefit of being a truck," says a good-old-boy mechanic friend. His description is apt because SUVs are built on truck chassis and are therefore subject to lower fuel-economy standards. SUVs were almost certainly a reaction to CAFE because although customers liked larger cars, automakers found it difficult to build models that complied with CAFE.

CAFE today forces manufacturers of true cars to try the latest fuel-efficiency technology, which sometimes increases cars' sales prices. That pushes some drivers to buy SUVs or to keep older, less fuel-efficient vehicles for longer, rendering CAFE toothless.

Finally, toughening CAFE standards would do nothing to decrease congestion. If you build highways, drivers do indeed come. Yet because highway construction creates jobs and income, legislators push for more highways – while wrangling with Detroit automakers over CAFE.

A decade ago, the Commission on the Future of Transportation in Virginia told lawmakers that it was a "futile exercise" to attempt to build out of congestion problems. But that's what Virginia's Democratic governor and Republican legislature decided was the solution – even though research indicates that 90 percent of new urban freeways are overwhelmed within five years.

The US Senate can hold CAFE hearings and chide Detroit. The president can say we'll be saved by ethanol or hydrogen. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain can claim that "cap-and-trade" systems are the answer. But all this falls apart when anyone does any real analysis of Americans' "love affair with the automobile."

Page 1 | 2 | Next Page