Sticker Shock

California is now requiring all cars sold in the state to display a sticker listing its greenhouse gas rating. Forget about considering a car's MPG rating in deciding which one to buy. Next to it will be a new and (in some eyes) far more important sticker providing the car's GHG rating, an arbitrarily concocted measure of its greenhouse gas contribution to climate change. Assembly Bill 1228 requires a sticker displaying a rank comparing "the emissions of global warming gases from all vehicles of the same model year sold in the state" be affixed to all vehicles. As if Detroit didn't have enough to worry about. First, if we believe that cars are causing climate change, it isn't the new ones we need to worry about. Just 10% of the country's almost 140 million privately owned cars and light-duty trucks emit more than half the auto-based pollution. Get them off the road before further micromanaging the auto market. Second, this edict comes in a state that has strenuously opposed nuclear power, the surest way to replace fossil fuel emissions in bulk. We don't envision nuclear-powered cars, but more nuclear plants would give those electric cars that California lists one and two on its Web site something to plug into while fueling America's and California's economic recovery....