Obama Shouldn’t Decide Your Truck’s Gas Mileage

It shouldn’t be President Obama calling the shots on the range for gas mileage for trucks. The new regulations will be yet another piece implementing his Climate Action Plan end-run around Congress, which involves Obama implementing policy not by signing congressional legislation, but by agency regulations. Sure, fuel efficiency is good. But there’s no reason to believe that Americans, even without regulation, wouldn’t push the marketplace to create high fuel-efficiency vehicles. The setting Obama chose for his announcement is telling: the Safeway distribution center in Maryland, like any other major company, likely invests significant resources to maximize efficiency. That’s because they’re trying to maximize their profits, not because the government mandated that they do so. And in calling for new efficiency regulations, Obama has made the decision to prioritize fuel efficiency over other preferences customers and businesses might have – safety, size, performance, or price, to name a few. A business, for instance, might be willing to spend more on gas if it means their products will be delivered more safely. Limiting customer choice in this way is unlikely to create many benefits if previous experience holds. The President purports that fuel efficiency standards will save consumers money and improve the environment. Instead it’s likely the regulations will increase upfront costs for customers – since manufacturers will have to spend to get the higher mileage rates, regardless of whether customers want to pay for that or not — without any meaningful environmental benefit...more