Les Jones

Environment > Supposed CAFE Proponents Win; Fail to Notice Victory

Atrios has proposed a liberal field test. Via Instapundit, who has his answers and links to other bloggers on the libertarian end of the spectrum. One of the questions leapt out:

4) Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation.*

Thing is, the CAFE standards were increased just a few months ago. From the DOT Web site:

3/29/06: Light Truck Fuel Economy Standard Rulemaking (Model Years 2008-2011) This final rule reforms the structure of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program for light trucks and establishes higher CAFE standards for model year (MY) 2008-2011 light trucks. Manufacturers may comply with CAFE standards established under the reformed structure (Reformed CAFE) or with standards established in the traditional way (Unreformed CAFE) during a transition period of MYs 2008-2010. In MY 2011, all manufacturers will be required to comply with a Reformed CAFE standard. Under Reformed CAFE, fuel economy standards are restructured so that they are based on a measure of vehicle size called "footprint," the product of multiplying a vehicle's wheelbase by its track width. A target level of fuel economy is established for each increment in footprint. Smaller footprint light trucks have higher targets and larger ones, lower targets.

Here's Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announcing the new standards:

It is of course our President who set the goal of reducing our dependence on foreign sources of oil to make America more secure. So I am here today to announce the Department of Transportation is doing its part – with tough new fuel economy standards designed to make the eight and a half million light trucks sold each year in this country more fuel efficient.

These new standards, which are called the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (CAFE), represent the second time that the Bush Administration has increased the mileage requirements for light trucks and the first complete reform of this program since it was created in 1979.

How is that people for whom stricter CAFE standards are a political litmus test aren't aware of the changes? They got what they wanted. When's the celebration?

Now it's possible that Atrios meant supporting the idea of increasing CAFE standards generally, but so many of his other tests - "undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration, repeal the estate tax repeal, increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI" - are forward-looking that I'm not sure he was aware of the changes. Checking the many dozens of comments on his post, none of his readers seem to have noticed, either.

A cynic might suggest that the media and environmentalists haven't been willing to give the Bush administration credit for advancing CAFE standards. Further, the media blackout has been so effective that environmentalists and progressives were completely unaware of the changes.

Some people have theorized that a liberally-biased media has done more damage to liberals than conservatives by putting liberals in an information vacuum. Unless I've missed something fundamental, this seems to be one more datapoint to support that idea.

* Boy, that "other environmental-related regulation" line feels a wee bit like a throwaway, dunnit? It's like a conservative saying "make the country more Godly or somethin'" or a libertarian beseeching us to "be more decentralized 'n' stuff."