Unsafe CAFE standards: Who really bears the true costs?

You get three guesses as to who and the first two guesses don't count.

Pertinent excerpts:


"CAFE standards already result in the deaths of approximately 2,000 Americans every year, since smaller cars are less crashworthy. By failing to acknowledge this in their policymaking, Congress has cost thousands of Americans their lives. Now Congress is poised to compound the dangers by raising CAFÉ standards still further -- so much so, it may kill the domestic auto industry itself."



"Environmentalists argue that increasing the miles per gallon of the cars we drive would save more energy than increased drilling could produce. But the data show that fuel consumption goes up whenever automobile fuel efficiency goes up. Nearly all the gains in fuel efficiency disappear once we account for the demonstrable increases in driving that such investments produce."



"The increase in the costs of accidents and congestion fully offsets and probably outweighs the social benefits resulting from greater fuel economy."



"However, CBO does find that, given current estimates of the value of decreasing dependence on oil and reducing carbon emissions, increasing CAFE standards would not pass a benefit-cost test."



"Thus, the impact of the Markey-Platts bill will hurt American car companies most where they are especially vulnerable -- at a time when they can least afford another legislative knee-capping."



"The argument that increasing CAFE standards will reduce global warming is grossly overstated. Even if greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities are significantly, and harmfully, raising global temperatures, which remains a subject of debate, increasing CAFÉ standards would have scant impact."




“Consumers want more fuel-efficient cars and we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But workers are part of the environment too, and drastic proposals which destabilize our industry won’t do anyone much good in the long run.”




"Advocates of higher CAFE duck this issue by claiming that new technologies eliminate the need for a trade-off between fuel economy and safety. This claim is false. If you take the most high-tech car imaginable and add a hundred pounds to it, two things will happen. Its fuel economy will drop, and its crashworthiness will increase. In short, there will still be a trade-off."




"If energy security is the rationale for CAFE standards, America needs to increase domestic coal and natural gas production, find out whether potential supplies of oil exist in Alaska, invest in more refinery capacity, and build nuclear power plants. We've done none of these."



"Unfortunately, ailing automakers and gas suppliers simply present too soft a boogeyman, and feel-good environmental platitudes too easy a justification."






Gee whiz, outside of those few minor and insignificant issues, there's absolutely nothing to stop us from adopting these standards, is there?

As usual, you and I bear the burden of poorly thought out policy decisions.

Are you really surprised to hear that?