All Posts Tagged With: "CAFE standards"

How Not to Respond to Higher Gasoline Prices

Mix together surging gasoline prices, a conflict in the Middle East, and a presidential election year, and what do you get? Given the sorry state of economic education among our political elites, you are likely to find bad energy – policy proposals and an increased willingness to intervene in the very market forces that are [...]

1Jul2010 | and and David N. Laband | 2 comments | Continued

Dim Bulbs

“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.” —Thomas A. Edison Edison’s words may have been true in the 1800s. Today, however, we have plenty of rules, thanks to the U.S. Congress. Some are so bizarre that you have to question the judgment of those who come up with them. One rule in [...]

10Jun2009 | Michael Heberling | 30 comments | Continued

Unintended Consequences in Energy Policy

On the first day of every economics class I teach I start with The Ten Pillars of Economic Wisdom. This is a list I have put together of the ten most important principles in economics. Pillar number six is, “Every action has unintended consequences; you can never do only one thing.” U.S. energy policy illustrates [...]

2Mar2009 | David R. Henderson | 11 comments | Continued

Government-Mandated Fuel-Efficiency Standards

Government mistakes have long lives. In response to the energy crisis of the 1970s, Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. This legislation had two major objectives: 1) Reduce our overall consumption of petroleum and 2) reduce our dependence on foreign oil (meaning OPEC). The means to accomplish this was CAFE, Corporate Average Fuel [...]

1Sep2006 | Michael Heberling | 3 comments | Continued

A Higher Gasoline Tax Will “Solve Everything”?

Regrettably, I have to criticize someone who, in the past, I have admired a great deal. John Tierney is an iconoclastic columnist for the New York Times who has been writing on environmental issues for at least a decade. His now-classic 1996 Times Magazine story critical of recycling was a well-researched article that I have [...]

1Apr2006 | Roy Cordato | 0 comments | Continued

The Scapegoat Utility Vehicle

Sam Kazman is general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (www.cei.org), a Washington-based free-market advocacy organization. First sin, then treason, and finally, reckless idiocy. For owners of sports utility vehicles (SUVs), that pretty much sums up the last holiday season. They went into Thanksgiving under fire from the “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign. Then the [...]

1Jul2003 | Sam Kazman | 0 comments | Continued

The Regulatory Conundrum

Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of several books. When Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, wanted a $190,000 Ferrari 360 Spider, he went to a German dealer, since it would have taken two to three years to obtain one from [...]

1Jun2003 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | Continued

Bad Logic Kills

A big part of mankind’s problem may be the simple failure to recognize a fallacious argument. The columnist Arianna Huffington recently criticized the Bush administration’s renewed intention to exploit the oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). She proposed that instead of promoting oil drilling in Alaska, the administration should raise automobile mileage standards. [...]

1Aug2002 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Uncle Sam’s False Fuel Economy

Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of several books. A quarter century after the misguided policies of President Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress created an “energy crisis,” President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress risk wandering down the same foolish [...]

1Nov2001 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | Continued

How Government Prevents Us from Buying Safety

There is a limit to how much people will voluntarily pay to reduce the risk of accidental injury or death. In other words, the marginal value people place on their lives is finite. We accept some risks to take advantage of opportunities to do things that, at the margin, provide more value than the expected sacrifice in health and life expectancy.

1Dec2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 1 comment | Continued

High Gasoline Prices Are Your Fault?

Who should be blamed for the high oil and gasoline prices? OPEC? The oil companies? The government? According to the New York Times’s Floyd Norris, if you chose any of those you would be wrong. Writing on June 23, Mr. Norris places all the blame for the current “energy crisis,” as he calls it, squarely [...]

1Nov2000 | Roy Cordato | 0 comments | Continued

Wasting Energy on Energy Efficiency

Ben Lieberman is a policy analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Few aspects of our daily lives are more heavily regulated by the federal government than our use of energy. The cars and trucks we drive, the structures in which we live and work, and virtually every major appliance we use has [...]

1Apr1999 | Ben Lieberman | 3 comments | Continued

Driving America: Your Car, Your Government, Your Choice

John Semmens is an economist with the Laissez-Faire Institute in Chandler, Arizona. Driving America is a well-reasoned brief on behalf of the automobile. The car is the travel option of choice because it offers a fast, comfortable, convenient, and affordable way of getting where one wants to go. Nevertheless, there are those who would sacrifice [...]

1Nov1998 | John Semmens | 0 comments | Continued

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