The American Spectator

Reader Mail

'Tis the Season to Be Jolly

12.5.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 5)

GOVERNMENT GUZZLERS
Re: Doug Bandow's Killing Drivers, Increasing Costs:

A column after the true Libertarian's heart, Mr. Bandow's piece spotlights how close Congress is to killing-off the remaining presence of the U.S. auto industry, driving the final stake into Detroit's earthly existence, and pronouncing a death sentence on additional American citizens.
Has anyone even asked Congress where they get the authority to set CAFE standards, much less dictate to the manufacturers how motor vehicles can and cannot be made? I find that particular power listed nowhere in my handy-dandy pocket version of the U.S. Constitution. And, no, the interstate commerce clause only gives Congress the authority to regulate the movement of goods between the various states, not the ultimate end-uses of those goods.
-- Owen H. Carneal
Yorktown, Virginia

Between the Unions and Government it is amazing we still do have an auto industry.

What I want someone to ask one of the would-be Presidents is what will they do to open drilling in Alaska and off our own coasts. I am all for cutting back on buying oil from countries that hate us, we need to become independent from threats to withhold oil.

Our people in Washington seem to think they become experts once they are elected. Ethanol cost more to make than it saves in energy cost and mileage goes down. Let the market place work.
-- Elaine Kyle

Even though Mr. Bandow is absolutely correct about the danger that increasing CAFE standards poses, It is possible that he is wrong about the increase in Vehicle Miles Traveled as a result of higher CAFE standards. I would like to hear his explanation for the September release of Vehicle Miles Traveled because the total US volume in September 2007 is nearly identical to October 2006. How did this happen without command and control legislation from the government?

We are experiencing, nationally, a very unusual flattening of the consumption of vehicle miles traveled. Usually, a slowdown in VMT is concurrent with a recession and it is only a few months long. My theory is that this is related to demographic changes induced by Baby Boomer retirements.

Getting the Eco-Freaks to take responsibility for the death toll will be quite difficult. They won't even suffer the thought that their favorite regulations might be contributing to the decline of US car manufacturing. It is awful to be dependant on Arab oil but OK to be dependant on foreign car manufacturers?

Truck weight and length is creeping up in response to losses of transportation productivity due to congestion and speed limits set artificially low to improve air quality. Mixing larger trucks with smaller cars degrades crash survivability. The danger of mixing two vehicles going different speeds has been known for decades and can be mitigated with extra lanes. The danger posed by mixing vehicles of greatly differing weights is largely unappreciated because no one ever thought that we would allow the road infrastructure in terms of lane-miles to grow at a rate substantially below the growth of population increases or demand in the form of Vehicle Miles Traveled.

From 2000 to 2004, the rate of population growth in the U.S. would cause our numbers to double every 65.2 years. The number of lane-miles of roads increased over the same period at a rate that would allow them to double every 252.3 years. The space between vehicles is shrinking and the Eco-Freaks think that the human body and the cars should shrink with it.
-- Danny L. Newton
Cookeville, Tennessee

Mr. Bandow makes several very good points in his article.

Do we really want to be energy independent? I think that we should be, for a number of reasons the least of which is conservation of fossil fuels. Mostly, I think that we need to get off an oil economy. We are reaching the point (if not there already) that having our economy dependant on oil is dragging it down almost as much as taxes.

There are things the government can do. None of the reasonable government actions involves higher standards, CAFE or otherwise. If the government wants to make us energy independent (and get us off the drug of oil), it need only do a few things.

1: Provide funding to independent and university labs for alternative energy sources. These should include nuclear, solar, and hydrogen. An all Hydrogen fleet, including aircraft, could be realized by 2050 if we really wanted to be there.

2: Provide tax credits to those companies that start implementing alternative energy products. Major tax credits.

Letter to the Editor

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