Here's an issue that I saw posted in Gristmill the other day, but no one seems to be talking about it.
Apparently, Rep Dingell (D-MI) has floated what appears to be a serious carbon tax bill, a policy favored by Al Gore, and what appears to be a real step forward to cutting fossil fuel use. In addition calls for eliminating the tax deduction for mortgage interest on sprawl-inducing homes with over 4,00 sq. feet of floor space. You;d think the enviros would be interested in such a proposal, but, as Gristmill reports, "Big Green savages Dingell's carbon tax." Apparently, Dingell cannot be trusted because of his opposition to increasing CAFE stabdards (He is from Michigan, after all), and so, with the exception of Friends of the Earth, the other big enviro groups are opposing this tooth and nail.
Which is odd, as I'll explain below the fold:
Big Green seems to have an irrational attachment to increasing the CAFE standards, which is a bizzare mirror image of the wingnuts' irrational attachment to global warming denial. When I listen to enviros talk about CAFE standards and auto issues in general, I get the idea that it really, really bothers them that those SUV owners get to feed their neuroses by being macho poseurs, and by God, what's really needed is to force those bastards into driving high-mpg Dorkmobiles.
Of course, the apologists for the auto companies can deflect this weak Green tactic, a tactic born of frustration, by pointing out that the macho posuers aren't going to buy Dorkmobiles. Which puts the Greens into the position of being unrealistic, as you can't expect a company to produce something that no one will buy.
However, the Euros have much more success in reducing their CO2 emissions and petroleum use (though they too probably need to do more), and they share much of the same macho culture around cars that we do in America (if not worse, as any pedestrian in Paris can tell you.) They do it in two ways: First, according to a French auto engineer I've worked with, the average French driver drives about 8,000 miles per year, as opposed to the 15,000 miles per year of the average American Driver. Second, of course, is that the cars are much more fuel efficient. But they aren't necessarily Dorkmobiles. But it is true that the average American macho poseur driver will need some marketing to accept that "small is beautiful" when it comes to cars.
That's where a good stiff carbon/gasoline Tax comes in. A nice gas price shock (without any supply disruptions) will have two virtues: One is that it will reduce driving (and there's some evidence that even the recent modest price shocks did a little of that), and the other is that it will make even the most macho poseur start to consider fuel economy as something important to consider when selecting a car. Which might star making them more open to smaller cars that have both the performance they want and the fuel economy they need. Sorry, Big Green, they'll still be neurotic macho poseurs, but at least their carbon footprint will be reduced.
This is a realistic expectation of human behavior. I've worked with long-haul truckers, some of the most macho poseurs you can imagine, but, to a man, (or woman, as there are more lady truckers than you think), they care about fuel economy, as might be expected when you're driving over 100,000 miles a year in a rig that gets 5-6 mpg, and the price of fuel has doubled over the past few years.
There's another big advantage to the carbon tax, in that it would force behavior change that would result in immediate reduction in fossil fuel use because of driving less. Improving CAFE standards would only show a benefit as the auto fleet turns over, which might take some years. Maybe more than we care to thing because the macho poseurs would hold on to their current vehicles rather than buy the feared Dorkmobiles. And best of all, a price shock that gets the macho poseurs to think about fuel economy will generate a market for smaller fuel efficient cars that Detroit (or Toyota City) will be perfectly happy to meet. One thing you hear auto execs harp on when these issues are raised is something called "Product cycle development." That means they have sunk costs in the tooling for the current <so>crap</so> models they're building, and they want to get their investment back before retooling for a different car. The trick is to synchronize the desire of the automobile purchasers for fuel-efficient cars with the product cycle development. If you can do that, all of a sudden, Detroit's opposition to higher CAFE standards will vanish. After all, they didn't stop EPA from tightening emissions standards starting in the 1990's. They really don't care, as they can easily meet the most stringent standards, and in doing so, they actually make the cars run better. If they're selling mostly fuel-efficient cars, and making good money doing it, they won't care about CAFE standards that they would be meeting anyway. The point of government policy is to set things up so that saving fuel is what the car-buying public is demanding, and a good stiff carbon/gasoline tax would do that nicely.
So I'm no sure sure about Big Green. Perhaps there are other things in the proposal that make it distasteful, perhaps it's some sort of cynical poison-pill, though I don't think Dingell is a tool of Big Oil. Maybe a tool of Detroit, but that's being the usual typical parochial congresscritter. Certainly increasing CAFE standards is desirable, but this proposal, too, deserves support, and the major enviro organizations need to think more strategically rather than sticking to a knee-jerk policy of relying only on CAFE.