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E-mail"President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which will improve vehicle fuel economy and help reduce US dependence on oil," the White House said in a statement.
It never ceases to amaze this writer that government bureaucrats seem to think they can change the laws of economics and physics with a stroke of a pen! Government produces neither vehicles nor oil, yet its champions believe it can manage both commodities better than the world's industrialists.
The energy bill requires the auto industry to reduce fuel consumption in most cars and light trucks by 40 percent, raising the fuel efficiency standard to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also calls for a sixfold increase in the use of ethanol, alcohol produced largely from corn, to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022. (Just watch what that does to the price of cornflakes, all you thrifty shoppers!)
The legislation also sets new energy efficiency standards requiring the use of more electricity-efficient light bulbs and appliances.
Notice that the goal of this legislation is not to increase our energy production, a logical way out of our energy shortages. Rather, it aims to decrease consumption. The rational behind this thinking is that energy consumption leads to the unproven phenomenon of mankind’s contribution to "global warming."
My colleagues have written much about global warming, however, and I added my two cents' worth recently in a News Feed titled "Gore Accuses U.S. of Obstructing Climate Talks." Rather than belabor that point, today's discussion is limited to light bulbs.
First of all, I have a reputation for being very, shall we say, "frugal." (My wife, whose father came from Scotland, thinks I qualify as an honorary Scot in that category!) I've driven 4-cyllinder cars since the 1980s and use water and electricity very conservatively. Therefore, last year, I bought a new kind of spotlight to light up our outdoor Christmas wreath, one with a funny-looking corkscrew-shaped element inside. Though it was more expensive, I was told it used less electricity, and would last longer than traditional spotlights. This year, I unpacked it and plugged it in for another Christmas season. After two nights, it burned out! So much for the economics of energy-efficient lighting. Needless to say, this year I replaced that light with the old-fashioned kind.
Granted, this may have been a fluke. Maybe that light was defective. Maybe these new, screwy-looking (literally) bulbs are the best things to come along since Edison invented the incandescent bulb. However, in a free market, that should be something for the consumer to decide. Eventually, better products dominate the market and those that don't measure up are discontinued, which is why TV sets have not had vacuum tubes in them for 40 years.
The United States has been the envy of the world for almost the entirety of its existence because our traditional free market economy allowed the best minds to invent the best products and market them at the best price. If we want to live at the same standard of living as nations burdened with government planning (the old Soviet Union comes to mind) all we need to do is turn our economy over to the bureaucrats in Washington.
Come to think of it, isn't this latest energy bill an indication that we have already done that?
