Chinese Tinker-Cars

That might be a worthy trade-off. This country desperately needs better gas mileage. But it does not come free. The most efficient and equitable way to both increase mileage and reduce gasoline use (increased mileage alone can induce people, perversely, to drive more) is with a new gasoline tax, refunded by means of reduced payroll taxes to make it revenue neutral. But there is absolutely no congressional or administration support for that because it is too honest and open an acknowledgment that there is no free lunch. The reason Congress loves CAFE standards is precisely that they hide the cost -- in the sticker price of a new car. Whatever blame there is for the unfairness of life -- that energy efficiency is not free -- goes to the auto company rather than the mandating body, namely Congress.

That's the great attraction of ethanol, too. Another free lunch. The Senate bill mandates a quintupling of ethanol use by the year 2022. That might be a good idea; but it also has costs. With huge tracts of land now being turned over to grow corn for fuel, the price of corn already is rising, as is the price of other foods whose cropland has been taken over. The beauty of ethanol? It hides the price of purported energy efficiency in the most unlikely of places -- your Corn Flakes.

Mercifully, the Senate failed to pass a third proposed mandate from on high, a decree that power companies must produce 15 percent of electricity from alternative sources by 2020. Because solar is expensive, wind is inconsistent in places such as the South, and geothermal is not exactly bubbling up in most states of the Union, this mandate would have meant higher electricity prices.

I have no objection to paying more to reduce our dependency on foreign energy. But it is hard to conceive of a more politically dishonest and economically inefficient way to do it than with mandates that make private industry do Congress' dirty work, hide the true cost of energy efficiency and perpetuate the fantasy of the tax-free lunch.