A Moment of Idiocy, of Real Idiocy

Posted by Thomas Firey

The above title is the correct assessment of the new energy bill that President Bush just signed into law less than 24 hrs after the House approved it by a 314–100 margin. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking just prior to yesterday’s vote, gave the politicians’ assessment: “You are present at a moment of change, of real change.”

Of course, it’s not that much of a change for politicians to substitute their collective judgment for the private decisions of consumers who have strong incentives (stronger than politicians!) to make the most efficient choices. Still, the new energy bill — assuming Congress sticks to it — will make some changes:

All this leads to one question: Why are these mandates necessary? If the changes are as sensible as Congress and the White House claim, consumers would make them privately. Indeed, the data indicate that consumer preference for fuel-efficient cars is stronger than what the economics would justify.

So then, what is this energy bill really all about?

ADDENDUM:  Beth Douglas Kelly, a mechanical engineer who specializes in energy R&D, emailed me about a bit of sloppiness in my parenthetical that ethanol gets worse gas mileage than gasoline. My statement is correct but, she points out, it’s not that important — it simply means that a certain volume of gasoline gets you farther than the same volume of ethanol. That fact bypasses the important questions of gasoline’s and ethanol’s costs (understood in a broad sense).

Here are the important comparisons:

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