The Art of the Con

You may have read that Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill contains within it a provision ending the fines imposed by the federal government when a car company fails to comply with Corporate Average Fuel Economy “standards” – as these requirements are euphemistically styled.

These CAFE “standards” are expressed as “fleet average” miles-per-gallon numbers, meaning the average mileage achieved by a car company’s entire lineup of vehicles must be at least 35.5 miles-per-gallon, which is the current requirement. If a car company does not achieve compliance with that mandatory minimum, what happens is the “gas guzzlers” in its inventory – i.e., those vehicles that do not average at least 35. 5 MPG – incur fines that are then passed on to the buyer (if he can afford to pay the extra) as an “incentive” for the car company to stop making those vehicles. Or to make fewer of them. And to make more “efficient” vehicles, such as hybrids and EVs – irrespective of what this costs and never mind whether people want to pay for it.

The thing is an affront based upon an obvious fatuity – that were it not for CAFE “standards,” the car companies would not offer fuel efficient cars. Because no one wants fuel efficient cars. Never mind that buyer demand for fuel efficient cars prompted the manufacture of a plethora of economical cars, long before CAFE “standards” were ever heard of.

What the government wants is to use that lie to force up the price of cars generally, so that fewer (eventually just a few) can afford any new car.

Well, Trump has – apparently – ended the imposition of fines for CAFE noncompliance and of course that is being bemoaned by the Usual Suspects as having given the car companies the green light to build as many “gas guzzlers” as they can while they can. Actually, what annoys the Usual Suspects is the idea of them being available, again. It is not enough that some vehicles average 35.5 MPG and that those who value that attribute are free to buy such vehicles. The Usual Suspects require that everyone buy such a vehicle – and if a few slip past the regulatory eye of sauron somehow, those who have the gall to buy one must be punished. There is always punishment. It is a necessary corollary of the Puritan sadism of these people.

Anyhow, Trump – via the BBB – has supposedly ended the fining for CAFE noncompliance and that is fine, as far as it goes. The problem is it does not go far enough – because in the first place, it only goes back to 2022; i.e., the standards in force at that time. The existing standards is still in force, in other words. They’re just not going higher, for now.

Which they almost certainly will, in time – because the architecture that imposed CAFE “standards” is still place. All that’s happened is a temporary abeyance. Meaning, because CAFE “standards” still exist in principle as well as fact, they have not gone away; the fines for failure to comply with the existing/2022 standards could and almost certainly will be re-imposed at some point in the future, whether by Trump or by one of his successors. It is of a piece with the half-truths about Trump ending the “EV mandate.” He didn’t – because there isn’t one. There is an EV sales mandate in CA and some California-emulating states. But the federal regulations (including CAFE, by the way) that effectively require the manufacturing of EVs (whether they are salable being irrelevant) are still in force.

And the apparats that issue them still exist.

The EPA – source of all this – has not been dismantled. It has been temporarily restrained. Until the EPA and its enabling legislation, the Clean Air Act and its amendments – are done away with/rescinded, the CAFE Compliance anvil is still hovering over our heads. It is of a piece with “ending” of the shared responsibility payment (that is, tax) people who don’t buy the now-federally-required health insurance are hit with each year if they do not buy “coverage.” The shared responsibility payment cannot be collected – for the moment – except via collecting it from tax “refunds” due. If you avoid being in the position of getting a “refund” (of your own money, without interest) then the government can’t get more of your money.

For now.

Obamacare is, however, still the law. So the shared responsibility payment could be re-fanged at any time. Do you suppose a President Buttigieg or Newsom would ever countenance people not paying their shared responsibility payment?

The point being that federal laws and regs are like Dracula. They may appear dead for the moment but are only sleeping, so to speak. The only way to make sure they’re dead is to drive a stake through their heart and then cut off their heads and stuff onions in the thing’s gullet.

Trump has done a good thing, but it is only a temporary thing. One hopes this Epstein thing won’t mean it’s a short-term thing.

. . .

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