Fuel Law Looms Over Luxury Cars

How about, instead of creating arbitrary fuel efficiency standards, we just tax gasoline so that people consume less of it?

Fuel efficiency standards do virtually nothing to reduce gasoline consumption; they just make people buy gas-guzzling SUV's instead of gas-guzzling cars. The problem is, SUV's are heavier and less maneuverable than cars, which makes them much more dangerous to other cars and pedestrians.

If the government actually cared about carbon consumption, we would have something sensible like a gas tax rather than absurd fuel standards with a huge loophole for "light trucks". The thing is, I'm pretty sure the fuel standards thing is basically a subsidy for American car makers, who make lots of SUV's, but can't make luxury cars nearly as well as the Germans or the Japanese.

The first line of this article is:

(Please see Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

Then there are some very bold claims about "future regulations" that "could saddle automakers" with stuff.

Then it says I have to subscribe to read the rest. Didn't get to the corrections.

I'll wait for the paperback version.

don't we already pay a gas guzzler tax?