Fueled by Pork

It is hardly surprising that the energy bills now under consideration in Congress are larded with pork. Our favorite is the $2 billion that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) wants to direct to cash-strapped companies such as ExxonMobil to help pay for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

If Congress truly wanted to reduce fossil fuel emissions and U.S. reliance on foreign oil -- in other words, make rational energy policy -- it could easily accomplish the task by raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars and gasoline taxes. As an MIT survey in 2000 showed, manufacturers could push the average fuel economy of American cars from today’s 27.5 miles per gallon to 46 miles per gallon merely by taking advantage of existing technologies. That would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third and reduce U.S. reliance on Mideast oil by three-fourths.

Instead, Congress has latched on to a misguided plan to give consumers subsidies to buy a product that manufacturers already can’t make fast enough. The product is the electric-gas hybrid car, and the plan gained new currency a few weeks ago when President Bush proposed spending $2.5 billion over 10 years for tax incentives to encourage people to buy hybrid vehicles.

Although this page has backed tax credits to encourage Americans to buy entry-level hybrid cars, current market conditions make them unnecessary. Moreover, the tax proposal that Bush now favors, the so-called CLEAR Act, by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would cap incentives for popular hybrids like the Toyota Prius at a measly $2,500, while showering the largest hybrid vehicles, like trucks or buses, with subsidies of up to $24,000.

Hatch, who has been known to drive a Lincoln Town Car, is only one of many pork-ladling legislators. But it is his hybrid-vehicle tax credit that best illustrates Congress’ tendency to spend as extravagantly as it does unwisely. Especially in energy policy, sticks -- like gas taxes -- usually work better than carrots.