Legislating technology

Three times since then, Ford could have lifted controls by executive order. Instead, he signed an energy bill assuring increased dependence on the sheiks, continued energy waste and the stifling of domestic oil production, particularly by secondary and tertiary recovery. The punitive measures of the bill make the oil companies a scapegoat, but mostly hit the independent wildcatters.

The much touted price rollback has only been the first of the howling successes; but as farces go, it lacks the grotesque absurdity of the sections requiring the auto industry to improve gasoline mileage. The technical aspects of this point are discussed below, but there are other facets.

We are puzzled, for example, as to how Datsun or Fiat were able to produce economy cars without Sen. Muskie or Russel Train breathing down their necks, or why the American consumer turned to the economy cars long before being forced to do so by coercive legislation. Faced with losing millions of dollars to the imports, would Detroit produce its own economy cars? Apparently not; or are we to assume that the law is frivolous? The free market has been rendered obsolete since we have had Humphrey and Ullman to regulate demand and supply.

Regrettably, there are as yet no laws against throwing diamonds into the garbage. But at least the man who has a compelling need to drive a car at 40 gallons to the mile will now be thwarted and forced to take up legal pastimes, such as publishing military secrets or fingering CIA officers for murder. Of course, if the wastrel claims he is merely practicing a sexual perversion (gasolinophilia), his constitutional rights will be protected.

And what if the legislated technology is simply not attainable? A stupid question: How can it not be attainable when it's the law? Besides, the witch hunt against the auto industry has instructive precedents in the witch hunts against witches. The suspects were thrown, bound hand and foot, into the water. If they floated, they were executed; but they went free if they proved their innocence by drowning.