DEATH BY GOVERNMENT REGULATION

Congratulations to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and its attorney Sam Kazman whose work resulted in a federal ap-peals court overturning the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) program because it ignored its lethal effect of restrict-ing the availability of larger, more crashworthy cars.

CAFE was one of those cases where the government knows what's good for you: it forced automobile manufacturers to main-tain a congressionally mandated and ever rising sales-weighted average of miles per gallon achieved by its cars, which naturally was achieved by raising the prices for safer cars. The 1990 standard was 27.5 mpg, and Congress was about to legislate an even higher level of coercion, for CAFE was enthusiastically supported by Nader and his Center for Auto Safety, Amory Lovins and his ener-gy conservation program ("the free market just does not work in raising the efficiency of automobiles"), and every pol who has sub-stituted ecology and environment for motherhood and apple pie.

The court's opinion (US Court of Appeals, D.C., 2/19/92, no. 89-1422) pulled no punches, accusing the National Highway Traf-fic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of "papering over the issue," "fudging the analysis," "disingenuously obscuring," and "cowering behind bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo." It also chastises the NHTSA for its "lame claim that . . . not all CAFE gains come from reducing weight." I take it the NHTSA considers it OK to present your enemy in the season of good will toward all men with Christmas candles made of dynamite in wax coating. After all, good will is achieved not only by gifts of Christmas candles.

As CEI's president Fred Smith pointed out, Nader's corporate empire has used safety to push one government program after another; for years its Auto Safety Center demanded heavier, safer cars. But when CAFE forced them to choose between safety and big government, they voted for big government with both hands.

[CEI's address: 233 Pennsylvania Ave., SE/#200, Washington, DC 20003. The figure below is from an article by Fred Smith, CPAMB backgrounder no. 122]

Minimum estimates of Highway deaths caused by 10 years of CAFE [Highest deaths occurring in more densely populated states]