The Hill News

Imagine Steven McQueen’s high-speed chase in Bullitt, only this time he’s not in a ‘68 Mustang GT Fastback with a 390 CID, 325 HP carbureted V8; he’s clambering after mobsters in a 90 horsepower, 65 MPG electric hybrid. This is not an alternate reality; it’s the Environmental Protection Agency’s CAFE future, scheduled to be finalized this summer.
 
EPA wants to double current MPG requirements by 2025: a noble regulatory target, but one that carries great costs for the industry, consumers, and the broader economy. EPA admits the proposed rule could generate “net costs” upward of $141 billion. However, buried in its 833-page regulatory impact analysis, are the hidden, the obfuscated, and the under-reported costs the administration would rather ignore.
 
For example, one method EPA uses to match costs and benefits is by counting benefits years into the future. With a regulation scheduled into 2025, this may make sense, until you read ! the language: “anticipated to extend over a period from approximately fifty to two hundred or more years in the future.” These so-called “intergenerational benefits” of reduced CO2 levels are expected to generate $45.6 billion in benefits.

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