EPA Lampoons Energy-Saving Cars

A couple of years ago vice-president Dick Cheney claimed that conservation is a “personal virtue” and shouldn’t be a basis for a national energy policy. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency is running ads that disparage attempts to drive cleaner, more efficient cars as if that really weren’t important.

Danny Hakim writes in The New York Times:

In a 60-second version of the public service announcement, a woman named Suzanne says she is concerned about pollution and global warming, but laments the homegrown efforts of her husband, Mark, to cut emissions from the family car. Mark - nerdy, pudgy, harried - is shown rigging up their car, first with a sail, then a microwave contraption using huge satellite dishes, and finally a helium tank with a bulbous hose. ... Buying a cleaner car, or say, a smaller sport utility vehicle, does not appear to be a viable alternative for reducing emissions. The ad ends with a shot of Mark pushing the car down a hill and Suzanne saying, "He still marches to the beat of a different drum." At one point, the car fills with helium, Mark starts talking like Mickey Mouse and two men in the backseat shake their heads and say "Genius!"

In a shorter version of the ad, Mark's car sails down the road - literally - while a narrator says, "there is a practical way to reduce air pollution." Viewers are then directed to a Web site that lists energy- efficient furnaces, computers and dishwashers - in fact, just about everything but cars. ... The ads underscore how far Washington has diverged from California and Canada on auto regulations. Last week, California released an initial draft of a plan to cut automotive emissions of global warming gases by nearly 30 percent, a strategy sharply different from that of the Bush administration, which has withdrawn from a global accord on curbing such emissions.

The EPA has offered two excuses for this. First, the ads were created by a division that didn’t bother to check with any transportation people. Second, the EPA argues that making home appliances more efficient will ultimately do more for the environment than improving the efficiency of cars.

The first excuse is pretty weak, but even if true one has to wonder what people were thinking. Disparaging attempts to make cars more efficient just doesn’t make any sense. The second excuse might be true, but it also doesn’t justify disparaging attempts to improve cars. It’s bad enough to say that conservation is a “personal virtue,” but it’s even worse to be critical of those who try to adopt that virtue.

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