Political Commentary

As part of the recent Energy Bill passed by congress, new gas mileage requirements were put in place. Auto manufacturers have to build a fleet of cars and trucks that have an average gas mileage of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. This is another example of bad legislation. Our congressional legislators should be more of the law of unintended consequences.

You might be wondering about this. How could I possibly be against higher gas mileage? I am not! However, I would like automakers to spend money on things that are important. What would be better, spending R and D money on having cars with better gas mileage and still using oil, or spending R and D money on cars that don’t even use oil? Congress is barking up the wrong tree completely!

Congress should be funding and encouraging research into creating a practical vehicle driven by hydrogen. What we have instead is this feel good legislation that merely kicks the problem down the road a ways. Now legislators can pat themselves on the back and go home and tell everyone how good they are. This legislation was a huge mistake.

I think it is quite possible that with a massive and concerted R and D effort we could have a fleet of hydrogen powered cars by 2020 that don’t use ANY oil except for lubrication, and that would probably be synthetic. We shouldn’t be wasting our money on things that get in the way of that.