You can hardly argue that there’s no connection between oil consumption and terrorism, but even if you can ignore all the evidence pointing to gasoline-fueled cars as the crucial link between American culpability and third world enmity, I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to make cars more fuel efficient. Led by Republicans and backed up by Democrats from auto-producing states, the Senate yesterday rejected a proposal to increase the mandated fuel-economy of passenger cars to 40 miles per gallon… by the year 2015. That’s a dozen years from now, and the opposition argument is that this sort of legislation is a danger to American jobs. C’mon! Saying that the American auto industry is incapable of gearing up for a new fuel economy standard over the course of twelve years is a kind of insult to American ingenuity and resourcefulness, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s a testament to laziness, greed and an obstinate unwillingness to really address the reality of our role in the world.
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