My Thursday column for the FT is on the president’s fuel-efficiency standards:

It was, the president declared, “an extraordinary gathering”. Bounding into the White House rose garden for his latest policy pronouncement, Barack Obama this week unveiled his plan to limit US petrol consumption and reinvigorate the domestic motor industry.

Compared with what had preceded it, it was extraordinary, for not only did he unveil a rise in fuel efficiency standards after years of drift, but his administration had also hammered out a consensus among government agencies, states led by California, and auto companies.

In the sweep of history, however, it was very ordinary indeed. Yet again, a president was placing his faith in government regulation to limit his countrymen’s fondness for big, gas-guzzling vehicles.

Instead of the simplest, most obvious and least expensive way of achieving that end – raising the national excise tax on petrol – the president was again relying on a complex, dirigiste intervention.

You can read the rest of the column here and comment below.

May 20, 2009 9:22pm in Autos | Comment