Competitive Enterprise Institute Digs Deeper Hole, Says CAFE Will Cost Lives

Competitive Enterprise Institute Digs Deeper Hole, Says CAFE Will Cost Lives

We've covered the Competitive Enterprise Institute's (CEI) hole-digging statements before, from their "CO2: We Call it Life" ads, to their "complaining about Al Gore flying everywhere to promote An Inconvenient Truth,", to an op-ed piece blaming Rachel Carson for the global malaria crisis. Now, they've dug an even deeper hole AND buried themselves in it by claiming that not only will the new CAFE standards be a waste of taxpayer money, they will actually result in people dying! Yes, that's right, according to their logic, the new standards will lead to vehicles that are "less crashworthy in the case of an accident" because more efficient cars will have to be lighter. Now, keep in mind this is the same group that in 1992 claimed that global warming “looks pretty good. Warmer winters, warmer nights, no effects during the day because of clouding — sounds to [us] like we’re moving to a more benign planet.” They also asserted that the atmosphere needs more, not less CO2 (PDF). Of course CAFE will result in lighter cars--that's the point! Somehow, the CEI has concluded that only heavy cars are safe (perhaps that's because they are partially funded by Ford, and until recently, they were also funded by Exxon). Under this line of reasoning, cars would need to become increasingly large to assure safety, to the point that we would all be driving tanks. (Some argue that, in many ways, we already do) Amory Lovins, inventor of the hypercar concept, and many others, have argued and demonstrated that extremely light cars can be extremely safe; making other cars on the road lighter not only increases efficiency, but increases safety.