Articles by Clark Williams-Derry

Gas taxes are OK, but they aren’t a silver bullet

The basic point of this NYT piece is pretty good: The idea of coupling a gasoline-tax increase with a cut in payroll taxes deserves a much closer look. It makes sense as policy -- gas taxes should be higher, and a payroll tax cut could help soften the blow. Plus, pairing a tax increase with a tax cut seems to draw far broader political support than a straight-out hike in gas taxes:

The gasoline tax-cum-rebate proposal enjoys extremely broad support. Liberals favor it. Environmentalists favor it. The conservative Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker has endorsed it, as has the antitax crusader Grover Norquist. President Bush's former chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, has advanced it repeatedly.

OK, so it's a good idea. But I can't help myself -- I'm going to pick some nits.

The more compact your neighborhood, the less time you spend in a car

One benefit of living in a compact neighborhood rather than a sprawling suburb: You don't spend as much time in your car. The chart below, derived from a national transportation survey, makes the point pretty clearly:

More evidence that individual purchases mean less than changes in the system

Apparently I didn't do such a good job in this post explaining why I found this New York Times article on higher-mileage, gas-electric hybrid SUVs so troubling. So I'll try again.

To recap -- the Times article claims that, under the system governing vehicle fuel economy in the U.S., selling a hybrid Escape lets Ford sell an additional Lincoln Navigator without running afoul of federal CAFE standards. In other words, while buying an Escape may mean that you're driving a more efficient vehicle, it doesn't mean that the average fuel economy of all the Fords on the road will change one whit.

A couple commenters over on my blog mothership said this is bunk. But I think the article is on to something.

Buying hybrid SUVs allows car companies to sell gas-guzzlers

Oy. I used to think the introduction of hybrid SUVs was generally a good thing -- with perhaps even greater potential for saving fuel than hybrid cars. But this New York Times article brings up a point I simply hadn't considered: Buying a fuel-efficient SUV makes it possible for car companies to sell big gas guzzlers without incurring any penalties under federal CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards. From the article:

[E]very Toyota Highlander hybrid S.U.V. begets a hulking Lexus S.U.V., and every Ford Escape -- the hybrid S.U.V. that Kermit the Frog hawked during the Super Bowl -- makes room for a Lincoln Navigator, which gets all of 12 miles a gallon. Instead of simply saving gas when you buy a hybrid, you're giving somebody else the right to use it.

This is vexing, to say the least.