On Fuel Economy and National Freedom

A colleague and dear friend of mine and I, let’s call her DC to conceal her real identity, were having a spirited discussion about whether the government has any right to dictate the size and mpg of our personal family cars. Her contention is that America is a free country with free citizens and that includes the right to drive any car of any size that tickles our fancy. And that right, though not in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, is so sacrosanct it ought to be. If this were 1969 instead of 2009, I think I would be compelled to agree with her. But in the intervening years the United States has gone through two oil embargos, two wars over oil security, and two crestings of peak oil. The first crest occurred in the 1960’s when domestic oil supplies no longer could keep pace with demand thus requiring imported oil and the second was in 2005 when world demand was pressurizing the supply and price environment of oil because of the rising prosperity of countries such as China and India. As the world economy has collapsed since 2005 that pressure has been released somewhat but don’t worry it WILL be back. The developing nations desire for cars and industrial wealth has slowed but will never stop. So what’s my contention? I maintain that American oil consumption is an issue of freedom and national security that is so great, the government (which is all of us represented by our lawfully elected officials) has a compelling interest to impinge on some of our freedom in this area. First of all, at current rates of consumption we must import 70% of our oil to maintain our standard of living. This is not just our cars, but our industry, infrastructure, really our whole fabric of life. To have such a dependence is the worst kind of vulnerability. Not only can our way of life be taken away by OPEC without warning, but our dependence compels and drives our national policy to be one of compromise for the sake of oil. There are some countries and world leaders for whom we should be giving a collective national bird (and I’m not talking about the American Eagle!) but when you need their resources to live you really can’t take too strong of a stand on anything. I harbor no fantasies that America is ever going to be a clean, green autotopia filled with all-electric or hydrogen cars zipping the kids to ball practice with zero tailpipe emissions. At current prices and with the current economy most of us can’t afford them anyway. On the other hand I think the freedom to buy the biggest gas guzzling car you can afford to drive pushes us as a nation in the wrong direction. Given the reality that oil is a finite resource, just because a person can afford to burn more of it than others can is not a compelling reason to let them do so especially in light of our national security. Once upon a time, gas rationing and conservation, were imposed from above for the same reason and people felt patriotic for cooperating. While such draconian measures are not yet necessary, required fuel economy, lowered vehicle weights, and lower speed limits are hardly impositions against our freedom. In fact, these and thousand other steps we could take to conserve and disengage from oil might actually return America to a greater form of freedom we haven’t experienced in a while: true independence.