WASHINGTON—Today the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) rule to roll back the Obama-era fuel economy mandate. Heritage’s energy and environment economist Nick Loris, deputy director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, said:

Consumers should have the freedom to buy the vehicle of their choice. Every time the federal government has cranked up fuel-efficiency mandates, they override consumer preferences and obscure price signals that tell energy producers to drill for more oil or entrepreneurs to invest in more fuel-efficient cars.

 

Fuel-economy standards drive up the sticker price of vehicles by thousands of dollars. Those prices ripple throughout the entire vehicle market pricing many buyers out. The Obama-era CAFE standards are an antiquated, unnecessary regulation that Congress should abolish; however, the SAFE rule is a marked improvement from the aggressive fuel-economy mandate of the past.