It appears that President Bush quickly signed the new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) bill drawn up by Congress. The new CAFE legislation mandates that automakers increase their aggregate average fuel efficiency by 40 per cent, from 25 miles per gallon today to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also mandates an increase in ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. So what does this all mean?

• Automakers will be forced to produce more gas miser vehicles to bring their averages up to the new federal standard; think “hybrid” and micro-cars
• Those in farming states are going to get a huge boon in federal subsidies (ethanol in the US is produced from corn, even though sugar cane is a more efficient raw material from which to draw ethanol; think “corn lobby”)

But does this really mean something substantive for the environment and pocketbook? Not in my opinion. Hybrids have not proven themselves to be the great equalizer than automakers have touted them to be. The cars are boring, heavy, lack any kind of driving excitement and overpriced.

In Europe, diesel powered cars have long been the favorite for fuel efficiency and with recent innovations in emissions technology - such as Mercedes’ BlueTec diesel engines (where urea is injected into the exhaust system, rendering exhaust particulates virtually gone) - diesel is no longer the black smoke producing heaps they’re stigmatized to be. BlueTec also received CARB’s (California Air Resources Board) thumbs up for sale in California, the state with the most stringent emissions laws. And considering that the engines of tomorrow will continue to lean toward the smaller end of the spectrum, diesel makes a lot of sense as a small displacement turbo diesel engine can’t be beat for such an application. Sure, the US lacks the production capacity to support a widespread shift to diesel, but it certainly doesn’t mean the refineries can’t diversify their operations to meet demand. If there’s money to be made, they will do it.

As far as E85 is concerned, it takes twice as much E85 to produce run a car, when compared to gasoline. E85 is currently selling for $2.39 per gallon on average, while gasoline is sold at $2.90 per gallon. As a result, drivers will have to use $4.78 worth of E85 to run and drive a car that can be run by $2.90 worth of gasoline. That seems like a crappy deal.

Rather than creating new problems to solve old ones, why not tackle the obvious first? Worried about emissions? Then mandate CARB-like emissions laws throughout the entire country. Michigan, for example, has no emissions laws whatsoever. You can run pretty much anything and everything. Imagine what CARB can do for that state alone.

Second, double, triple the price of gas through superstiff state and federal taxes. I don’t know about you, but if gas is too expensive, people will start car pooling more. Think of more creative ways to take short trips - public transportation anyone? Eliminate junkers from the roads that aren’t fuel efficient to begin with. Reduce traffic, thereby reducing overall emissions. And use the extra tax revenue to increase funding for repairing roads in disrepair and public mass transit systems. We don’t need to add more E85 cars to the roads. We need to get rid of cars OFF the road.

Yeah, I already know what you’re thinking. Raising gas prices will raise prices of any and all consumer goods because they have to be transported to the marketplace. Well, nothing comes for free. Whether Washington creates creative new legislation that really masks the real problems to begin with or we pay more for gas, we’re going to have to pay one way or another. So why not cut the BS and get to it already?