States already charge a floating rate based on axle weight. Why not extend that or replace that for non commercial vehicles with a tax based on fuel economy? If you own a 9mpg land-ark, regardless of how much you actually drive it, you pay a slightly higher vehicle tax. This way, it's far less regressive than a gas tax that punishes people with old beater cars and pushes the tax burden on to the people who already spent $65,000 for an SUV. Use standard published mileage values and update then annually. It doesn't matter what the absolute numbers are as long as they are relatively consistent.

...They would raise gas taxes, and pour that money raised into mass transit, sidewalks, and bike lanes. Agreed, many rural areas don't have mass transit to pour the money into. But at least for those of us in cities and towns large enough to have a bus/train/light rail system, I might get off my behind and take the bus more often if it made economic and timing sense.

If there was more funding for my local transit agency, and more riders, the bus might run more often, and it might go to the places I want to go. As it is, it's inconvenient, expensive, and usually triples my travel time over taking the car.

I think the American public will get more vocal about an increased gas tax than a few more dead American soldiers each week. The proper 50-cent tax would cause riots in the streets. It will never happen.

The problem with CAFE is that it's putting the regulation at the wrong point in the market. Instead of shaping consumer demand, it's an attempt to shape how companies respond to consumer demand.

For instance, BMW and Mercedes are quite capable of selling fuel efficient models with small gasoline engines and a range of diesel engines - that's what they sell in Europe. There's no demand for them here, so the companies can look at CAFE fines as a price for "brand management."

Equally, GM and Ford suck at producing and making money on bread and butter cars that people actually want, but are quite good at making trucks and SUVs that are profitable and coincidentally CAFE-exempt. That's why maintaining CAFE compliance is really more of a PR exercise for them.

If you want to change their behavior, change what their customers want. A previous letter writer used mileage as a basis for tax, you could follow the Italian method and base it on engine displacement, or you could follow the British model and tie it to carbon dioxide emissions (as well as income level for company cars).

Point is, supplier-based solutions don't work. If they did, arresting drug dealers would stop people from using illegal drugs. Trying to increase fuel efficiency by not allocating the costs to consumers is likely to be as effective.

Tweaking CAFE is a waste of time. Whether it's a gasoline tax or different registration tax schema, any solution has to be based on giving consumers a cost for their behavior so that they can decide whether or not they want to pay it.

The problem with a higher gas tax is that it will, as all sales taxes do, disproportionatly effect those least able to pay.

Those with wealth can buy smaller cars, or simply pay more, those without wealth, for whom affordability is their first concern with regard to vehicle purchase have not choice but to simply drive less.

Great for the envirionment but but bad for the physical and there by economic mobility of those most in need of economic mobility in our society.

Cafe standards effect all citizens equally, the price of gas remains set by the market, and all people have the same choice of cars. Those with the wealth to purchase less fuel efficient cars may do so, and those with out wealth now have more options for their personal and econmic mobility.

That "Detroit" with its cars assembled in Mexico and Canada is less equipted to adapt than "Japan" with cars assembled in Ohio and Louisiana is not the concern of the vast majority of Americans.

If a "jet blue" auto maker arrived on the scene, without the massive legacy costs of the "Big Three" they would have no more difficulty competing in a higher CAFE market, than would any other manufacturer. So why do we worry about Detroit? Yes they are still big employers and big parts of our GDP, but they are not irreplacable, and if we are to accept a need for less CO2 produced, history has shown that high gas prices alone simply won't cut it.

A gas tax is political suicide because everyone feels the pinch equally, and most everyone feels someone else deserves to be pinched more. CAFE standards by effecting the supply not the demand for a product causes no one to feel pinched, while equally pinching the problem for emissions.

Higher fees for violators are always popular as well, but in the end, the government is being asked to do something about CO2 emissions and oil dependence. And only by raising the CAFE standards have we ever reversed the trends of our nation's fuel consumption.

Why not just stop looking at an automakers fleet and say no domestic/foreign cars/suv, period, can be sold without paying a very hefty fine or getting 30mpg? You have to sell cars with saftey belts, you have to sell cars with wheels that are attached so they dont fall off, you can be required to sell cars with decent gas mileage.

If you want to drive a gas guzzler so your kid seems like more of a badass when you drop him off at school since his mom drives a miltary class vehicle or you want to live out in the mountains, you will have to pay for your choice (I assume the fines would get shifted to the consumer).

Heck you can even play an Orwellian name change to sell the law since they no longer will technically be CAFE standards and you can sell them as something better like NASCAR Standards (No Automobile Should Consume an Abundance of Resources). I am sure we could sell NASCAR standards would play well in America.

...

And fix the hummer loophole too, really, what kind of excuse is that?

Geez, our world is melting, we need something better than economists making excuses for our bad behavior.