In 2006 President Bush declared that America is addicted to oil. In 2007, Congress responded by adopting the only approach that made sense. The way you beat an addition is not to increase supply, it is to kick the habit.

That is exactly what the Energy Independence and Security Act did, targeting gasoline consumption by rebooting the fuel economy standards. With by partisan support and federal-state collaboration, the U.S. adopted standards to match all the major auto producing and driving nations in the world for the first time in U.S. history. The industry has remained on target, and the cost of energy efficiency has been falling, while the cost of gasoline is on another one of its rollercoasters. This is an important step when NOPEC seems out of reach in the short-term and likely to be ineffective in the long-term.

Unfortunately, by scrapping the standards and preventing the “clean cars” states, which represent about 40% of U.S. auto sales, from sticking with them, the current administration has decided to feed the habit rather than kick it. This will increase U.S. consumption by trillions of gallons over the next couple of decades and only auto makers and oil companies will profit, while consumers, the economy, national security and the environment all suffer.

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