I must say this every 3 weeks on here, but I love the CAFE regulations because they let you impose a certain element of government control while still letting the free market work. All that CAFE does is say that your entire fleet of automobiles needs to achieve XX.X miles per gallon on average or else you pay a very reasonable penalty for each tenth of a mile per gallon you miss.

BMW and Mercedes are the biggest offenders every year. Did we have to ban BMW? Did we have to ban Mercedes? No, those companies can still sell their cars, but they must pay penalties to the EPA to do so. If they want to avoid such penalties (I think it works out to an average of $200/car for BMW if memory serves) they can make their vehicles more fuel efficient. If that's not enough of an incentive, we can continue to raise CAFE until BMW's become MUCH more expensive than their competition in the marketplace, forcing them to either raise their prices (which lowers sales volume) or offer more fuel efficient vehicles.

It's a great system... truly visionary, if you asked me. As far as government programs go, I would honestly have to say that CAFE is one of the best to ever come along. Now I just wish they would raise the bar. Cars have gotten 80% more powerful over the last 20 years but no more fuel efficient because the CAFE bar was never raised. It's time to set higher standards.