Cafe regs were-are-a big success story.The car companies initially whined"not able to do,will cost $5000 car etc" all sorts of BS.You are right they have been frozen for 20 years-absolutely no one could remember back to 79-80 when oil spiked.The late 70's early mid 80's are when the japanese companies grabbed a huge shares of the USA market by producing small, reliable,FE cars.Did the Big 3 take this to heart,and make FE important-like Toyota and Honda-no.
If the CAFE regs had been progressively tightened GM would be in a much better position than they are currently with their gas guzzler heavy lineup.
The current CAFE is what 26 mpg??It could easily be have been boosted to 30 mpg-and GM would have been the better for it.
Still-in respect to the incandescent bulbs-I would prefer some sort of phasing out-like with Freon 12-with the price rapidly going up.There is(close to) zero downside to better light bulbs.
The history of safety regs is the same story-with no gov regs we would have very few safety mods.The marketplace just didn't reward(and still doesn't) reward safety.However they have saved many,many lives,and saved lots of $$$(huge medical costs).The companies whined about every safety reg!You can't rely on the "free market" to "make" people do what is good for them(in a long run statistical sense).Leather pks outsell side curtain airbag pks about 50/1(a guess).Same story on MC helmets.
The free market isn't always the best way-it is almost always cheapest-no question-but it doesn't have our national interests at heart.Charlie