Opinion

Environmental benefits limited from ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Clearing the air

Environmental benefits limited from ‘Clunkers’ deal

Lincoln Mercury vehicles are shown on a lot in Sterling Heights, Mich. Ford said its U.S. sales in August rose 17.2 percent over last year, fueled by the Cash for Clunkers program. Lincoln Mercury vehicles are shown on a lot in Sterling Heights, Mich. Ford said its U.S. sales in August rose 17.2 percent over last year, fueled by the Cash for Clunkers program. Photo: Paul Sancya, Associated Press Photo: Paul Sancya, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Environmental benefits limited from ‘Cash for Clunkers’ 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Now that the heady days of the “Cash for Clunkers” program are coming to a close, we can afford to pause and thoughtfully evaluate what just happened. Our breathless rush to hand out billions of dollars of government subsidies helped stimulate the economy and removed hundreds of thousands of older cars from the highways, and that has to be a good thing, right? Um … maybe not.

Depending on which economist you believe, Cash for Clunkers either sparked more car purchases, changed the timing of car purchases, or just borrowed purchases from other sectors of the economy. But while economists dither, the consensus from the environmental side is clear. Simply put, if the Cash for Clunkers program was a car, I would insist on trading it in.

Cash for Clunkers fails the environmental sniff test for a number of reasons. Consider these facts:

• • Although the program was originally billed as a way to reduce greenhouse gases, it achieves this aim amid huge expense and massive inefficiencies. Cash for Clunkers may diminish our nation's overall carbon footprint, but the associated costs will be at least 10 times higher than other carbon-reduction strategies contemplated for current climate legislation. Sharpen your pencil even further to add the amount of carbon it takes to make new cars and destroy older ones — and the bottom line of the program goes from bad to worse.

• • Cash for Clunkers was touted as a way to reduce the automobile-generated pollutants that continue to plague major urban areas such as Houston. That's certainly a noble goal, but pressure from the classic car lobby — which mainly serves the interests of mechanic shops that specialize in older cars — effectively watered down the program's potential impact. By deeming that cars built before the 1980s were not clunkers, legislators missed a cardinal opportunity to eliminate some of the least efficient vehicles on the planet.

Given that many of these older cars tend to be the cheapest vehicles on the market, the government could have given taxpayers a much bigger bang for their buck.

• • As big as these current missteps may be, they pale next to the ones coming down the road. Yes, we took older cars off our highways — but we immediately replaced them with vehicles that are destined to become the clunkers of the future. In effect, the Cash for Clunkers program promoted the continued proliferation of vehicles in our overly auto-dependent society. Incremental progress toward a cleaner nationwide fleet is a good thing, but it will almost certainly be offset by the longer overall lifespan of our automobiles.

Personally, I would rather see fewer incentives squandered on promoting urban sprawl, and more investments directed toward creating highly efficient forms of mass transit.

Students of American history can trace the domination of the automobile in our culture to a few corporate giants (including GM) that bought up much of the nation's network of trolleys and commuter trains — only to destroy or neglect these rail networks and replace them with buses, cars and roads. Looking back, if we had been smart enough to deploy those billions (in 2009 dollars) toward mass transit rather than a nationwide infrastructure built around the automobile, our environment and our quality of life would certainly be in better shape today.

Another round of Cash for Clunkers is now contemplated. If an environmentalist were named to oversee it, he or she could reward those willing to surrender older cars with subsidies that promote green technologies more generally — including major consumer goods such as solar panels, tankless water heaters and energy-efficient appliances.

A program founded on this approach would yield the best of both worlds: economic stimulation, plus true environmental benefits.

It's an unlikely scenario, of course, especially since the auto industry has moved into overdrive to encourage lawmakers to simply extend and repeat the current Cash for Clunkers approach.

But before we put any more public money down on the barrelhead, I wish we could spend more time thinking not only about how to heal our troubled economy, but also how these investments can work to harm or heal our equally troubled environment.

Daniels is an assistant professor of law, Center for Environment, Energy & Natural Resources Law, University of Houston Law Center.