Does the car industry want the same? That’s an interesting question. They certainly seem to find the CAFE standards frustrating. For the last two years, they’ve claimed the rules are expensive and out of step with what Americans desire; they also argue that the Obama administration rammed CAFE down their throats. And the industry’s lobbyists have been complaining about the rules to any Trump administration official who would listen, up to and including the president.

But now they claim they don’t want the freeze. What gives?

Setting the stage for this farce is a development that almost everyone—including the car industry—says is a good thing: New cars and trucks sold in America burn much less fuel than they did a decade ago. In 2007, new vehicles in the United States averaged about 20.0 mpg. Last year, they averaged 25.2 mpg.

This happened, in short, because the government ordered it.

On May 21, 2010, President Obama unveiled an ambitious new set of CAFE standards. They aimed to get idealized U.S. fuel economy to 50 mpg by 2025. (Real-life fuel economy would lag behind this number.) They also doubled as climate-change policy, since more fuel-efficient vehicles release less carbon-dioxide pollution. Obama said the rules would save Americans money and “create or save more than 700,000 jobs.”

The car industry seemed less frustrated on that sunny morning. The chief executives of Daimler Trucks and Volvo flanked Obama as he made that announcement, nodding along with the young president. An overwhelming coalition endorsed the rules: Environmentalists, labor groups, consumer advocates, and every single automaker endorsed or acquiesced to the new CAFE standard.

But then again, the industry didn’t have much choice. Obama used Chrysler and GM’s government bailout to require them to comply with the rules. And if that wasn’t enough, he had twin Democratic majorities in Congress. He could write new fuel-economy laws, if need be.

It hadn’t always been this way. At the birth of the American car industry, the government didn’t do much about fuel economy. Though it belched toxic air pollutants, the Ford Model T could run at 25 mpg, almost tying today’s Ford F-150. But in the fat decades that followed World War II, cars became engorged, yacht-like, and wasteful. In 1973, new cars averaged 12.9 mpg, an all-time low.

The oil embargo changed all that. Gas prices shot up to 55 cents per gallon (or about $2.80 in today’s dollars). In 1975, Congress ordered the Department of Transportation to create the first fuel-economy rules. The CAFE standards were born, working much as they do today, with fuel economy increasing a little bit every year. By 1991, new cars averaged 19.6 mpg.