EDITORIAL

No publication likes to run corrections, but the clarification in the last Business Report was instructive.

The newest members of our Congressional delegation were so proud of bringing home some bacon from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that they announced a grant for smart-grid research as if it were new money. The good folks at FortZED pointed out that the federal stimulus award was to fulfill commitments previously made by the Department of Energy. Nothing new was being stimulated, just funds being moved from one pocket to another to cover the check before it bounced.

Which brings us to Cash for Clunkers, unendingly referred to as “successful” by broadcasters. Anyone past high school knows that only on TV is “wildly popular” the same as “successful.” Everywhere else success is usually measured by how well something meets its intended goals.

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What exactly were the government’s goals in slapping a $4,500 bounty on cars never designed to get more than 18 miles to the gallon and deputizing auto dealers to round ’em up?

Aside from yet another boost for the auto and financial industries, which still haven’t used their multibillion-dollar direct handouts to get back on their feet, Cash for Clunkers is all about saving the planet, they say. Once we get the evil gas-guzzlers off the road, we give their engines the final solution – of sand and water – while their former owners tool away with a new car loan in a fuel-sipping hybrid, or a Ford Focus.

With the latest $2 billion infusion, the program is to continue through Labor Day, so final results aren’t in. But dealers should have a couple of impressive months, as taxpayers ran through the initial $1 billion in about a week and thousands of consumers climbed out from behind the wheel of SUVs and pickup trucks.

These are the very vehicles that Detroit lobbied mightily to exempt from fuel-efficiency standards in the first place, then used their popularity as an excuse not to research further improvements – until gas hit $4 per gallon and they’d already driven into the ditch.

Will Cash for Clunkers jumpstart the industry into running on its own again? Or is it simply an unsustainable inventory reduction ahead of higher fuel standards required in two years?

Either way, it ultimately lets the planet down. Two-thirds of the funding was pulled from a DOE program that guarantees loans for research into alternative and renewable energy.