A sobering piece by Henry Payne at NRO's Planet Gore about the cost of Obama's ridiculous gas mileage mandates:

The Detroit News's dogged David Shepardson has unearthed a study by one of world's most respected automotive research firms that reveals that President Obama's radical CAFE mandate that vehicles average - average! - 62 MPG by 2025 "could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs."

Shepardson is quoting from the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research and the 260,000 job loss figure (consistent with past job losses from CAFE rule hikes) is another dent in White House's propaganda that Green creates jobs.

The CAR study also reveals that Obama's NHTSA and EPA have been gaming the figures when it comes to the cost of their new rules. The center's study predicts it will cost between $3,744 and $9,790 per vehicle, while the agencies have low-balled the figure at $770 to $3,500 per vehicle.

The resulting costs would shrink the new-car market, with 5.5 million potential buyers disappearing (and manufacturing jobs with them) by 2025. That assumes that the auto fleet can even be built to meet such an absurd spec. Currently, no car - much less the average - meets 62 mpg. Indeed, only a handful of small vehicles meet the 35-mpg fleet-wide standard mandated in just five years.

It isn't only the auto industry, of course. The president wants renewable energy to generate 20% of our electricity by 2020. Currently, nuclear, solar, wind, and geo thermal energy supplies about 8% of our energy needs. In order to reach the 20% goal, hundreds of nuclear plants would need to be built, massive solar power generating arrays constructed, and huge wind farms would need to be created - somewhere. It is not only unrealistic, it is fantasy. Solar and wind technology are making big strides but it will be decades before they can contribute a significant portion of commercial electricy generated in the US.

Obama's green policies are not based on science but rather on soothesaying. And the economy is likely to suffer because of them.