Kevin Drum writes up a couple smart, elegant ideas for encouraging better fuel economy. It's one of the sad oddities of politics that small ideas that wouldn't generate overwhelming opposition often get forgotten, or folded into the fights over big ideas. This year, for instance, we're definitely not going to pass a good cap-and-trade law, yet the political organizing, even in the Senate, is around cap-and-trade bills, not feebates or buybacks. Similarly, in health care, all sorts of widely supported health IT and prevention policies languish because they're thought of as sweeteners or bargaining chips in the big health reform bills, and they don't really have a political constituency with the power to push them on their lonesome. The Senate needs a committee on "Good Stuff We Can Accomplish and Agree on Right Now."
