It’s Always Something

Hydrogen cars are here. They work, pretty darned well. That’s the good news.

The bad news in this story is this:

“Hydrogen-car fleets are operated here [in Washington, DC] by some automakers to demonstrate to Congress and others how simple it all would be if only the U.S. would invest a bit more in the hydrogen vision.”

“Invest,” in this case, means “tax and spend,” if I’m reading between the lines correctly. Not such a good idea. Congress has a poor track record when it tries to pick winners and losers, and to “manage” the economy and technological innovation.

Look, hydrogen cars lack economies of scale. Prototypes always cost a lot, in this case, $1.5 million each.

What Congress should do, however, is protect us from being damaged. The fact is, burning fossil fuels is damaging. No one has a right to pollute. Congress should consider penalizing – taxing, if you prefer – injurious behavior. The “negative externalities” of pollution should be internalized. A concomitant tax cut for everyone, especially the poor, would be an excellent trade off, IMO.

By doing so, Honda and the other automakers can and would ramp up their production and economies of scale to meet the consumers demand for cleaner technology. That’s how markets work. Taxing pollution would facilitate that.

-Robert Capozzi