Ford Killed Off Its Sedans. Scott Pruitt Can Take the Credit.

This is the Ford Mustang, the only sedan that will be left in Ford's product line by 2020. Its fuel economy is an SUV-like 18-25 mpg.Ford Motor Company

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Last week Ford announced that they were discontinuing production of nearly all their sedans. From now on, it would just be trucks and SUVs.

The proximate cause of this, I assumed, is that low gas prices have driven higher demand for SUVs and lower demand for gas-sipping cars. And that’s part of it. But there’s another thing at work: high mileage sedans are necessary to meet federal CAFE standards, which apply to a carmaker’s entire fleet. At least, they used to be necessary. Dan Neil thinks this is what’s really behind Ford’s decision:

In my view, Ford’s announcement last week was about the weather in Washington, D.C. Management has calculated that it will no longer need the mileage offsets from sales of smaller, less-profitable vehicle lines to meet its CAFE obligations. Last month Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced an effort to roll back the 2025 standards hammered out by the agency and automakers during the Obama administration. It is also widely expected that Mr. Pruitt will go after California’s waiver under the Clean Air Act allowing it (and 11 other states) to set its own tailpipe rules.

Who needs fuel economy? Not the US of A! And with higher fuel economy standards about to get deep sixed by the Trump administration, why bother making all those crummy little tin cans that you never really wanted to make in the first place?

By the way, a recent study funded by the Pentagon found that a bunch of Pacific atolls that host billions of dollars of military hardware will probably be underwater—or close to it—within a few decades. But don’t worry. A few more years of driving around in SUVs is worth it.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate