Opponents of the Iraq war repeatedly cited American military death. Many newspapers ran regular body count stories.

Meanwhile, the do-good laws Congress passed to increase autto fuel efficiency have killed more Americans each year than we lost in Iraq. Deaths in Iraq are way down, but deaths on American highways continue and will only increase thanks to Obama and our Hummer driving governor, Ahnold.

IBD:

Washington began imposing fuel mileage standards on cars sold in this country in the 1970s, and the urge to regulate has not abated.

Congress last reset the corporate-average fuel economy standard in 2007, passing a bill — signed by President Bush — requiring automakers to increase their fleetwide average, including minivans, SUVs and pickup trucks, to 35 mpg by 2020.

That’s not good enough for the White House. It announced Tuesday that it will seek regulatory authority to impose a new standard of 35.5 mpg by 2016 and, for the first time, limits (a 30% reduction) on car greenhouse gas emissions.

The cost of this luxury will be steep:

• An additional $1,300 per car. This makes a new car unaffordable for a large segment of the population. Many will have no choice but to keep their current poor-mileage, heavy-polluting cars on the road, defeating the purpose of the program.
• Human lives. The administration is denying that the industry will have to downsize cars to meet the higher standards, but there’s no way around it. Cars will have to be smaller and lighter, making them more vulnerable in crashes.

In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences reported that “the downweighting and downsizing that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of which was due to CAFE standards, probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.”

The CAFE standard in 1978 was 18 mpg, roughly half of what the White House wants to require beginning with the 2016 models. How much deadlier will the new cars be? Sadly, we’ll soon see.