George Riley: Don’t let tired mandates keep Florida taxpayers from cost savings

The latest political fight in Washington is between ethanol producers and environmentalists over changes to the Biden administration’s clean fuel mandates. Both sides are fighting over what the mandate should look like instead of letting consumers make those decisions themselves.

Mandates are a losing argument, to begin with. These counterproductive requirements enable Washington to pick winners and losers rather than empowering consumers to make the decisions they feel are best. The real losers in that argument are everyday Americans who pay for the unintended consequences of mandates in the form of higher prices at the pump.

Here in Florida, we have our own version of this type of mandate on the cars and trucks the state government uses in its fleets. An Obama-era law called the “Climate Friendly Public Business Act” tells government agencies what products they can and cannot buy. It even created a “Climate-Friendly Preferred Products List” of politically approved products.

When Gov. Charlie Crist signed the bill into law, clever politicians believed the best way to help combat climate change was to create a mandate that the government has to buy the most fuel-efficient vehicles they can. Just like all these new mandates we’re seeing from Joe Biden in Washington, this one backfired and caused unintended consequences that ended up blocking new, innovative vehicles in the market, including electric vehicles and trucks that run on natural gas.

It turns out that these newer, cleaner vehicles that use other types of energy don’t meet the definition of being “fuel efficient” under the 2008 law, so the government doesn’t have the choice to even consider those alternatives. And it also turns out that, in some cases, the cost of owning and operating a natural gas truck or an electric car can be cheaper overall for certain types of fleets. But we’re stuck with this mandate, so taxpayers are footing the bill for more expensive vehicles that politicians thought were “climate-friendly” 15 years ago.

Fortunately, SB 284 removes this outdated climate mandate and tells agencies to consider only the “total cost of ownership” for their fleet vehicles, regardless of the type of fuel they use or how fuel efficient one truck is compared to another. Conservatives Sen. Jason Broder and Rep. Mike Caruso sponsored the bill, which has the potential to save Florida taxpayers millions of dollars.

This bill is a healthy dose of common sense that lets free market innovation drive decisions and costs.

And the funny thing is, even environmentalists predict it will end up not only being cheaper but being better for the environment too, because these modern vehicles also happen to be cleaner.

It’s another example of how Florida is showing the rest of the country how a responsible, conservative-run government can do better for its people than Biden’s vision of mandates and high prices.

Smart solutions are right in front of us, but it only works if the government gets out of the way and lets innovation and fiscal stewardship drive change forward. SB 284 is a clear example of a policy that tears down tired protections in state law and opens the door for new ideas and lower costs.

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George Riley is the Florida Director for Conservatives for Clean Energy. He previously served as executive director of the Republican Party of Florida.