Disparaged as a victory for auto-industry lobbyists, congressional rejection of a plan to tighten fuel-economy standards for US motor vehicles represents a triumph for individual choice.
Americans who want big vehicles should be free to buy them. Sales data indicate that Americans so inclined exist in great numbers.
But that manifestation of human preference worries environmentalists and their friends in Congress.
A group of senators led by John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) planned an energy-bill amendment that would have increased fuel-efficiency standards by 50% over 13 years for cars, sport utility vehicles (SUVs), and pickup trucks.
Congress hasn't acted on corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards since 1975. And the current standard, 26 mpg, doesn't apply to light trucks, including SUVs and minivans.
Because CAFE standards forced automakers to shrink cars, demand in the past quarter century has zoomed for the excluded larger vehicles.
The Kerry-McCain faction argued that consequent slippage in vehicle fuel efficiency dangerously aggravates greenhouse warming and boosts US reliance on oil from abroad.
The proposal they planned yielded to a less-aggressive measure sponsored by Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.). That amendment, which passed 62-38, instructs the Department of Transportation to develop new CAFE standards within 2 years.
It also stipulates that the standards take account not only of fuel consumption and emissions but also of safety and economic effects, including job losses.
Inclusion of safety and economic effects in development of new CAFE standards means that senators in majority numbers don't intend to let environmentalists make fuel consumption and emissions the only matters of concern. That's a good sign.
Even better is a legislative outcome that accommodates what people really want rather than what environmentalists want them to want.
How hard the auto industry lobbied for the softer move on vehicle mileage is less important than the demonstrated will of the people-vastly less important.
As Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mich.) noted, "This is still America."
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