And congress being bought and paid for asswipes aside, why did american car manufacturers resist so much on this issue in the first place? Either they were complete dunderheads or they owned stock in oil companies, because competitively it just made no sense . ..

There is no way you can tell me our gas mileage technology went *backwards* during the last 20 years . . . so they made the less-good mileage cars because they wanted to.

Only questions is WHY?

(heh, I just suddenly flashed back to this SF story I read as a kid, I think by Theodure Sturgeon, I think called "Occam's Scalpel" . . . it is appropriate.)