Streetsblog USA this morning published my essay, Instead of Subsidizing the ‘Super-Drivers,’ We Should Soak Them: Piling subsidies on subsidies, even if well-meaning, fails to rein in the full cost of driving. I’ve cross-posted it here to allow comments and add tables and graphics.
— C.K., Jan. 29, 2024
One-tenth of American motorists, we’ve just learned, consume more than a third of U.S. gasoline.
This lead-footed cohort, dubbed “superusers” in a recent analysis, burn almost as much fuel — and, thus, spew nearly as much carbon dioxide — as all auto drivers in China. Or, reformulated, the most motor-dependent one-tenth of U.S. drivers burn the same amount of gasoline and thus generate the same carbon emissions as all motorists in the European Union and Brazil combined.
The analysis, by Seattle-based Coltura, casts a hard light on America’s transportation culture. Unfortunately the firm’s policy prescription — new subsidies to entice superusers into buying climate-friendlier electric vehicles — is a mere Band Aid, and an ineffectual one to boot.
What Coltura’s Analysis Shows
The most startling revelation from the Coltura analysis is the rank inefficiency of the superusers’ rides. You would think that anyone driving 110 miles a day — the purported average for the 21 million superusers identified in the report — would rush to the nearest used-car lot and drive off in a high-mileage vehicle. But you would be wrong. Coltura’s traveling tenth eke out a measly 19.5 miles a gallon, on average. That’s a whopping 18 percent worse than ordinary drivers’ average.
The toll on superusers’ household budgets is immense: an average $530 monthly tab at the pump, according to Coltura. Upping their mpg to merely the same 24 mph average as other motorists would save them $97 a month. Those savings would hit $175 if the superusers clambered further up the mpg ladder and outdid the norm by the same percentage (18 percent) they now lag it. Annualized, that’s a cool two thou per vehicle.
Summing Agriculture and Blue Collar, and apportioning Other among the eight prior categories, only 24% of superusers are doing physical work that might require a large vehicle.
What’s that, you say, superusers are lugging drywall and cement mix and portable generators all over the county and can’t do with a more modest ride? Nonsense. According to Coltura, only 19.1 percent of superusers are blue-collar workers. Throw in another 0.7 percent who work in agriculture, and at most 20 percent routinely haul mountains of stuff requiring a pickup or SUV. The rest are professional/legal (16 percent), business/finance (15 percent), office/administration (10 percent) and other non-physical workers. Even if we prorate the 17 percent of superusers classified as “others,” at most 24 percent of Coltura’s traveling tenth qualify as Grainger’s “the ones who get it done” who might need a kick-ass vehicle with which to do it.
By crunching these figures from Coltura, we calculated that superusers’ average gas mileage is just 19.5 mpg. The U.S. 2021 light-duty fleet average of 22.4 mpg (per FHWA “Highway Statistics,” Table vm1) computes to 23.9 without superusers.
If you really want your head to explode, check out Coltura’s list of superusers’ 20 most popular vehicles. The Chevy Silverado is the choice of 7.4 percent of superusers, followed closely by Ford’s F-150 (6.4 percent). You have to drop down to #12 on the list to find the first vehicle that’s not an SUV or pickup. All told, no more than a handful of the top 20 are sedans.
Their Solution … And Ours
What to do? Ordinarily, one wouldn’t need to care that close to 20 million Americans are too Foxed-up or broke to dump their vampiric, oversized vehicles or off-ramp their road-warrior routines. After all, superusers have chosen to bust their budgets and warp their daily lives, right? Except, duh, the climate we all inhabit is breaking under their emissions — not to mention the myriad other damages from driving 110 miles a day: crashes, traffic, “local” air pollution. As I said up front, society has an interest in enticing them, somehow, into less-inefficient vehicles.
Coltura’s solution is to tie electric-vehicle incentives, messaging and perhaps even provision of charging infrastructure, to drivers’ current gasoline consumption. Validated superusers, based on sworn statements of odometer readings and vehicle make and model (hence, mpg) would qualify for extra rebates, financing and other inducements beyond those offered in the Biden Inflation Reduction Act. These would weaken the glue — economic, ideological or otherwise — that binds superusers to their gas-guzzlers even though it’s worth asking: Why do we need to subsidize someone into buying an EV when switching to a battery-powered car or truck would at once zero out the $6,000 that the average superuser shells out annually on gasoline?
At first blush, Coltura’s approach has a ring of reasonableness. But vagueness suffuses it, not just in the Coltura report, but in its lead authors’ 2022 podcast interview with climate-energy pundit David Roberts. In fact, on closer examination the whole idea comes off as a pig in a poke, with its administrative apparatus, the gaming, the appeals, the interminable wrangling to fashion the “right” incentives and eligibility. Not to mention the inevitable special pleading of “disadvantaged” motorists who almost qualify as superusers but not quite. And the jockeying in states or Congress to pay for the incentives and the bureaucracy.
What makes this prospect especially dispiriting is the existence of an alternative policy instrument that, compared to Coltura’s “targeted” but cumbersome intervention, could do far more to cut gasoline consumption — not just by superusers but by all U.S. motorists: concerted increases in U.S. motor fuel taxes.
Gasoline taxes can be raised in two ways: by boosting the U.S. excise tax, which has been stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon since Oct. 1, 1993 (losing half its heft to inflation since then); or by instituting a carbon tax, which would raise the prices of all fossil fuels including petroleum products.
Resistance to auto dependence was more radical three decades ago, as in this 1993 Village Voice broadside by journalist Daniel Lazare.
The impact on usage would be small in the short run, but it would rise over time, as households switched to higher-mpg vehicles, cities and suburbs up-zoned, and cultural norms adapted to costlier driving. EV’s would be elevated, of course, but vehicle electrification would be only one of many means of getting off gasoline.
My regression analyses of U.S. gasoline demand — a subject I’ve studied for decades — suggest that a $1 increase in the price at the pump would trigger only a 3- to 4-percent drop in usage overnight, but triple that impact within a decade — roughly the same decrease as eliminating one-third of U.S. superusers’ consumption. But that’s just a start. My 1960-2015 data don’t reflect changing societal currents, nor do they capture digital tech’s potential to match people with nearby jobs or connect parallel travelers to enable work and play with fewer miles driven.
“Making other arrangements” in the face of climate chaos is how the social critic James Howard Kunstler once referred to this social reconfiguration. Sadly, as the caterwauling against New York’s congestion pricing program by entrenched interests from New Jersey politicians to teachers’ union bosses attests, the American ethos today would rather cling to dysfunction than attempt change.
This isn’t to make light of either the jarring changes that superuser motorists will face from robust fuel taxes, or the political difficulty of enacting them. (The website of my Carbon Tax Center is replete with potential antidotes to both, even as it acknowledges the difficulties.)
Nevertheless, these hurdles shouldn’t deter livable streets advocates from advocating much higher fuel taxation. Piling subsidies on subsidies, even if well-meaning, only makes our system more complex and opaque. If we don’t advocate for full-cost pricing that tells the truth about motorization, who will?
Nature-based carbon investments deserve consideration when they address a specific business dependency and produce outcomes you can measure. Imagine Moonbucks, a global coffee roaster planning next season’s espresso blend. It is considering natural Grade 4 coffee from Jimma, in southwestern Oromia, Ethiopia. Its sourcing decisions affect the roasting schedule and the cash tied up in coffee purchases. Moonbucks needs to understand which measures could protect that supply, what they would cost and how it would judge the results.
1. Define the sourcing problem before choosing a project
Moonbucks needs a dependable component for its espresso blend. Its procurement team wants continuity of volume and an agreed cup profile. Replacing a shipment at short notice could require new sample approval and changes to the blend, and given the schedules for cultivation, processing, and freight delivery, is practically impossible. Moonbucks needs to get this right, and its initial concern is inconsistent deliveries. It commissions an assessment of the supplying farms and post-harvest chain. The questions cover land condition, harvest availability and whether drying or storage problems are affecting saleable lots.
This distinction changes the investment brief. A tree-planting proposal cannot be assumed to fix drying problems. Better storage cannot restore eroded land. The team must establish which problem exists before selecting the response.
CCC’s guide to finding nature-based solutions in your supply chain explains where to look. Here, the next task is to turn a broad concern into a testable proposal.
2. Develop nature-based carbon investments around the actual supply chain
The assessment would trace Moonbucks’ purchases back through the exporter and supplying producer groups. Which farms supply the contracted lots? Who controls land-management decisions? How long does the buyer expect to maintain the purchasing relationship?
Furthermore, Jimma natural Grade 4 cannot be treated as interchangeable with every Ethiopian coffee. Moonbucks would need to test any substitute against its own blend and quality requirements.
Suppose Moonbucks’ assessment identifies an opportunity to maintain shade trees and restore vegetation along exposed streambanks. The IPCC describes agroforestry as a way to store carbon in vegetation and soil, with potential benefits for erosion control and water quality.1 Moonbucks would need local advice on species, growing conditions and maintenance before deciding how these measures fit its sourcing plan.
The proposal now has a defined sourcing connection and a candidate intervention. The next steps are to test its effect on production, assess carbon eligibility and build the financial case.
3. Compare the proposal with other ways to protect supply
WBCSD’s Nature-based Solutions Blueprint recommends comparing nature-based options with other responses across their benefits and costs.2 For Moonbucks, that means evaluating the landscape proposal alongside drying improvements, storage controls and alternative sourcing arrangements.
The product’s natural-process designation matters. Moonbucks should examine the drying and dry-milling chain alongside land conditions. Its team would check storage practices, contamination risks and incoming-lot quality to see whether problems arise before or after the coffee leaves the farms.
The revised proposal might combine land stewardship with separate post-harvest controls. Each component needs its own purpose and budget. A sustainability label should not obscure which activity is expected to solve which problem.
The project develops as the evidence improves. Its scope should follow the diagnosis rather than preserve the first idea unchanged.
4. Establish what the carbon outcome could count toward
Moonbucks’ sustainability team now tests the proposed carbon case separately from the sourcing case. Is the objective a measurable change in Moonbucks’ value-chain emissions, verified credits for separate voluntary use, or distinct outcomes under carefully defined arrangements?
Scope 3 covers value-chain emissions. A purchasing relationship alone does not prove that a farm intervention can be included in Moonbucks’ inventory. The team needs an applicable accounting method, defensible boundaries and evidence supporting attribution.
SBTi’s FLAG Guidance (forest, land and agriculture), version 1.2, says purchased credits used as offsets cannot meet near-term FLAG or energy and industry targets. Eligible land-based removals are subject to accounting requirements.3 Moonbucks needs to test its proposal against those rules before including an outcome in its targets.
For Moonbucks’ Jimma proposal, maintaining existing trees and establishing new vegetation could involve different carbon questions. Specialists must examine the baseline and additionality, meaning what changes because the project proceeds. They must also assess measurement and the risk that stored carbon is lost. CCC’s MRV and additionality article introduces those tests.
Until that work is complete, Moonbucks should not budget an assumed Scope 3 reduction or credit-sale receipt. Direct emissions reductions remain the priority.
5. Build a financial case that survives weaker assumptions
Moonbucks’ finance team would now build a multi-year budget. UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature 2023 compares current finance with the investment needed to meet climate, biodiversity and land-restoration goals.4 The company would cost its proposed activities, farmer participation and ongoing monitoring. Verification, where required, is a separate expense. Maintenance and responsibility for replacing failed plantings must remain visible after the initial establishment budget ends.
Operational benefits need equally careful treatment. If fewer rejected lots reduce emergency purchasing, count that saving once. Do not add “supply resilience” as another financial benefit when it represents the same avoided cost.
Moonbucks should compare a base case with slower benefits, higher implementation costs and no carbon revenue. It should also distinguish production outcomes from quality and shipment outcomes. A single good harvest would not prove that the landscape intervention caused better delivery performance.
A project can remain worth funding even when its carbon case needs more work. That decision must rest on the operational evidence and the company’s objectives, without unsupported environmental claims.
6. Fund a pilot with a clear expansion decision
Moonbucks’ first approval would fund a bounded pilot, rather than commit the entire sourcing program. Before spending, Moonbucks would agree on participating farms, responsibilities and the evidence needed at review.
Its scorecard could track farmer participation, implementation costs and plant survival, alongside accepted coffee volumes and lot-quality results. Carbon measurements would follow the selected method. Farm-level traceability must connect the intervention to the actual sourcing relationship.
Suppose Moonbucks’ review later finds that storage changes explain most quality improvements, while the land measures need longer observation. Those findings would shape the next decision: expand the proven component, adjust the landscape work or pause further spending. They would not justify crediting all improvements to tree planting.
This gives nature-based carbon investments a practical place in a multi-year strategy. Funding increases as the evidence supports it, and the project can change direction before a larger commitment.
Discuss a sourcing opportunity with CCC
Carbon Credit Capital’s nature-based supply-chain investment service uses its Dual-Value Model to examine supply-chain economics alongside potential sustainability outcomes.
Schedule a consultation to discuss your sourcing exposure and the questions to resolve before allocating capital.
Sources
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, Chapter 7, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses, section 7.4.3.3 (Agroforestry).
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Nature-based Solutions Blueprint, 5 June 2024.
- Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Forest, Land and Agriculture Science-Based Target-Setting Guidance, version 1.2, March 2026, section 3.1.4, pp. 37–38.
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), State of Finance for Nature 2023, 2023.
A plastic credit funds the collection of plastic waste in places where no formal system exists to collect it. Each credit represents a measured, independently audited quantity of plastic taken out of the environment or returned to use, tracked on a public registry.
EU carbon credit claims changed on 27 September 2026, the day the Directive (EU) 2024/825 began to apply across the European Union. The change is narrow. It changes how a company can talk about the credits it buys. A product can no longer be called neutral on the strength of compensation alone; however, every specific, evidenced statement about what a company measured, reduced, and funded stays fully available.
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