Dan Neil of the L.A. Times writes about his alternative proposal for spending on federal energy programs:

[T]he U.S. Department of Energy budgetary request for fiscal 2010 is $65 billion, including nearly $40 billion from the National Economic Recovery Act. The 2010 Toyota Prius will probably come in around $23,000 when prices are announced later this spring. Since we’ve got the federal checkbook open, what if we took $46 billion and bought everybody Priuses? Would that help?

Why yes, yes it would.

By my calculations, $46 billion would buy about 2 million Priuses. Assuming we use them to replace cars that get 15 mpg and assuming an average driving year of 15,000 miles – and assuming the junkers are retired out of the fleet – these 2 million Priuses would save about 700 gallons of gas per car, or 1.4 billion gallons a year.

. . .

Other advantages would include a significant reduction in vehicle-related greenhouse gas emissions. Such a scheme wouldn’t really hurt our balance of trade, either, since Toyota would have to subcontract Prius assembly to U.S facilities to meet demand.

So, here at the blueprint stage, it’s a win-win-win. Not sure that a federal Prius promotion program would actually get implemented the way he imagines, but it’s fun to roll around different ways for solving energy and environmental problems.

I’ll take mine in green.