Volkwagen's unethical emissions scam is partly the government's fault

There's more than one villain in this debacle

Volkswagen
(Image credit: Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)

Volkswagen has apparently been deliberately and flagrantly cheating on its nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions for years. How the car giant thought it could get away with this scam boggles the mind. There is no way to describe its actions other than stupid, arrogant, and probably criminal.

But here's the thing: The whole episode should call as much attention to the Environmental Protection Agency's unrealistic, even crazy, car emissions standards — the toughest in the world — as VW's flouting of them. Indeed, VW's scam might be a harbinger of things to come if the EPA itself is not curbed.

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Shikha Dalmia

Shikha Dalmia is a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University studying the rise of populist authoritarianism.  She is a Bloomberg View contributor and a columnist at the Washington Examiner, and she also writes regularly for The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. She considers herself to be a progressive libertarian and an agnostic with Buddhist longings and a Sufi soul.