POLITICS: Who decides what you drive?

Will the California gas station go the way of the dodo bird, or endure like the American eagle?

Costco, set to open a 40-pump gas station in Mission Viejo this summer, is betting on the eagle.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state regulators are pushing hard for the dodo.

Ultimately, the decision should rest with consumers — and not with government.

Motorists themselves should choose what they drive, be it a gas-guzzler, an electric vehicle, or something in between. 

Newsom, however, thinks he should decide for everyone.

In a show of hubris, the gov decreed in 2020 that all passenger cars and light trucks sold in California must be zero-emission vehicles as of 2035. 

Courts will likely settle the fate of that misguided order.

Meanwhile, Costco’s moving dirt on what will be the largest gas station in the United States — and planning an even larger 240-pump station (wow) in Honolulu, to debut in 2027.

That’s good to see, given that Americans’ reliance on oil won’t vanish anytime soon, however fervently some Dems push for extinction.

Motorists will continue driving what they want for as long as they can.

This nation has a rich tradition of individual rights, free will, and personal choice. 

We also have a history of innovation, competition, and market-driven solutions to collective challenges.

American ingenuity, and not government diktats from on high, is the way to address any troubling shifts in global climate.

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Besides, the US climate-control regime is as much about money as it is about Earth: The “crisis” provides cover for vast public spending on green pork, enriching a climate industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

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Keeping that pipeline open means endless praise for the dodo.

That’s partly why in 2021, state officials unveiled — with great fanfare — a giant limestone sculpture in the Riverside courtyard of the California Air Resources Board’s Southern California headquarters.

The sculpture, titled “Petrified Petrol Station,” depicts the crumbling if towering remains of a gas station in a meta, literal sense: Fossil fuels are dead, dying, passe, fossilized. 

And here we are, a few years later, on the brink of a shiny new 40-pump Orange County gas station that sells … discounted fossil fuels.

The contrast could not be more jarring.

In 2026, California government wants the dodo, and drivers want the eagle. 

Let freedom ring.