Considering that California still has yet to lay a single mile of track for its $126 billion high-speed rail system, first approved 18 years ago, we shouldn’t be too surprised that state bureaucrats are just now getting around to issuing new tire regulations first authorized 23 years ago. They are set to be implemented in three years.

But the story of the California Energy Commission and the Replacement Tire Efficiency Program is a lamentable one. The CEC itself was born of another California energy panic.