There are principled arguments that our nation should rely not on regulation but on market forces — specifically, on the skyrocketing prices of gasoline — to trigger fuel efficiency in new automobiles. But leave it to the Wall Street Journal to label government-imposed fuel-efficiency standards as “blood for oil.”

The theory here is that lighter vehicles (which are therefore more fuel-efficient) are more likely to result in death or injury during collisions. Although this generalization is overbroad — some heavier vehicles, such as pickup trucks, may be designed in ways that, despite their weight, result in more catastrophic accidents for their passengers — it’s true that smaller cars are likely to come out worse in collisions with heavier vehicles. But isn’t this an argument for creating disincentives, rather than incentives, for buying heavier vehicles? (Whether the disincentives come primarily from price hikes or from regulation makes no difference to me.) I find the prospect of being hit by a Mini Cooper or a Prius less daunting than a collision with a Hummer.

It seems hardly worth repeating that less dependence on foreign oil would make the United States less politically, economically, and militarily vulnerable, and would be better for the environment besides. So fuel efficiency, however we get there, seems to be indisputably a worthy goal — at least for rational people.

One implication of the Journal’s editorial is that we ought to be building heavier, less fuel-efficient cars on the theory that a crash in a heavier car is something you’re likelier to walk away from. In any case, the notion that calling for fuel efficiency is the equivalent of trading blood for oil is the sort of perversity that makes you wonder if the Wall Street Journal’s editorialists live in Bizarro World.