Lee Zeldin’s new initiative will contribute in some small way to ensuring that everyday existence is somewhat less vexing.

The automatic starter feature was one of the best things about our old car, a 2015 Buick Envision. It was a vital way to compensate for our lack of other creature comforts, like an attached garage, and we enjoyed it for the length of our lease. But when we replaced the car with an Audi, we found that this beloved attribute was not included. We had forgotten to assume that Europeans would sacrifice that convenience upon the altar of enlightenment and progress at every available turn, and we had to relearn that lesson the hard way.

You see, the Germans, what with their vaunted efficiency, don’t want you idling your car. Indeed, if you want to preheat your German vehicle, you will have to purchase an aftermarket system that warms the engine and passenger compartments without idling — thus, reducing fuel consumption and the generation of heat-trapping emissions. At least, that’s what you’ll have to do if you’re buying a German-made car. (General Motors cars made in Europe still feature remote starters, albeit not necessarily as a standard add-on.)

In the United States, you’re still free to idle your car — for now, at least. But the logic that led European automakers to do away with the remote start can be found in the “auto stop-start” feature that is now included in so many American vehicles. If the Trump administration’s Lee Zeldin has his way, that may not be the case for long:

There are some who appreciate this feature for the exceedingly modest improved fuel economy it delivers. There are others who hate it with a passion that can only be conveyed via the liberal deployment of four-letter words. They would certainly prefer it if their vehicle’s engine didn’t have to turn over every time it stopped at a red light, or a pedestrian crosswalk, or even while they’re performing a k-turn or parallel parking.

The move is part of the administration’s broader deregulatory agenda. To hear the president’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator tell it, the aggregate macroeconomic effects of this administration’s efforts to get out of the way of business will be significant. But initiatives like these do not have to make measurable contributions to American prosperity to be politically valuable.

In the Biden era, Democrats did everything that was in their power (and not within their power) to make everyday life marginally more annoying, expensive, or both. Most of those initiatives were pitched to the public, insofar as the public was ever consulted, as desirable because of the environmental effects they would produce. Ultimately, the environmental benefits were usually marginal and always invisible to the consumer. The demands on their time, patience, and bank accounts were far more self-evident. One new but minor irritation can be absorbed. Dozens, however, and all coming online in the space of a few short years, proved far harder to ignore.

Zeldin’s initiative will contribute in some small way to ensuring that everyday existence is somewhat less vexing. These are things Americans notice, just as they noticed the extent to which Democrats appeared to believe that Americans would quietly absorb every nuisance imposed on them in the name of environmentalist maximalism. Improving Americans’ quality of life is what successful administrations do.