Consumers have seen benefits from lower gas prices in recent months. President Obama’s agenda? Not so much. Brian Hughes of the Washington Examiner explains.

Plummeting gas prices aren’t the perfect political gift for President Obama.

Though the White House welcomes the growing consumer confidence that accompanies lower prices at the pump, cheaper fuel leaves Obama in a bind on a major component of his environmental agenda: putting more Americans in fuel-efficient vehicles.

As the price of U.S. oil this week dropped below $50 a barrel and much of the country enjoyed sub-$2-a-gallon gas, many Americans had abandoned plans to purchase smaller vehicles in favor of gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks.

Obama [confronted] that new reality when he travel[ed] to Detroit Wednesday to champion the turnaround of the auto industry. The Ford Motor Co. plant where the president is speaking has been temporarily shuttered because of lower demand for smaller cars and hybrids.

It’s an inconvenient backdrop for a president who has long argued that his environmental initiatives need not take a back seat to his economic prescriptions.

“Really, it’s an odd twist of fate. The president being credited for bringing back the auto industry is now appearing at a shuttered Ford plant,” said Melissa Miller, a political scientist at Bowling Green State University, located in a heavily auto-dependent area in neighboring Ohio.

“He’s possibly being punished for being too green,” she added. “There’s definitely some big irony there.”

Obama will also likely tout a banner year for auto sales, the best since 2006. It’s just that a large chunk of those vehicles clash with Obama’s environmental agenda, as Americans re-evaluate the criteria for what they want in a new car.

The average fuel use of new vehicles sold in the U.S. in December was 25.1 miles per gallon, down 0.7 miles per gallon from the peak achieved in August, according to a new report by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

“These recent reductions likely reflect the large and continuing decreases in the price of gasoline,” the organization explained.

At the same time, Ford announced that domestic sales of its Focus model had declined by more than 6 percent in 2014, while C-Max hybrid and plug-in hybrid sales dropped nearly 22 percent.