Fuelish Behavior
The president may declare that we’re “addicted to oil,” but the Bush Administration proved again that they aren’t planning to do anything to wean the country from its deadly habit. Reporter Matthew L. Wald of the New York Times covered the Transportation Department’s March 29th announcement that manufacturers have another four years–till 2011–to improve the fuel economy of cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the U.S. by a measly 8%.
What’s worse, while the new rules cover SUVs, they provide a perverse incentive for automakers to make larger SUVs because the larger the vehicle, the looser the mpg standard.
The Times ran the standard protestations from industry flaks, quoting Sherrie Childers Arb from GM who said that company engineers found it “challenging but achievable.”
Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta acknowledges that oil consumption would continue to rise under the new rule. NY Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert, the republican chair of the House Science Committee, said the Bush administration had missed an opportunity. “It’s remarkable to me how long we keep making the same mistake over and over,” he said.
In the same day’s paper, Wald also reported on what U.S. car manufacturers have been doing with their research budgets, “Automakers Use New Technology to Beef Up Muscle, Not Mileage:
“For two decades automakers have been developing technology that could make vehicles go farther on a gallon of gasoline. But instead, they have chosen pep and size. . . Buyers like the extra zoom and room, but these have come at a cost: average fuel economy has fallen slightly over the last two decades.”
Why fuel efficiency standards are so important.
Detroit loves to argue that consumers demand their gas-guzzlers, neglecting to cop to their role in creating this demand. If Detroit mentioned the “hidden costs” of their monster cars–from global warming to premature deaths–people might demand a new generation of vehicles. We’ve already seen how quickly reconsider their purchases when gas prices spike.
An article by Greg Lucas of the San Francisco Chronicle that looks at the public health costs of air pollution, may change some minds. He reports on a new study, published by the Institute for Economic and Environmental Studies at California State University Fullerton,
“Poor air quality costs the San Joaquin Valley residents $3 billion a year in asthma attacks, premature deaths, lost work days, school absences and hospital admissions. . . Only Los Angeles and Houston rival the pollution levels found in the counties of the San Joaquin Valley: Fresno, Kings, Tulare, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera and Kern.”
Despite the bad news, the co-author of the study, Jane Hall of the Institute for Economic and Environmental Studies told Lucas, “There are a lot of options to combat this, and the benefits of improving the air quality are substantial.”