|
US Needs Clean Cars, Not Auto Industry Gimmicks To Stop Global Warming and Oil Addiction Washington, DC: The Sierra Club issued the following statement from Dan Becker, Director, Global Warming and Energy Program, in response to President Bush's meeting with U.S. Automakers at the White House this morning: "It is time for automakers to get off their tailpipe and get into gear to do their fair share to curb global warming and our oil addiction. Once again President Bush has invited the US automakers to the White House, and once again both the President and the auto industry are failing to provide consumers with real solutions to global warming, oil dependence and high gas prices. "Making our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas is the single biggest step we can take toward saving American families money at the pump, ending our dangerous addiction to oil, and curbing global warming. At the State of the Union announcement this year, President Bush announced a plan to increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year. But the President's commitment is only as good as the will to implement it. Unfortunately, today we saw the same tired gimmicks from the auto industry. "Despite the auto industry’s public relations hype about 'flex-fuel vehicles' (FFVs), 99 percent of the time these vehicles run exclusively on gasoline, according to a Bush Administration report. That’s because only a few hundred of the nation’s 176,000 gas stations serve E 85. In fact, Department of Energy data indicates that nationwide, there is only 4.5 gallons of E 85 for each FFV on the road. Since they can’t fill up on E 85, FFV owners end up running their vehicles on gasoline, even though automakers receive fuel economy credits for producing the vehicles under the assumption that they operate 50 percent of the time on ethanol. The Administration's report stated that use of these credits by automakers results in 17 billion extra gallons of gasoline wasted over a fiver year period. "It is time for automakers to build cars, trucks, and SUVs that go farther on a gallon of gas. They need to shift from ‘reverse’ to ‘forward’ by putting more efficient vehicles on the road. If they do, we’ll all breathe easier. If they don’t, American auto makers are likely to fall further behind their foreign competition. "In January the President proposed increasing CAFE standards at a rate of 4% per year. Nothing presented by the U.S. automakers gets us to that goal, but a bill recently introduced by Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Todd Platts (R-PA) does just that. This bill will not only save consumers money and help us fight global warming, but it will also help us break our addiction to oil. Within 15 years, this bill will save us as much oil as we now import from the Persian Gulf. Making cars go further on each gallon of gas is like drilling for oil under Detroit instead of our sensitive coasts and lands. Raising fuel economy standards is the cleanest, cheapest, and safest way for America to reduce its dependence on oil. "The U.S. Automakers need to take the technology gathering dust on Detroit’s shelves and put it to work to help America tackle some of its most urgent problems. Requiring the American auto industry to make more fuel-efficient vehicles is auto mechanics, not rocket science. It will force them to compete with foreign automakers like Honda and Toyota who have used hybrids and other efficient vehicles to remake their brands and cruise to record profits while the Big Three teeter on the brink of insolvency." ### |
