A drop in the bucket? Auto fuel efficiency plan insufficient, groups charge.
Published in: Waste News
Date: 8/29/2005
By: Bruce Geiselman
U.S. Transportation officials have unveiled new fuel economy standards for vans, light trucks and sports utility vehicles that they said would reduce oil consumption and improve the environment.
Environmental advocates, however, have criticized the plan for not being stringent enough and creating new loopholes for automakers that would hamper efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
While not changing existing standards for passenger cars, the requirements would force the auto industry to improve gasoline mileage for the minivans, SUVs and pickup trucks that make up half of the vehicles on the road today, said Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
For the first time, instead of focusing on a fleetwide average for fuel economy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would require separate limits in six vehicle categories, determined by vehicle size. By 2011, the vehicles in the smallest category would be required to achieve an average of 28.4 miles per gallon, while those in the largest category would be required to achieve 21.3 mpg.
“Our proposal asks automakers for the first time to focus their technology on increasing fuel efficiency across their entire fleets, rather than only in their least economical models,” Mineta said. “Over the next six years, we will aim to have small SUVs get as much as nine more miles to the gallon, up from the 19 miles to the gallon that some SUVs get today.”
However, environmentalists said the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards would fail to save consumers money at the gas pump, cut oil dependence or curb global warming. Technology exists today that would allow automakers to achieve a fleetwide average of 40 mpg within 10 years, said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club’s Global Warming Program.
Becker also criticized the move to basing fuel economy standards on vehicle size. “A size-based system encourages automakers to build larger vehicles in order to qualify for weaker fuel economy standards, resulting in lower fleetwide fuel economy,” Becker said.
In addition, a few of the largest vehicles, weighing between 8,500 and 10,000 pounds, including the Hummer H2 and Ford Excursion, would continue to be exempt from fuel efficiency standards. The government has not yet established standards for that category.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade association, said it was evaluating the federal government’s proposal and analyzing its impact. Afterward, it plans to submit recommendations to the government.
“As it considers where the standards should be set, NHTSA must consider key elements such as technological feasibility, cost, safety, emissions controls, consumer choice, disparate impacts on manufacturers and effects on American jobs,” the trade group said in a written statement.
The NHTSA will take comments on the proposal for 90 days and plans to finalize the new standards by April 2006.
The agency said it would make the CAFE reform proposal available on its Web site at www.nhtsa.gov under the laws and regulations heading.
Contact Waste News government affairs editor Bruce Geiselman at (330) 865-6172 or bgeiselman@crain.com
CAPTION(S):
TRUCKIN’: Minivans, pickups and SUVs make up the light-truck category covered by the Bush administration’s proposal to require increases in fuel efficiency.
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