Outrageous

Outrageous

By Carl M. Cannon

Running on Empty

Our cars should go farther now—and with fewer fill-ups. Is the road to hell paved with politicians?

It was an early Christmas present, but Americans are going to have to wait years to get their hands on it. On December 19, President Bush signed into law a voluminous energy bill that requires automakers to increase the average fuel economy of their cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020. The new law was hailed in Washington by the Republican President and the Democratic Congress as a bipartisan breakthrough, one that would help Americans tapped out by three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline.

"Today we make a major step toward reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure," Bush said.

"This is a choice between yesterday and tomorrow," proclaimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "It's groundbreaking."

That's one way of looking at it. The other is that the new mileage standards are absurdly unambitious, riddled with loopholes and so long overdue that this President, his immediate predecessors and veteran Congressional leaders should be embarrassed that they didn't act years ago.

Let's take a look at the new standards: Most SUVs and minivans are included for the first time, which is progress, but three-quarter-ton and full-ton pickups are still exempt, and new-model vans and SUVs in excess of 8,500 pounds won't be counted until 2011.

The most egregious problem is that the goals are too modest. Europe's standard is already 40 miles per gallon and heading soon to 49 mpg. Japan expects to hit 47 mpg by 2015.

Here at home, the state of California, acting on its own, has enacted regulations designed to speed up technological innovation like plug-in electric cars. When it comes to improving mileage, innovation is where the rubber meets the road. But California, for its trouble, found itself in the crosshairs of the Bush Administration's EPA, which argued in court that the state had exceeded its authority.

Once again, Congress and the Bush Administration are not exactly wowing the neighbors. Canadian experts say that Ottawa should look to Sacramento, not Washington, for leadership in energy efficiency. "For Canada to adopt the [U.S.] standard means taking the slow lane in addressing climate change," says Pierre Sadik of the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental organization.

Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, predicts that by the time the new standards take effect, they won't produce any savings in gas consumption, since so many more cars will be on the road.

Another depressing aspect of the new law is that it's more than 20 years late. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act signed by President Ford in 1975 required automakers to double the average mileage their cars and light trucks could travel on a gallon of gas—to 27.5 mpg—by 1985. The law was successful, but the standards haven't been significantly updated since, despite economic, environmental and security concerns that made better gas mileage a national imperative.

Lawmakers can't get back the time they wasted. In the past two decades, our fuel habit and pathological fascination with huge, gas-guzzling vehicles has brought us deadlier crashes, contributed to huge increases in carbon dioxide emissions (responsible for the melting of untold areas of polar ice caps), and caused the exodus of trillions of dollars from the economy. In the process, we've bolstered unstable, unsavory regimes from Iran to Nigeria, not to mention societies that spawn terrorism.

After 9/11, the world began to notice that Americans were financing both sides of the war on terror. Former CIA director R. James Woolsey put it memorably: "The next time you pull into a gas station, bend down a little and take a glance in the side door mirror. What you will see is a contributor to terrorism against the United States."

President Bush, a former oilman himself, acknowledged the blunt truth in his 2006 State of the Union address: Americans, he said, "are addicted to oil." But after 9/11, instead of staging an immediate intervention, he and Congress dithered for six years, as our leaders had for three decades—classic enablers of a nation in need of a 12-step program.

The President did ask Congress, in the wake of September 11, for energy legislation that included drilling for oil in the Arctic wilderness, but he neglected to ask for increased fuel-efficiency standards when Congress almost certainly would have gone along. And now, six and a half years after the attacks, the United States imports nearly 14 million barrels of oil a day, paying a hefty world price of $100 per barrel. This represents an annual outflow of capital from the U.S. economy of $300 billion—a hundred times what it was in 1971, when President Nixon declared energy independence a priority.

The time to act was September 2001, when the habits and outlook of a nation could have been altered. "That was the moment," says energy consultant Philip K. Verleger, Jr. "And it was lost."

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Michael Crowley is on the campaign trail and will return next month. Write to him at outrageous@rd.com.

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What Lies Ahead?

The 2008 Presidential candidates say they understand what needs to be done about oil and energy. In their own words:

>>Hillary Clinton "We can't just point fingers and place blame on anyone else: foreigners over there, oil companies over here. It is going to require a virtual revolution in our thinking about energy and in the actions that must follow."

>>Mike Huckabee "I would make the U.S. energy-independent within ten years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil, just like they can keep their sand—that we won't need either one."

>>John McCain "I'll implement an energy plan that won't be another grab bag of handouts nor another round of tax breaks and other subsidies to big oil. It will recognize the fundamental truth that our oil problem is an automobile fuel problem and break the dominance of oil."

>>Barack Obama "Why can't we make energy security one of the great American projects of the 21st century? The answer is, We can. We can do this by focusing on two things: the cars we drive and the fuels we use." •

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