New England will benefit from new national fuel standards
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff
The new fuel economy standard announced last month by President Barack Obama could benefit New Englanders $10 billion by 2025 through fuel savings and local reinvestment, according to a new study.
 Coming soon: Better gas mileage |
The new standards, which begin in 2012, will require cars and light trucks to get 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The new rules accelerate requirements Congress already had on the books to reach that goal by 2020. Currently, fuel standards hover a bit higher than 25 miles per gallon.
The study, released by the University of New Hampshire’s Carbon Solutions New England notes that the new fuel standards are expected to save 10 billion gallons of fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the key global warming gas, by 88 million tons between 2011 and 2025 in New England. That’s the equivalent, the report says, of removing 17.5 million cars off the road for one year.
While the new standards are expected to cost consumers about $1,300 per new vehicle, the Obama administration said that would pay for itself through fuel savings during the vehicle’s life.
The report focuses on fuel efficiency to save money and reduce emissions. It tried to capture behavior changes with more fuel efficient cars, such as assuming people will drive 11 percent more when they spend less money on gas.
“Our analysis clearly shows that investing in fuel-efficient vehicles is good for the environment and good for the economy,” says Cameron Wake, director of CSNE and an author of the report.
To view the report go to http://www.carbonsolutionsne.org.
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Why do you people lie to us with these shotty numbers. We all know that when everything costs more because of these new regulations we will just have less and the economy will slow down. The only person that benefits from this is big daddy government that will have more control over our hard earned resources. You are lying too when you say that we will save money with the efficiency, you same people are moaning for a mileage tax because revenues are down on the gas tax because people are driving less. The government will never accept a reduction in revenue, they will just come up with a way to get more out of you. In the meantime all we give up is comfort and safety driving Voltron's rollerskate and paying as much for it as a Yukon XL.
If you spend $1300 more for the new car, you spend more, not less for the purchase, insurance, registration fees and taxes on the car.
If you buy less gas, the state loses taxes per gallon so state raises the tax on every gallon sold to make up the difference.
If gas costs less then you drive more so you pay more in tax than if you drove less.
If a mileage tax is imposed then you pay more even if you drive less.
Where is the savings supposed to come from?
Since you seem to know so well, how about enlightening us with the real numbers?
I'll wait...
Tictoc - Might I suggest you actually read the report, which is based on grounded and transparent analysis. By the way - none of the analysis actually involves a transfer of funds to the government. Rather, there is an upfront cost for a more efficient vehicle that would be paid to the manufacturer of the vehicle (because of higher CAFE standards imposed by the federal government) that is more than paid back over the lifetime of the car becuse of a reduction in the amount of money spent on fuel, even assuming that the car will be driven 11% precisely because it gets better mileage.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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