Vehicular envirocide
One in a series of editorials on America's car culture.
EVEN MORE than coal-burning power plants, the car has become a symbol of Americans' refusal to curb their use of fossil fuels, despite the political and environmental cost of the addiction. Cars are the culprit largely because their efficiency has actually fallen in recent years, in contrast to that of air conditioners and refrigerators. The United States will not reduce its dependence on unstable foreign sources of oil or limit its emissions of greenhouse gases until it insists on higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks.
Overall fuel economy improved until 1987, when it started a decline caused by the growing popularity of sport utility vehicles. They had been exempted in the 1970s from the tougher efficiency standards that cars had to meet. Some members of Congress have tried and failed repeatedly to require higher efficiency standards. A bill last year sponsored by Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden would have raised average fuel efficiency from 24 miles per gallon to 33 and reduced vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2020. The House rejected it 254-177.
Cars, SUVs, and other light vehicles consume 40 percent of the oil used in this country. Transportation as a sector produces about one-third of all carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas. Union-backed proposals to have Washington subsidize new auto technology have made little headway.
Without the government pushing Detroit to produce more efficient cars, as it did after the oil crisis of 1973, US automakers have been content to focus on bigger and more profitable models. By neglecting hybrid technology and other means of improving efficiency, this strategy has exposed them to brutal foreign competition, especially when gas price hikes force consumers to look closely at a model's miles-per-gallon rating.
The automakers are so opposed to being pushed into better engineering that they, with the Bush administration, have fought California's regulations on carbon dioxide emissions, which would force efficiency improvements and could be adopted by other states. In this state, Governor Mitt Romney lost credibility on the climate change issue when he walked out on Northeastern states' carbon-capping plan for utilities, but could regain some by following through on a 2002 campaign promise. He said then he would favor basing the auto excise tax rate on vehicles' efficiency.
With Congress and the Bush administration so thoroughly in the grip of big oil and automakers, state initiatives would appear to be the best route to forcing the industry to make less wasteful models. That will be the case, at least, until new surges in gasoline prices make consumers, with no prompting from government, turn to more efficient cars. Sadly for US workers, most will be foreign-made.
