CAFE fast facts:
- Can reduce urban smog, aiding cities and communities in
complying with the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. It is the
biggest single policy step the U.S. can take to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions.
- Can be done by strengthening an existing successful law
without creating a new bureaucracy
- Enjoys bipartisan support of legislators in the U.S.
Congress
- Saves consumers money at the gas pump
- Saves millions of barrels of oil daily, already
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Increasing the fuel efficiency of automobiles is the biggest
single step the United States can take to reduce consumption of
fossil fuels and the threat of global warming.
We have a tool to achieve this goal in the form of Corporate
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Raising CAFE standards to 45
miles per gallon (mpg) for cars and 34 mpg for light trucks (trucks,
vans, and sport utility vehicles) is the biggest single step we can
take to curb global warming.
CAFE is a fleet-wide average standard. It is currently set at
27.5 mpg for cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks (the standards have
been stagnant for almost a decade.) In any given model year it
requires that the average for an automakers entire fleet meet it's
goals. Manufacturers can still make vehicles that get less than the
standards, as long as they balance them with more efficient
vehicles.
In 1997 all three US automakers violated CAFE standards for light
trucks. Rather than improve their products, the Big 3 have waged a
lobbying offensive in Washington DC, and have successfully
influenced members of Congress to pass one year freezes on the law.
1997 was the third year that such a freeze was passed.
Ford, Chrysler, and General Motor's conduct on CAFE standards is
reprehensible. They are not only damaging the environment and
increasing the risk of a dangerous global warming, their gas
guzzlers are also worsening America's trade deficit and exporting
more money from US consumers into the bank accounts of
multi-national oil corporations.
The Big 3's gas guzzlers pose risks to our natural resources as
well. The fuel efficiency of America's automobile fleet is
plummeting, and as it drops pressure is building to create new
supplies of oil to fill the demand. This pressure is threatening
sensitive wilderness areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
and the new national monument in Utah with oil development.
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