Fuel Economy Standards: Myth And Fact

Myth: Fuel economy standards have not reduced our oil consumption.
Reality: Fuel economy standards are the most effective oil-saving measure ever devised by Congress.

• A National Academy of Sciences (NAS) fuel economy report concludes that current fuel economy standards save 2.8 million barrels of oil per day (mbd). 1
  
• Cars and light trucks account for 40 percent of U.S oil use-8 mbd. 2
  
• Phasing in a 35 mpg fuel economy standard by 2013 would save one million barrels of oil each day in that year. This is more than 12 times the projected daily yield from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2013. By 2020, the savings would rise to 2.5 million barrels of oil each day- as much oil as we currently import from the Persian Gulf. 3

Myth: There is no available technology that would improve fuel economy.
Fact: Affordable, off-the-shelf technology exists today to cost-effectively boost the fuel economy of cars and light trucks.
Fuel economy can be increased while maintaining the power, performance and safety that consumers demand. Detroit should put its technological know-how to work to improve the fuel economy of the nation's vehicle fleet.

• When Congress enacted fuel economy standards in 1975, automakers used new technology to double the fuel economy of new American cars over ten years. 4
  
• A recent National Academy of Sciences fuel economy report shows that technology is available to phase in a fleet wide fuel economy standard of 37 mpg within the next 10 to 15 years. 5
  
• Technology such as variable valve control engines, lightweight aluminum engines, and five-speed automatic transmission are available today. The continuously variable transmission, another available technology, has been used for years in versions of the Honda Civic HX. All these technologies could be phased into the entire fleet of passenger vehicles to achieve an increase in fuel economy.
  
• The auto industry's record for voluntarily installing environmental and safety technologies is poor, as evidenced by the industry's history of opposition to catalytic converters, seat belts, and air bags. Without government action, the auto industry likely will continue to use technological advancements to boost the power of vehicles rather than improve fuel economy.

Myth: Increasing the fuel economy of light trucks and SUVs would result in smaller, less powerful vehicles.
Fact: We have the technology to increase the fuel economy of light trucks and SUVs while maintaining size and performance.
There are many technologies available to cost-effectively improve the fuel economy of sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), pickups, and minivans-whether they are used for hauling, off-road travel, or even the more likely trip to the supermarket.

• Efficiency can come without a negative impact on performance. In fact, by using technologies such as engine advances, transmission improvements and drag-reduction techniques, it is possible to make a vehicle accelerate faster and climb hills better-even when carrying a full load. 6
  
• Automakers have traditionally met fuel economy standards without sacrificing power. In fact, over the last 15 years, light trucks became 22 percent faster, 17 percent heavier, and 61 percent more powerful while fuel economy has remained relatively constant. 7
  
• Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler have already committed to a 25 percent increase in their SUV fuel economy by 2005, and Ford is touting the Escape, a 40 mpg SUV that will go on sale in 2003. 8 Clearly, the auto industry has the technology to increase light truck fuel economy.
  
• Large majorities of light truck owners in every state surveyed support increasing fuel economy standards. 9

Myth: Higher fuel economy standards would jeopardize vehicle safety.
Fact: Fuel economy standards can be increased while improving vehicle safety.
Since 1974, the safety of automobiles has increased dramatically while the fuel economy of cars doubled. The fatality rate declined from 3.4 per hundred million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in 1975 to 1.6 per hundred million VMT in 1999. 10 The auto industry-the same industry that fought air bags, safety belts, fuel system integrity, mandatory recalls, side-impact protection and roof strength and rollover standards-claims that increasing fuel economy standards would compromise vehicle safety. New fuel economy standards can and should be designed to improve highway safety.

• Safety is a function of design. Safety features, such as seat belts, air bags and the design of crush space are a greater factor than weight in the reduction of fatalities. 11 For example, the Honda Civic at 2500 pounds while a 5500-pound 4-wheel drive Chevrolet Suburban has a death rate of 53 per million registered vehicle years. 12
  
• Stronger roofs, interior padding, and window curtain airbags could eliminate 3,000-5,000 rollover deaths annually. 13
  
• Altering the stiff frame-high bumper design of SUVs could improve vehicle crash-compatibility, reducing the dangers of collisions between cars and trucks. 14
  
• The NAS fuel economy report showed significant increases in fuel economy could be achieved with no reduction in vehicle size and weight. In fact, the NAS report found that reducing the weight of the heaviest vehicles on the road would actually increase safety. 15
  
• A study prepared for Honda motor company reducing a fleets average vehicle weight by 100 lbs. would produce a net reduction in the fatalities in passenger vehicle crashes. 16

Myth: Increasing fuel economy standards would cost jobs.
Fact: Increasing fuel economy standards would create jobs in the auto industry and other sectors.
The auto industry bases job loss estimates on the assumption that models that fail to meet the new standard would be discontinued immediately. 17 In fact, a higher fuel economy standard would be phased in gradually and averaged over the entire fleet, thereby allowing flexibility in meeting a new standard and time to apply existing and emerging technology. Scrapping specific models would be poor and unrealistic business practice.

• Increasing fuel economy would put existing technologies into cars and trucks and push technological innovation, leading to investments that would benefit the auto industry and its employees. A Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) analysis shows that a 40 mpg standard would create 41,000 new jobs in the auto industry by 2015. 18
  
• Higher fuel economy standards would save consumers money at the pump, putting money back into local economies. The same UCS analysis showed that a 40 mpg standard would save consumers $16 billion at the gas pump annually in 2012 and $29 billion annually in 2015, helping create 183,000 new jobs across almost all sectors by 2015. 19
  
• American manufacturers and their employees were hit hard during price spikes in the 1970s when consumers began buying more fuel-efficient cars from Japanese manufacturers. According to January 2002 Wall Street Journal Article, "The Big Three's failure to innovate has repeatedly helped their foreign rivals". 20 Another price spike could have a similar effect today. Higher fuel economy standards can protect American manufacturers' market share plus insulate our national economy from these price spikes.
  
• 70 percent of union households support increasing fuel economy standards. 21

Myth: Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would increase energy security.
Fact: We cannot drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil sources.

• The U.S. holds only three percent of the world's oil reserves and uses 25 percent of the world's produced oil. 22
  
• Persian Gulf countries hold more than 65 percent of the world's oil reserves. 23
  
• The total projected yield from the Arctic Refuge would increase world oil reserves by less than one-third of 1 percent. 24
  
• Opening the Arctic Refuge today would not produce oil until at least 2010 and, based on the current rate of consumption, would yield only a six-month supply of oil over 50 years. 25
  
• By 2017, the cumulative oil savings would be greater than the total projected yield from the Arctic Refuge over its 50-year lifetime. 26
  
• Increasing domestic oil production would not protect the U.S. from price spikes because there are no regional markets for oil, only global. If world oil prices spike, so do domestic oil prices.
  
• By two-to-one, voters believe that increasing energy efficiency and production of clean renewable energy would improve national security while increasing domestic drilling would not. 27

Myth: Increasing fuel economy standards would hurt consumers by raising sticker prices for new vehicles.
Fact: Savings at the gas pump would more than offset increases in sticker cost.

• When fully implemented in 2013, a 35 mpg standard would save consumers a net $4 billion at the gas pump annually after subtracting increase in sticker price from fuel savings. These savings would continue to increase as vehicles with higher fuel economy replace remaining older vehicles. 28 Americans would spend these savings and boost the U.S. economy instead of sending money overseas to buy oil.
  
• 72 percent of Americans favor increasing fuel economy standards, even in the face of arguments that doing so would increase sticker price of vehicles. 29

Myth: The Department of Transportation (DOT), specifically the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), should be given sole responsibility for raising fuel economy standards.
Fact: Congress must act to require NHTSA to set fuel economy standards at a specific level.
NHTSA's poor track record and ties to the auto industry indicate that it would avoid real increases in fuel economy.

• In the last decade, NHTSA increased fuel economy standards for light trucks by a meager 0.5 mpg and never acted to increase the standards for cars.
  
• NHTSA officials, as well as high-level members of the Bush administration, joined the organization from auto industry groups or left to work for the very industry they once regulated. When describing NHTSA's relationship with the auto industry, former auto executive Dennis Gioia stated that the organization is "almost a consultative and advisory agency."
  
• White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was the chief lobbyist for the Big Three automakers as president of the American Automobile Manufacturing Association, and Reagan era NHTSA administrator Diane Steed now heads the industry-funded Coalition for Vehicle Choice, which aggressively opposes higher fuel economy standards.

Raising Fuel Economy Standards is the Biggest Single Step to Curbing Global Warming and Improving Air Quality
Pollution from cars and light trucks threatens our environment and public health. Burning oil in passenger vehicles releases carbon dioxide that builds up in the atmosphere and works like a blanket, trapping heat near the earth's surface and causing global warming. Since America's enormous fleet of passenger vehicles accounts for one-fifth of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, raising fuel economy standards is the single biggest step our country can take to curb global warming. Raising fuel economy standards also would help reduce key air pollutants, improving public health and helping cities and states meet clean air standards.

• U.S. cars and light trucks alone produce more carbon dioxide pollution than all but three other countries worldwide: China, Russia and Japan. 30 This amounts to almost 5 percent of total world carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
  
• Existing fuel economy standards avert 500,000 tons of hydrocarbon emissions from gasoline production, distribution, and vehicle fuel tanks each year. Hydrocarbon emissions are a key source of smog, and many of them are toxic and potentially carcinogenic. 31
  
• Phasing in a 35 mpg fuel economy standard by 2013 would avert 20 percent of projected global warming pollution from transportation in 2020 while keeping tons of cancer-causing hydrocarbon emissions out of the air each year. 32

Sources

1 Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, National Research Council, July, 2001.

2 Annual Energy Outlook, Energy Information Administration, 2000.

3 Union of Concerned Scientists Analysis.

4 Between 1975 and 1985. David L. Greene, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1999.

5 Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, National Research Council, July, 2001.

6 David Friedman, et al, Drilling in Detroit: Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2001.

7 David Friedman, et al, Drilling in Detroit: Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2001.

8 Ford Motor Company Website: http://www.ford.com/en/ourVehicles/autoShows/detroit2002/vehicles/ford/fordEscapeHEV/default.htm

9 The Mellman Group, March 2002.

10 Trends in U.S. Traffic Fatalities and Light Duty Vehicle Fuel Economy, Compiled from NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts 1997 and ORNL Transportation Energy Data Book, 1998.

11 David Friedman, et al, Drilling in Detroit: Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2001.

12 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute, http://www.highwaysafety.org/sr_ddr/sr3507_detail.htm#2uvh

13 Center for Injury Research, Docket Comments, December 4 2001.

14 David Friedman, et al, Drilling in Detroit: Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2001.

15 Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, National Research Council, July, 2001.

16 Auken, R.M. and Zellner J.W., An Assessment of the Effects of Vehicle Weight on Fatality Risk in Model Year 1985-98 Passenger Cars and 1985-97 Light Trucks, Dynamic Research, Inc, February 2002.

17 Jack Doyle, Taken for a Ride, Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000, pp. 370-371.

18 David Friedman, Fuel Economy as an Engine for Job Growth, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2002.

19David Friedman, Fuel Economy as an Engine for Job Growth, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2002.

20 Evasive Maneuvers: Detroit Again Tries to Dodge Pressures for a Greener Fleet, The Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Ball, January 28, 2002.

21 The Mellman Group, March 2002

22 Persian Gulf Oil and Gas Exports Fact Sheet, Energy Information Administration, February 2001. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/pgulf.html

23 OPEC Crude Oil Production, Energy Information Administration, September, 2001, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/opec.html#CAPACITY

International Crude Oil Reserves Data Reserves Data By Region for Most Countries and World Total, Energy Information Administration, January, 2000, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/table81.html

Oil Consumption of Selected OECD Countries, Total OECD, and World Total, 1970-2000, Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t46.txt

24 David Doniger, et al, Dangerous Addiction: Ending America's Oil Dependence, Natural Resources Defense Council & Union of Concerned Scientists, January, 2002.

25 U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 0028-01, Version 1.0 for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1002 Area, Petroleum Assessment, 1998, Including Economic Analysis.

26 Union of Concerned Scientists Analysis

27 The Mellman Group, March 2002.

28 Union of Concerned Scientists Analysis.

29 The Mellman Group, March 2002.

30 Data on US vehicle CO2 emissions from: Inventory Of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions And Sinks: 1990 - 1999 (April 2001) EPA 236-R-01-001. (http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/emissions/us2001/index.html) Data on international emissions from EPA's Global Warming Emissions site, international section: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/emissions/international/inventories.html

31 Mark A. Delucchi, David L. Greene, Michael Quanlu Wang, Motor-Vehicle Fuel Economy: The Forgotten Hydrocarbon Control Strategy?, January, 1994. Transpn. Res.-A, Vol. 28A, No. 3, 223-244

32 PIRG calcualtion based on: Union of Concerned Scienstists analysis of pollution reduction and Energy Information Administration projection of global pollution from transportation. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/aeotab_19.htmlast