Sometimes the Bush gang edits scientific reports they don’t like, other times they re-write them, and once in a while, they hide them just long enough to avoid political consequences.
With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.
But a copy of the report, embargoed for publication Wednesday, was sent to The New York Times by a member of the E.P.A. communications staff just minutes before the decision was made to delay it until next week. The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980’s.
Releasing the report this week would have been inopportune for the Bush administration, its critics said, because it would have come on the eve of a final vote in Congress on energy legislation six years in the making. The bill, as it stands, largely ignores auto mileage regulations.
This is the same annual report on fuel standards that the EPA releases every year at this time. All of a sudden, with no explanation, the agency delays the release — until just after Congress votes on an energy bill that ignores the need for improved fuel standards.
If the EPA report had been released as scheduled, Congress would have seen proof that fuel efficiency has gotten worse over the last 20 years, auto manufacturers are actually regressing when it comes to improving fuel economy, and that “fuel economy is directly related to energy security” because consumer cars and trucks account for about 40 percent of the nation’s oil consumption. Instead, the EPA report was pulled at the last minute.
“Something’s fishy when the Bush administration delays a report showing no improvement in fuel economy until after passage of their energy bill, which fails to improve fuel economy,” said Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club’s top global warming strategist.
Just a coincidence, right?