The good news is the federal government established new fuel standards for small and large trucks yesterday, including SUVs. The bad news is the new standards are terribly weak.
The Bush administration will require auto makers to build more [tag]fuel-efficient[/tag] sport-utility vehicles, minivans and pickup trucks, but standards finalized yesterday are no stricter than proposed last year despite rising gasoline prices.
The rules issued by federal highway officials are mostly a victory for auto makers, since environmentalists had argued that the rules should be increased even more, given government formulas for fuel-efficiency that take rising gas prices into account.
The new [tag]CAFE standards[/tag] were originally shaped by a formula driven by gas prices. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the administration originally crafted a plan based on prices ranging from $1.51 to $1.58 a gallon over the lives of the affected vehicles. But as prices have increased, the “cost-benefit calculation required by law would justify increased fuel-economy targets.” So, the ever-clever administration simply changed the formula so it wouldn’t have to create stricter fuel standards.
The [tag]Union of Concerned Scientists[/tag] estimated that the new CAFE standards would only save two weeks of gasoline a year over the next two decades.
“Gas prices went up, we had two hurricanes and the president admitted we were addicted to oil, and yet we couldn’t get anything more out of them?” said David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “To me, it defies logic.”
Perhaps, but it doesn’t defy expectations.