Good news is hard to come by these days as the economy continues to sputter, but the weakening dollar and elevated gas prices may have a positive effect on the environment and your wallet in the long run.
Last December, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which among other things mandated miles-per-gallon (mpg) requirements for the automobile industry. Then in April, under jurisdiction of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) - the federal entity that somewhat incongruously regulates fuel economy regulations - decided to require faster mpg increases than the minimums Congress had set in this Act. Vehicles will have to average 39 mpg by 2020, although the proposal is still receiving public comments.
The CAFE system was first introduced in 1975 to improve the average fuel economy of cars and trucks sold in the U.S. At the time, some exceptions were allowed for larger vehicles, in part as a response to the oil embargo of 1970. When changes were made to CAFE standards in 2007, one of them was to remove most exemptions for “light trucks,” which had included SUVs and passenger vans. The new standards will require a more efficient line of automobiles across the board.
Historically, CAFE standards have had mixed results on fuel
efficiency, which is why some are critical of the newest standards. In fact, overall fuel economy
averages actually dropped in the 1990s, thanks to the popularity of SUVs and trucks, which were exempt from the standards.
The marked improvement from the ‘70s and ‘80s, followed by precipitous declines in the ‘90s and ‘00s, highlight the two viewpoints on the issue. On one side are supporters of the CAFE standards who point to the early improvements as evidence the program works. For those in this camp, the standards were simply not updated often enough to be effective.
On the other side are those who see the late declines as evidence the program simply doesn’t work. For them, the standards are fatally flawed and should be eliminated entirely.
Opponents of the new CAFE standards also argue that heightened requirements will force automakers to produce smaller, lighter vehicles, and that these are more likely to result in fatal crashes. Thus, for this group, the tradeoff is greater fuel efficiency at the cost of passenger safety - at least so they say.
Curiously enough, the mission of NHTSA is to: Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes. This naturally yields the question of should the NHTSA even be the entity enforcing CAFE standards? If not, the most logical CAFE standard torch bearer would be the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which currently provides the measurements of fuel efficiency.
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