From: mst4298@zeus.tamu.edu (Mitchell S Todd)
Subject: Re: BUSH Administration Hushes Auto Efficiency Studies
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Applied Upyerstemmatey Corp
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 04:10:00 GMT

Harel autoposter rides again:

>    Under pressure  from  the Bush  Administration,  the Environmental
>Protection Agency (EPA) this year  stopped publishing an annual report
>which showed new cars' fuel efficiency could be significantly enhanced
>without changing car size.  

>    A  Center for Auto Safety analysis of  EPA's 1992  data showed that
>the passenger car fleet would attain  an average of 35 miles  per gallon
>(mpg) if every car  did as well as  the best car  in its class, without
>requiring any new technology or shifts to smaller  cars.  According to CAS,
>shifting to a  "best-in-class" fleet would save 800,000  barrels of gas per
>day and would reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 125  million tons.
>The Sierra Club says that reducing auto pollution  is the clearest way
>to curb threatened global warming, and that raising the CAFE standards
>to 40 mpg will save the average  U.S. family $650 per year  at the gas
>pump.


	This has to be one of the worst researched, worst thought out,
	and worst argued things I've seen this year.

	The "best in class" idea is, at the least, juvenile, and is
	nothing more than some idiot playing wishful thinking with
	statistics. Of course, it's not presented as a stand-alone
	proposal. It is used in a half assed attempt to justify the
	the 40mpg CAFE standards (CAFE being a childish idea
	to begin with). 

	CAFE has never really been very effective, and at times has
	been counterproductive. Several times in the early 1980's,
	the Deteroit automakers were faced with building a fleet that
	exceeded CAFE standards. What did they do? They built tens of
	thousands of extra economy cars to get the fleet average gas
	milage under the CAFE limit. Of course, these extra cars didn't
	sell, but it was cheaper to lose the money in the excess production
	than to pay the gas guzzler tax. This excess production is,
	of course, wasteful both economically and environmentally.

	Further, CAFE policy does little to confront the real problem
	with cars --that they are used at all. The best policy would
	be to encourage the average Joe to use public transportation
	or walk or ride a bike to wherever he wants to go. It's
	environmentally wasteful to drive a car three miles, when
	a trip on a bike will do quite nicely.

	The best way to reduce CO2, NOx, and other auto emissions
	is to use tax policy to increase the price of gasoline.
	As gasoline prices increase, so will the demand for high
	fuel economy. As gas prices increase, people will drive
	their cars less. Also, as prices increase, people will be
	more willing to use alternate means of transportation,
	like bicycles, trains, walking, etc. 


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Xref: sparky alt.activism:15938 soc.college:3779 talk.politics.misc:43820