From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: BUSH Administration Hushes Auto Efficiency Studies
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 21:35:58 GMT


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	      C o n s e r v a t i o n   C o v e r - u p
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From the July/August _Multinational Monitor_.
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    SUMMARY: Bush Admin.  squelches taxpayer funded research showing
    cars could be much more efficient than they are, using existing
    technology.
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    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 July 2,  1991 letter from Barry Felrice,
associate  administrator for  rulemaking  at  the National Highway and
Traffic Safety Administration, to  Karl Hellman of  the Office  of Air
and  Radiation at EPA   said, "[W]e are  disturbed  over  the 'best in
class' analysis' which makes  it  appear that CAFE [corporate  average
fuel economy] can be greatly improved without changing the size mix of
vehicles."  The letter was recently made public by the Sierra Club and
the Center for Auto Safety (CAS).

    A  CAS 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.

    CAS and the Sierra   Club are calling on   the EPA to restore  the
annual analysis.  Daniel Becker, director of global warming and energy
at the Sierra  Club, says, "This is an  atrocious   case of  political
interference  in    science.   The   political  hacks  in    the  Bush
Administration have pulled  the plug on the  technical experts  at EPA
because the facts don't support the president's political aganda."

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