We sell cars that get 40 miles per gallon, but less than 2 percent of consumers buy them. But Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program, said Tuesday that automakers spend much of their advertising budgets to push lower-mileage SUVs because they are so profitable. Better gas mileage would reduce oil consumption, lower fuel costs and lower emissions, he said. Passenger vehicles discharge about 20 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. The federal government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, adopted in 1975 to boost fuel economy, require each automaker to reach a 27.5 mpg average fuel economy on new passenger cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks.
Critics say the standards are too low.
But the auto industry has successfully lobbied Congress since 1996 to block the Clinton administration from even studying a possible increase. The EPA report, published last week, said that new technologies were available that could increase fuel economy but that automakers instead had focused on building heavier vehicles and increasing acceleration. Vehicles that are heavier or have higher horsepower need more gas to operate. The average fuel economy for 1981 vehicles was 24.1 mpg - slightly higher than in model year 2000. But if the 2000 fleet had the same average weight and performance as in 1981 with today's technologies, it could have achieved 25 percent higher fuel economy, according to the report.