Stars, Stripes & Gas Guzzlers
Just how dumb do they think Americans are, these U.S. senators who voted against a major energy security measure on the pretense of protecting soccer moms and preserving the pickup truck? Do these leaders, Democrats and Republicans, want us to believe that making a sport-utility vehicle get more miles per gallon would force mothers to drive their shin-guard-clad darlings around in golf carts? That fuel-efficient pickups would endanger the family farm?
The Democrats bear much of the blame, both because they control the Senate and because they are usually the first to brag of their support for the environment. Nineteen Democrats from auto-producing or farm states joined the GOP in rejecting the measure by Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) to raise the average auto fleet mileage standard to 35 miles per gallon by 2015, saving a million barrels of oil a day. They voted instead to let the Department of Transportation set new standards in the future--as if that will happen.
The current standard for autos is 27.5 mpg but only 20.7 mpg for light trucks, a category that includes SUVs. The auto makers and industry labor unions claimed that higher standards would keep them from making safe vehicles and put hundreds of thousands out of work. These are the same arguments that were mounted in 1975 when mileage standards were imposed and 15 years ago when they were increased. They were wrong then and are wrong now. What is surprising is that so many lawmakers should reiterate such nonsense on the Senate floor.
Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) actually said, “I don’t want to tell a mom in my state she should not get an SUV because Congress decided that would be a bad choice.” And Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) said his successful move to exempt pickup trucks from future mileage standard increases was a vote for “the working man . . . a vote for rural America.”
Fortunately, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both California Democrats, didn’t buy those lines and supported Kerry and McCain. Alas, Wednesday’s follies may even be outdone soon when the Senate is told that the real path to American energy independence is drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Expect someone to say it’s all for the sake of the caribou.
