Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards Are a Must

Re “Oil Doesn’t Grow on Trees,” Commentary, March 14: David Goodstein argues that the best reason to cut fossil fuel use and replace it with renewable energy sources is that we are fast running out of oil. But Goodstein ignores the fact that new technology is constantly improving our ability to find and extract oil.

In fact, the best reason to take the path Goodstein advocates is that the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels are so dire--ecological degradation associated with extraction (hence the debate over near-shore and Arctic drilling), ground-level air pollution and, most important, the link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.

Even forward-looking energy companies realize that the era of fossil fuels is coming to an end, not because they can’t find more oil and natural gas but because they realize society can no longer tolerate the downwind price.

David W. Lea

Professor, Dept. of Geological

Sciences, UC Santa Barbara

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Goodstein’s article on our running out of oil sooner rather than later is one of many on the subject. One can imagine that at the present rate of consumption that day is indeed sooner.

The front page of this same edition reports “Senate Kills Stiffer Fuel Standards.” Energy proposals being kicked around by lawmakers tend to favor greater consumption. Didn’t Vice President Cheney say last November that “conservation may be a sign of personal virtue”? Our leaders certainly must be privy to data that tell them of the disappearing oil supply. The Senate vote leans on the side of the auto and oil industries and ignores the problem of eventual oil depletion. Selfishness and greed are alive and well in America with the aid of our government. The sad thing is they don’t appear to care about the future. Go tell that to the children.

Ken Johnson

Pinon Hills

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As the Senate votes down higher fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles, we again hear the political mantra from Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.): “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.”

Looking on the streets of L.A. and vicinity for the mythic SUV soccer mom and her five kids, I found that about nine-tenths of the SUVs had one person per vehicle and almost all of the rest had two. One SUV was full--of teenagers at the beach. Yet I have never heard a politician say, “I don’t want to tell a surfer dude in my state. . . . “

The most common motive for buying an SUV is not room or safety but lifestyle faddishness. If motor scooters became as trendy, we’d find our beloved soccer mom putt-putting along with her brood piled up behind her like an acrobatic troupe.

David Eggenschwiler

Los Angeles

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How can our senators purport to want to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and yet fail to impose higher fuel economy standards? They, in complicity with the White House, have successfully and severely undermined the U.S.’s only real potential for oil independence, an independence that can come only in the form of raising CAFE standards.

While proponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge insist on leeching 3.2-billion barrels of oil from ANWR’s permafrost, raising the fuel economy of cars, light trucks and SUVs to 40 mpg would provide 2.5-billion barrels of oil a day, as much as the U.S. imports from OPEC. Our Senate has bowed to the wanton, selfish interests of the auto industry and turned a blind eye to the real problem.

Dee Anna S. Behle

Dana Point