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CounterPunch
Weekend
Edition
August
10, 2002
The Quest for
the Fuel Efficient Car
by Ralph Nader
Once again the Congressional toadies for the auto
industry have beaten back efforts by legislators such as Democrat,
Senator John Kerry and Republican John McCain to gradually increase
fuel efficiency standards from the abysmally wasteful levels
now inflicted on your pocketbook. Instead of choosing the path
of reduced pollution, consumer savings, efficiency of engines
and less reliance on imported oil, these indentured lawmakers
turned their back on automotive engineers who know how to do
the job but are not allowed by their bosses.
The Sierra Club has decided to stop spinning
its wheels on Capitol Hill and go directly to the people. In
surveys of likely voters in Missouri and South Dakota, 79 percent
of the people wanted the auto industry to be required to increase
fuel efficiency and that included light truck owners.  The voters do not buy the auto company
propaganda that more fuel efficient vehicles means less safety.
Sixty percent of these voters say they would pay more for a higher
mileage vehicle in return for its much larger dollar savings.
Long time car owners know that fuel efficiency
overall is no better than what vehicles did in 1980! They are
wary of the sudden spikes in gasoline prices. They also know
that the companies spend lots of money on engine hyper-performance
rather than on engine hyper-efficiency. Despite massive advertising
by the auto companies to the contrary, they do not believe them.
Bolstered by public opinion, the Sierra
Club announced a three year campaign to pressure automakers to
improve fuel economy. Executive Director, Carl Pope, said "The
technology exists today to allow the automakers to continue offering
their most popular models, but with significantly improved fuel
economy. These new safe, fuel-saving SUVs and pickups could be
on the shelf very soon."
The Sierra Club is publicizing a "Freedom
Option Package", which is a set of fuel-saving components
that could be added to most standard models and that, taken together,
could put the fleets of the Big Three on the road to 40 miles
per gallon.
Dan Becker, the Club's Clean Energy director
says that "Detroit wants to sell option packages featuring
seat warmers and cup holders" instead. He is mobilizing
the Club's 700,000 members across the country to hold events
at local auto dealers. Becker has enlisted a prominent Chevrolet
dealer, Chuck Frank in support of this initiative.
The Sierra Club, once enthralled by Bill
Ford's environmental statements and assurances of major increases
in Ford's SUV's is now so disappointed with his company's joining
the other auto giants to lobby against fuel-efficiency laws that
it has singled him and Ford Motor Company for special pressure
by motorists.
Soon to come (September 17th) is the
most jolting book against the auto company executives since Unsafe
at Any Speed came out in 1965. I am referring to New York Times
reporter, Keith Bradsher's devastating expose of the SUVs which
he calls the world's most dangerous vehicles and how they got
that way. Titled The
High and Mighty, this book explains how the auto industry's
grip on Congress got these SUVs (hoked-up, over-priced light
truck) exempted form safety, fuel efficiency and pollution requirements
that were imposed on automobiles. That was accomplished when
these vehicles were a small percentage of overall sales. Now
they are a large part of sales; they kill their occupants in
roll overs three times the rate of cars; areuniquely dangerous
to other motorists and will become more serious when drunks,
teenagers, typically the worst drivers on the road, start buying
the older used SUVs, Bradsher says.
With an impressive attention to detail
and special documentation, Bradsher reports on the enormous advertising
money ($10 billion spent since 1990) to deceive their customers
and persuade Americans to switch from cars to the very profitable
SUVs. While, he declares, "Gas-guzzling SUVs emit one-third
more global-warming gases per mile than cars, and up to 5.5 times
as much smog-causing nitrogen oxides per mile."
If the media grasps the importance of
this book, September will be a hot month for the high and mighty
in Detroit's executive suites. And long overdue.
Today's Features
Bruce Jackson
Buffalo
in Black and White
Walt Brasch
The Bush
2 Legacy...So Far
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August 10/11,
2002
Walt Brasch
The Bush
2 Legacy...So Far
August 9,
2002
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Corporate
Crime:
More Shareholder Power
Not the Solution
Ansar Ahmed
The Waning
of the
Pax Americana
Alexander
Cockburn
War,
the Military and the Hunt for the "Violence Gene"
August 8,
2002
Ron Jacobs
Iraq:
The Final Storm?
Dave Marsh
Now Ain't
the Time
for Your Tears
Mark Weisbrot
Bush
Administration Tries to Hide Role in Venezuela Coup
Anthony Gancarski
AIPAC,
Congress and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Families
of the
Disappeared Demand Answers
Gary Leupp
Karzai's
Bodyguard
August 7,
2002
Anis Shivani
The First
21st Century
Police State
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Fallon's
Fallen
Is the US Navy Killing
Children in Nevada?
Robert Fisk
For the
Forgotten Afghans,
the UN Offers a Fresh Hell
Dr. Susan
Block
Rigas in
Cuffs
Bill Christison
Disastrous
Foreign Policies of the US Part 5: the Call of Democracy?
August 6,
2002
Philip Farruggio
Signs
of the Elites
Bruce Gagnon
We Must
Come Alive
David Krieger
From
Hiroshima to Hope
Jerre Skog
Global
Reach of Corporate Crime or What the Hell are
They Teaching at Harvard?
Robert Fisk
Return to
Afghanistan:
Collateral Damage
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Fox in the Pension Fund
August 5, 2002
Rahul Mahajan
Iraq
and the New Great Game
Jordy Cummings
The
Last Frontier of
Israel and Palestine
Bernard Weiner
Inside
Saddam's Diary
Mike Leon
US Mute
to Israeli Brutality
Norman Madarasz
Brazil:
the Most Important Election of 2002?
August 4, 2002
Susan Davis
Fat Americans
August 3, 2002
David Krieger
Nuclear
Apartheid
Gilad Atzmon
The End
of Innocence
Gavin Keeney
Everybody's
a Critic
Alexander Cockburn
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save Dick Cheney?
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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