[Mb-civic] The paradox of fuel efficiency - Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

The paradox of fuel efficiency

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist  |  September 21, 2005

IT DIDN'T take Hurricane Katrina to move the issue of fuel efficiency 
into the spotlight. For decades, automakers have been urged to produce, 
consumers have been urged to drive, and the government has been urged to 
mandate more fuel-efficient cars. If the vehicles on our roads got more 
miles to the gallon, we have been told again and again, we could 
dramatically reduce the amount of oil we depend on -- and from that 
would flow benefits equally dramatic:

America's foreign policy would be strengthened, it is said, since we 
would no longer have to appease the unsavory regimes that control most 
of the world's crude oil. The economy would surge as money now spent on 
fuel was channeled to more productive uses. Mother Earth would be better 
off, since less fuel would mean less pollution and less drilling for 
oil. And at a time of $3-a-gallon gasoline, motorists would have 
particular reason to rejoice: Higher-mileage cars would need fewer 
expensive fill-ups.

Late last month, with Katrina still days away, the Bush administration 
proposed new regulations mandating improved gas mileage for pickup 
trucks, minivans, and some SUVs. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta 
said the plan would save 10 billion gallons of gasoline by 2011. Critics 
dismissed his proposal as either trifling (''almost embarrassingly 
inadequate" -- Eric Haxthausen, Environmental Defense), or dangerous 
(''higher fuel efficiency standards increase traffic deaths" -- Sam 
Kazman, Competitive Enterprise Institute). But the basic idea -- that 
higher fuel efficiency can mean lower American gasoline use -- no one 
seemed to challenge.

If better mileage had political sex appeal before the hurricane, it had 
even more of it afterward. In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino called a press 
conference to announce that the city's 450 diesel-powered cars would be 
replaced with more-efficient vehicles that run on biodiesel fuel. He 
promised to trade in his mayoral SUV -- a Ford Expedition -- for 
something smaller and more fuel-efficient. Then, ''as television cameras 
rolled," The Boston Globe reported, ''he climbed into the Public Health 
Commission's new Ford Escape hybrid SUV and drove away across the plaza."

Lawmakers have gotten into the act too. A bill introduced in the 
Massachusetts Legislature would shower benefits on drivers of 
fuel-efficient vehicles. Among them: a $2,000 tax deduction, the right 
to drive solo in carpool lanes, and lower fees at parking meters.

All of which might be worth considering if using fuel more efficiently 
really would result in less fuel being used. But it won't. It will 
result in more fuel being used.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/21/the_paradox_of_fuel_efficiency/
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