S.U.V.'s Under Fire

February 9, 2003
www.nytimes.com


The 1990's economic boom, combined with cheap gasoline,
turned the sport utility vehicle - the S.U.V. - into one of
Detroit's most popular and profitable products. Lately,
though, S.U.V.'s have been taking their lumps, including
sharp criticism from the new head of the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, Jeffrey Runge, one of the
first federal officials to speak openly and honestly about
rollovers and other hazards associated with a vehicle that
the industry insists is essential to its economic survival.


But most of the criticism remains focused on the vehicles'
environmental costs and the huge contribution they make to
the nation's growing dependence on imported oil. And
properly so: S.U.V.'s produce, on average, 40 percent more
carbon dioxide - the main global warming gas - than
ordinary cars. They are also far less efficient than
ordinary cars, averaging as little as 13 miles a gallon in
city traffic.

It's past time to change all that. Even the Bush
administration is getting nervous. A massive loophole in
federal law allows S.U.V.'s - and all other vehicles
technically classified as light trucks, including minivans
- to achieve an average fleetwide standard of 20.7 miles
per gallon, compared with the 27.5 miles per gallon
required of regular passenger cars. The administration
recently proposed a slight increase from 20.7 miles per
gallon to 22.2 miles per gallon by 2007.

A bipartisan bill introduced last week in the Senate by
Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Olympia
Snowe, Republican of Maine, would reach much higher - a 33
percent increase for all light trucks to 27.5 miles per
gallon by 2011. That would not only bring S.U.V.'s and
minivans into line with the standard for ordinary cars but,
when fully effective, would save this country a million
barrels of oil a day - more than a third of what we now
import from the Persian Gulf. Technologically, this is
easily within Detroit's reach. Indeed, most manufacturers
are already planning limited rollouts of gas/electric
hybrid cars capable of 40 or more miles per gallon.

The question is whether it is within Congress's reach.
Similar proposals were crushed last year in the House and
Senate by the combined weight of the automakers and the
unions. The White House, fearing both, did nothing to help
the cause. Perhaps this time it will: oil dependency is no
less an issue, and the S.U.V. problem seems to have
registered, however faintly, on the White House radar.

But the bill will not succeed without the vigorous
intervention of President Bush himself, who at the moment
seems enraptured by the hydrogen car. Unfortunately, the
hydrogen car and the vast infrastructure needed to fuel it
are at best 20 years away, probably a lot longer, whereas
the problems we face now - air pollution, global warming,
oil dependency - require immediate attention. And that
means making the cars we have now a lot cleaner and a lot
more efficient - starting with S.U.V.'s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/opinion/09SUN2.html?ex=1045922412&ei=1&en=543d6ad574b87c9f