Urge Congress to Vote for Better Fuel Economy

Despite the Bush administration’s recent propaganda about America’s addiction to foreign oil, they‘ve again shown their true intentions when “more than a dozen efficiency efforts… [were]… set for trims or elimination as the administration pushes long-term projects.“

As Mark Clayton points out in this recent Christian Science Monitor article:

the Bush administration is anxious to fund its new Advanced Energy Initiative – long-term research into nuclear, coal, wind, solar, and hydrogen power. But to accomplish that, it is cutting lesser-known programs like ITP whose payoffs are far more near-term.

You have to ask yourself how serious this administration is about reducing oil demands when they cut the budget for a small program that “helped produce a design technology for lightweight cars and trucks that in 2004 alone saved the nation 122 million barrels of oil, or about $9 billion.“

The new fuel economy standards proposed by the Bush administration, though an improvement in the administration’s previous stance, fail to adequately deal with the problem by trying to appease the American auto makers’ who want to continue to produce oversized SUV’s and pickups according to most environmental groups.

If you think that the auto industry can do a better job of promoting fuel economy, urge your member of Congress to vote for the Boehlert-Markey fuel economy amendment currently being considered in congress.