Fuely Math

Well, I’ll be damned — first Apple comes out with a multi-button mouse, and now the Bush administration is calling for… wait for it… higher fuel efficiency standards!

The Bush administration has announced new fuel economy standards for minivans, light trucks and small sport utility vehicles. The new rules would require automakers to increase mileage per gallon for those vehicles by about 8 percent starting in 2008, with full compliance by 2011.

Ah, but you just knew there would be a catch, right? Here it is: they’ve created categories of vehicle, and given different targets for each category.

Currently, all minivans, pickups and SUVs must get 21.6 mpg. Changes under the new plan include:

Minivans — Now required to get 21.6 mpg; would need to get 23.3 mpg by 2011.

Light Trucks — Standards set in 2002 require light trucks to meet a target of 22.2 mpg for the 2007 model year. The new proposal would raise the standard to 28.4 mpg for the smallest light trucks in 2011 — a category that includes vehicles such as Subaru’s Outback.

Largest-sized trucks — Standards for vehicles in this category, such as the Dodge Ram, would drop to 21.3 mpg.

The largest U.S. vehicles, such as GM’s Hummer H2, would continue to be exempt from Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) targets.

In other words, they’ve taken their tax cut strategy and applied it to fuel standards: the worst offenders get the least scrutiny. A Hummer should be exempt from fuel economy standards?? This makes just as much sense as the fact that Hummer buyers can recoup most of the cost in federal tax deductions, which is truly bizarre. And the standards for trucks (which, by the way, includes most SUVs like the Explorer or Escalade) has gone down. In other words, the big problem we have in consumption — SUVs — is going to get worse with these new standards.
I swear, this is more evidence of the disconnect in the Bush administration when it comes to math. The most wasteful vehicles are allowed to become morewasteful.