As Oil Prices and Oil Company Profits Soar, Congress Must Raise Fuel Efficiency Standards

By: mrafferty
Published On: 11/1/2007 12:58:08 PM

As the price of oil continues to skyrocket, hitting $96 per barrel this morning, and oil companies release this quarter's earnings, Virginia consumers are turning to Congress for help at the pump.

Crude oil prices have jumped 35% since August with oil prices reaching as high as $96 per barrel yesterday; this is now beginning to trickle down to consumers in the form of higher gas prices.  The Energy Information Agency reports that in Virginia and the rest of the Lower Atlantic, customers spent an average of $2.83 per gallon over the past quarter.

At the same time that oil is reaching record prices on an almost daily basis, oil companies are reporting their third quarter profits which, while down compared to last quarter, are still extremely high.  Earlier today, ExxonMobil reported a profit of over $9.4 billion, that is more than four time the entire 2008 budget for the DC metro system!

All of this is occurring as Congress works to pass an energy bill that includes a bipartisan compromise to raise fuel efficiency standards for the first time in thirty years, to 35 mpg by 2020.  According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, this would result in $25 billion in net consumer savings and reduce consumption by 1.2 million barrels per day-more than twice the amount imported daily from Iraq.  The Consumer Federation of America reported that the average family would save nearly $700 a year with a 35 mpg car.
"Increasing fuel economy standards is the most effective and efficient way that we can reduce our dependence on oil and provide consumers with much needed relief at the pump," said Mary Rafferty, Organizer for National Environmental Trust. "When Americans see oil prices reach record highs it's fair for them to ask Congress to step up and find ways to help consumers."

The National Petroleum Council, headed by former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, recommends that fuel economy standards be improved by the maximum rate possible.  The National Academy of Sciences reported in 2002 that technology already exists to increase fleet wide fuel economy to 37 mpg without changing the size, weight, or power of vehicles on the road today.

We have the innovation and technology to achieve a real fuel efficiency increase now.  We only need the political will to make it happen.

For more information contact: mary@greencorp.org

Comments



That's ok, but... (Lowell - 11/1/2007 1:14:59 PM)
35 mpg by 2020 is way too conservative! I'd say more like 50 mgp by 2020, 60 by 2025, 70 by 2030.  Let's think much bigger and use some of that American "can-do spirit" to get it done! By the way, according to the Washington Post:

In the European Union, automakers have agreed to voluntary increases in fuel-economy standards that next year will lift the average to 44.2 miles per gallon, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. In Japan, average vehicle fuel economy tops 45 miles per gallon. China's level is in the mid-30s and projected to rise, propelled by government policy.

So getting to 35 mpg by 2030 would leave us WAY behind Japan, Europe, and China.  We CAN do better.