WASHINGTON - February 19 - Statement of Dan Becker, Director, Global Warming and Energy Program, Sierra Club.

"In direct conflict to a study previously released by the Bush administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) yesterday extended a loophole that gives automakers fuel economy credits for manufacturing dual-fuel vehicles. This extension would result in an additional 9-14 billion gallons of gasoline consumed between 2001 and 2008, but only a negligible increase in the use of alternative fuels, like ethanol.

The Bush administration is touting this hypocritical loophole as an incentive "to spur the continued development and use of alternate-fuel-powered vehicles." What is disturbing is that just two weeks ago the Bush Administration announced that it was ending a program that required private and local government fleets to acquire alternative fuel vehicles. The Department of Energy (DOE) declined to adopt a regulation from the 1992 Energy Policy Act (EPAct) requiring the government to use alternative-fuel vehicles, stating that the rule would make ‘no more than a negligible contribution’ towards increasing use of alternative fuels.

The now-defunct EPAct program previously led to local fleets putting alternative fuel vehicles on the road. However, today’s decision to extend the ‘dual fuel’ loophole will actually increase America’s oil dependence, according to the Bush administration’s own March 2002 study (US EPA, US DOE, US DOT. "Effects of the Alternative Motor Fuels Act Cafe Incentives Policy. March, 2002.). In this study, the Bush administration found that ‘dual fuel’ vehicles rarely run on alternative fuels - in fact it estimated that over 99% of the ‘dual-fuel’ vehicles ran exclusively on gasoline. This is due in part to the fact that out of the 176,000 gas stations nationwide, less than 200 offer the ethanol blend, E-85.

So why is the Bush administration extending the loophole that actually increases oil dependence while simultaneously gutting a program that puts real alternative fuel vehicles on the road? Because automakers use the dual-fuel loophole to evade federal fuel economy standards by getting extra credits towards meeting federal fuel economy standards. The loophole allows automakers to build more gas-guzzlers, increasing America’s oil dependence and putting more heat-trapping global warming pollution into the atmosphere.

Today’s announcement reveals the Bush administration’s contradictory and hypocritical approach to the environment. When it serves their friends in the auto industry, the administration will bend over backwards to support alternative fuel programs even when its own studies say that the programs don’t work. However, the Bush administration was quick to drop a program that worked when the auto companies disliked it."

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