WASHINGTON - Washington, DC: The final light truck fuel economy standards released today by the Bush administration fail to break America's oil addiction. The Bush administration ignored the opportunity and obligation to cut America's oil dependence by requiring automakers to use modern fuel-saving technology to reduce oil consumption, curb global warming pollution, and save consumers money at the gas pump. While the new standards do finally include the largest SUVs, they fail to include the largest pickup trucks, which constitute 80 percent of the largest vehicles on the road. Instead of weak standards, the Bush Administration should be putting American innovation to work by requiring automakers make all of their vehicles - from sedans, to SUVs, to pickup trucks - go farther on a gallon of gas.

"Higher fuel economy and good jobs come from using better technology," said Daniel Becker, Director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming program. "By failing to require Detroit to make significantly cleaner, more efficient vehicles to compete with Toyota, the Bush administration is giving the Big Three enough rope to hang themselves."

The technology exists today to make all vehicles average 40 miles per gallon within ten years. Taking this step would save more oil than the United States currently imports from the entire Persian Gulf and could ever get out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, combined. As a result, the average driver would save over $2,200 at the gas pump over the lifetime of their vehicle and U.S. global warming pollution would be reduced by close to 600 million tons.

The new standard will for the first time include large SUVs and vans (between 8,500 - 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight) as part of the automakers' light truck fleet. As a result, automakers will need to ensure that their light truck fleet average meets the fuel economy standards even with these low fuel economy vehicles added to the mix. However, 80 percent of the vehicles in that weight class are pick-up trucks--not SUVs, and thus will remain exempt from any fuel economy standards. Since the administration continues to exclude heavy pickup trucks and is only including a handful of the heaviest gas guzzlers, the oil savings that will result from including these vehicles are minimal. Using the administration's estimate of oil savings, today's rule will save less than two weeks worth of oil consumption at current levels over the next four years.

"President Bush says America is addicted to oil, but this new standard is like telling a two pack-a-day smoker to cut out one cigarette," said Becker.

In 1975, Congress directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to set new light truck fuel economy standards for each new model year at the "maximum technically feasible level." With today's technology, that maximum level is at least a 40 miles per gallon average for all cars, trucks and SUVs. The Bush administration's standards announced today fail to reach that goal because:

* It only increases fuel economy by 1.8 mpg over 4 years when the technology exists to achieve a much higher improvement.

* It abandons fleet-wide averages in favor of a sized-based system that will encourage automakers to build larger vehicles with weaker fuel economy standards.

* While larger SUVs (over 8,500 pounds) are now included, larger pick-up trucks will remain exempt from the standard

* It fails to recognize the additional consumer savings that will result from higher fuel economy standards due to the recent increase in gasoline prices.

Last year, the administration released the proposed light truck fuel economy standards for model years 2008-2011--made final today.

In its proposal, the administration proposed an increase of just 1.8 miles per gallon over 4 years. At the same time, the new proposal abandoned the concept of a fleet-wide fuel economy standard and created a new size-based system that divides the current light truck fleet. While the original proposal created six size classes, the final rulemaking released today replaces these size 'bins' with a separate bin for each size vehicle. This means that there will be a separate fuel economy standard for every size of light truck. A size based system can create a perverse incentive, encouraging automakers to build larger vehicles in order to qualify for weaker fuel economy standards, resulting in lower fleet wide fuel economy. Moving to a continuous function means that any increase in size will allow automakers to qualify for weaker fuel economy standards for that vehicle.

Another consequence of the size-based system is that abdicates the oil savings requirements of CAFE. And it puts the nation's oil savings policy in the hands of automakers to determine when they decide what size vehicles to make. For example, they could legally comply with the new Bush CAFE standard if they cease making their most efficient trucks, make more guzzlers and their overall fuel economy declines.

"The technology exists today to make all new vehicles average 40 miles per gallon within ten years," said Becker. "The biggest single step we can take to save consumers money and curb our oil addiction and global warming pollution is to make all our cars, trucks and SUVs go farther on a gallon of gas."

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