WASHINGTON - APRIL 25 - "While rising gas prices are hitting American consumers in the pocketbook, President Bush continues to ignore the most obvious and practical solutions to help consumers save money at the gas pump and cut America’s dangerous dependence on oil. The biggest single step we can take toward saving money at the gas pump, curbing global warming, and cutting America’s oil dependence is to make our cars, trucks, and SUVs go farther on a gallon of gas.

"No investigation is needed to understand that America deserves a better energy policy. While it is important to investigate whether price gouging is driving up gasoline prices, there is a deeper crisis facing the country. In the State of the Union, President Bush admitted that America is addicted to oil. But instead of taking steps to cut that addiction, the Bush administration has continued to move forward with its disastrous energy policy that ignores real solutions. The President continues to promote technologies that are years or even decades away from becoming available in order to distract the American people from the devastating realities of today resulting from his failed energy policy.

"The technology exists today to make all new cars, SUVs, and other light trucks average 40 miles per gallon within the next ten years. Taking this step would save the average driver over $2,200 at the gas pump over the lifetime of their vehicle. It would also save more oil than the United States currently imports from the entire Persian Gulf and could ever get out of the Arctic Refuge, combined.

"But instead of putting this technology to work, the Bush administration has allowed its energy policy to be controlled by its friends in the oil and auto industry. Just two months ago, the Bush administration announced pathetic new fuel economy standards for light trucks that by the administration’s own admission would save less than two weeks worth of oil over four years. While the President pays lip service to hybrid vehicles, his new fuel standards give the auto industry a perverse incentive to make more of the biggest, least efficient vehicles on the road.

"Each time Americans go the gas station and fill up at record prices, they understand that we need to take real steps to cut our oil dependence. It is time for the Bush administration to catch up with the American people.

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