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Driven to distraction
Although September 11 offered a wake-up call for the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, the Bush administration is sticking with the status quo
BY KATHLEEN HUGHES

Illustration by Steve Brosnihan

A person answering the phone at Bristol Toyota says only one salesperson can talk about the Toyota Prius, which uses hybrid technology (gas and electric power) to score fuel consumption in the impressive range of 45-52 mpg, and that she won't be in until later. On another occasion, sales consultant Steve Blakely says the car is available for rental, though not necessarily a test-drive, but "come on over." In his office, Blakely emphasizes how conventional the Prius seems, with air conditioning and its ability to do 100 on the highway, but he nonetheless cites it as "a car for a person who wants to make a contribution to the environmental situation."

Given that several other Toyota models, including the best-selling Camry, get relatively good gas mileage, customers don't usually beeline toward the Prius to save money. Instead, Blakely says, Prius customers focus in on the car's incredibly low emissions -- twice as low as its competitor, the smaller Honda Insight, which beats the Prius on gas mileage by at least 10 mpg. But another reason that customers don't rush to the Prius could be, as Blakely notes, the sales push isn't as strong "as it might be for other new models." Ads for the car are placed in such niche publications as the magazine of the Sierra Club. And the three-month waiting period often associated with the Prius has less to do with demand than limited production. "It's a specialized market," Blakely says. "You don't tie up inventory for that."

A more direct explanation for Toyota's laid-back approach may be that it doesn't expect many Americans to want the Prius. And maybe the manufacturer is right. Sport utility vehicles, which once formed a relatively small part of the automotive market, are wildly popular with city dwellers and suburbanites alike, even if they play an outsized role in our gluttonous addiction to oil. Indeed, although we compose just five percent of the world's population, Americans consume 25 percent of the world's oil -- 60 percent of it from foreign sources. Twenty years ago, before a triumph of marketing led to the omnipresence of SUVs, we depended on foreign oil for far less of our consumption. What hasn't changed is the percentage of world oil reserves in the US -- just three percent of all the oil believed to exist in the world.

But although our consumption of mostly foreign oil earns us the rancor of many in the Arab and Muslim world, not to mention it being a prime factor in global warming, Americans don't tend to see anything wrong with loving their SUVs. Instead, we seem to believe that it's manufacturers and lawmakers, not the consumers who choose the cars, who are responsible for a solution.

Not surprisingly, President George W. Bush's energy bill, passed in the House in early August and now struggling in the Senate, fails to target curbing consumption. It leaves fuel efficiency standards virtually unchanged, and instead targets production increases through domestic drilling, most notably in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which might provide a paltry one-thirty-eighth of daily US consumption. In January, the White House also announced its curtailment of a $1.5 billion project to develop high mileage vehicles in lieu of a joint Energy Department/auto industry plan to create hydrogen-based fuel cells. The short-term result, as reported in the New York Times, could be maintaining the status quo on fuel efficiency for the next 10 to 20 years.

Some of the big automakers have vowed to increase the mpg of their cars and trucks 25 percent by 2005. Like the mere existence of energy efficient hybrid cars, such a promise is heartening and makes for good press, but without a federal -- or market-driven -- mandate, the commitment remains thin. What we're left with is no clear plan for reducing our oil addiction or our dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, some experts caution that world oil production may peak in eight years, meaning that when it comes to enhanced energy efficiency, the sooner, the better.

THE UNPARALLELED ADDICTION of Americans to oil, which is fed up to 15 percent by Middle Eastern wells, is driven primarily by what we drive. SUVs consume more gas than any other vehicle on the road. They're also far more responsible for our prodigious oil consumption than our affection for cranking air conditioners and other devices that run on electricity. We learned this when Persian Gulf imports fell by 87 percent and fuel efficiency more than doubled, from 14 mpg to 28 mpg, in the 15 years following the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.

Back then, "gas guzzler" was a common term. Big sedans and older Cadillacs with fins were admired aesthetically, but frowned upon for the expense of their fuel. But as the oil crisis receded through the '80s, automakers more aggressively marketed the light trucks, which have lower fuel efficiency standards, as safe and functional "sport utility vehicles," ideal for the family or anyone who wanted to feel rugged and outdoorsy. Two decades later, average mpg for all vehicles is at a 21-year low, and SUVs confer the highest profit margins of all cars not just for automakers, but also for the insurance, auto repair, and of course, the oil industry, says Friends of the Earth, a Washington, DC-based environmental group. And yet, oddly enough, "gas guzzler" status of the vehicles seems to remain a non-issue.

At Newport Autocenter in Middletown, SUV sales have remained constant since September, and they've risen nearly 20 percent over the last year at Tasca Ford in East Providence. As put by Dave Laliberte, Tasca's general sales manager, "I can't remember the last time someone came in here concerned about gas mileage."

Concern fails to arise in part because gas prices, while higher for a while, never really approached the critical $2 mark. And since September 11, the price has fallen to sub-$1.25 levels, the lowest in two years. But we're also not concerned because no one's really asking us to be. As columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote in the New York Times, "There is a deep hunger in America post-September 11, in many people who feel this is their war, in their backyard, and they would like to be summoned to do something more than go shopping. And it's not being done."

In overcoming the '70s oil crunch, the solution came in the form of government-mandated changes in auto manufacturing. Indeed, when OPEC policies raised gas prices above $2 a gallon, President Jimmy Carter responded by introducing the Car Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which mandated better fuel efficiency. The best part is that, after a summer embargo of fuel rationing, consumers weren't burdened with anything but better cars. According to an op-ed piece in the Times by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer for the National Resource Defense Council, "The CAFE standards worked so well that they produced an oil glut by 1986. That's when the Reagan administration intervened to rescue America's domestic oil industry from a gasoline price collapse."

The subsequent rollback of CAFÉ standards meant that Persian Gulf oil imports doubled, and, writes Kennedy, "We burned more fuel [in 1987] than is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." Over the long-term, there are plenty of technological advances that can dramatically reduce our reliance on foreign oil, including hybrid cars and biomass fuel -- primarily cellulose ethanol, which won't have to be blended with regular gasoline, but can run a car all by itself. In the short term, though, says Steve Bernow, vice president of the Tellus Institute, an energy think-tank in Boston, "Higher CAFE standards are the single most important, effective policy measure to impact oil consumption."

One can see, then, why the Sierra Club and others are putting so much energy into lobbying Washington for change, rather than rankling their constituents, who might drive SUVs. Although the Sierra Club Web site encourages members to buy energy efficient light bulbs, it doesn't offer similar advice on car purchases. Granted, the Sierra Club's Rhode Island chapter joined with Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group to inflate a giant SUV on the State House lawn last summer in support of higher CAFE standards.

But this, too, was a call to lawmakers, not to consumers. One can certainly imagine more urgent pleadings for citizen action. The bottom line, however, seems to be that both outdoor-oriented groups and automakers have profited from the wave of outdoor chic that was launched over a decade ago. Consider that Outside magazine's December 2001 issue contains 10 advertisements for SUVs and three for midsize sedans like a Volkswagen Jetta. What's on the inside flap of the latest National Geographic? The monster-sized Chevy Suburban -- "The ultimate escape vehicle for over 65 years."

SO WE LOOK to Washington, where President Bush and Republican congressional leaders have continued to assert since March 2001 that the wisest energy plan -- and now the most prudent in terms of national security -- leaves CAFE standards virtually untouched. It also seeks to expand domestic oil and gas drilling, particularly in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and pays $34 billion in tax refunds to the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear industries. Meanwhile, the federal research and development budget for renewable energy is being cut by 50 percent.

What this means, in simplest terms, is that our leaders -- the top two of whom, of course, have spent their lives in the oil industry, and the last six weeks back-peddling madly from bosom-buddy relations with fallen energy giant Enron -- are proposing that we don't do a thing about our oil consumption.

To hear President Bush and congressional Republicans tell it, we shouldn't take today's cheap energy for granted, as a matter of national security. But the focus of their concern is production, not consumption. And the aim also doesn't relate as specifically to oil, as to jobs, the economy, and, of course, politics. The Bush plan seeks to protect US energy supplies by increasing domestic drilling, particularly in the highly contentious Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Supporters of drilling argue that the refuge could offer an amount equivalent to 70 years' of Iraqi oil, or 40 years' of Saudi oil. They say production would disrupt but 0.01 percent of the refuge, and that oil and natural gas operations in the nearby Prudhoe Bay region have co-existed peacefully with wildlife for 30 years.

Opponents point out that oil from the Arctic refuge wouldn't surface for at least seven years even if drilling started tomorrow, and the Iraqi/Saudi scenarios assume production of roughly twice the oil estimated to be economically recoverable by the non-partisan US Geological Survey (USGS). In other words, there's at least a little oil in the refuge that we could get to with a reasonable amount of money. If there's a lot of oil there -- and no one is entirely sure there is -- it would be very expensive to reach and produce. Regardless, says US Senator Jack Reed, "We can't drill ourselves out of this crisis."

Bush and his allies aren't supporting drilling just to search for a small amount of oil. Instead, they're supporting the creation of jobs and the republicanism of states' rights. According to Arctic Power, a Fairbanks-based pro-drilling coalition, 75 percent of Alaskans support drilling. And the Teamsters estimate that drilling will create between 235,000 and 700,000 jobs. Opponents, not surprisingly, emphasize the wide range of this estimate. Still, it was labor's strong interest in Arctic refuge drilling that persuaded Democrats such as Dick Gephardt to abandon the environmental lobby and vote with Republicans in August for Bush's energy plan.

The Bush administration's opposition to CAFE standards is similarly based in support for the labor lobby and corporations, which contend that higher standards will cost jobs. Some scientists and economists, however, argue that higher standards are a win-win-win situation -- for Detroit, consumers, and the environment. As put by Marshall Goldberg, a Nevada City, California-based consultant to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), who performed economic modeling of the impact higher CAFE standards, "As the cost of cars increases, more labor is needed . . . And thus the more money spent on cars, the more labor involved, and the more spending in the economy."

Even though the manufacture of more fuel efficient cars would require upgrades at the plant, the costs could be passed on relatively painlessly to consumers, since they would more than make up the difference at the pump. Such savings could, according to the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, reach $800 or more annually for a four-wheel drive vehicle such as the Dodge Durango. Of course, higher CAFE standards could mean a degree of lost autonomy for the Detroit big three, and Bush has already shown his eagerness to please corporate America with his economic stimulus package. But the more obvious out-and-out losers would be the oil companies that would sell less of their product. Would President Bush put typical consumers ahead of his friends in Big Oil and Big Business? Don't bet on it.

On a broader scale, making the US energy structure cleaner and more efficient need not cause inconvenience. Although drilling in the Arctic refuge and tighter CAFE standards would seem to pit the corporate American and economy against the environment, Goldberg and others emphasize that both sides can benefit. Former Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan, author of The Heat is On, about the politics of global warming, points to British Petroleum, now the largest vendor of solar power systems. US energy companies need to be forward thinking and focused on renewable energy, Gelbspan says, or "the US will find itself behind economically because [Germany-based] Siemens and others will be ahead in production of [renewable energy supplies]."

The time is also nigh, recession and all, for a radical change in energy strategies, says Gelbspan: "It's very clear from history that very serious recessions are helped by public works programs." Accordingly, domestic networks of "clean" energy, such as wind, geothermal, and solar power, which are expensive to implement and require a critical mass of usage for savings to result, could be implemented right now, much as the Works Progress Administration electrified much of rural America in the 1930s.

THE ENERGY STANDOFF in which we're stuck is not just about who will fix this problem, but whether the problem really exists. A similar clash surrounds Bush's axing the Kyoto treaty on global warming, with the administration asserting that time, technology, and the market will correct the emission of greenhouse gases, without American consumers doing much of anything. It's hard not to see such a stance -- on energy consumption and global warming alike -- as a squandered opportunity.

Friedman, the Times columnist, is far from being a radical, but he's among those who are pleading for presidential leadership. As he recently wrote, "Imagine if tomorrow President Bush asked all Americans to turn down their home thermostats to 65 degrees so America would not be so much of a hostage to Middle East oil? Trust me, every American would turn down the thermostat to 65 degrees. Liberating us from the grip of OPEC would be our Victory Garden."

Granted, turning down the thermostat wouldn't have as much impact on oil consumption as taking the bus to work, carpooling, or buying a station wagon instead of an SUV, but these actions are also more inconvenient than putting on a sweater in the house. Raising CAFE standards, on the other hand, could have the biggest impact of all, without Americans suffering any inconvenience. It worked well in the '70s and for part of the '80s. But Americans' attitude should matter, too. Consider what might happen if SUVs became more fuel-efficient and some people traded them in for smaller cars.

September 11 has forced us to reconsider what it means to be an American, and many have suggested that a show of patriotism beyond purchasing a flag and donating to victims' funds would be useful and important. But we fail to do so, for the most part, or even to be asked to step up. Perhaps real change will only come with a doomsday scenario of shrinking global oil supplies and a concomitant threat to "the American way of life." It's just that when it comes to making the case for enhanced energy efficiency, September 11 seems like the best wake-up call we've had in a long time.

Issue Date: February 8 - 14, 2002