American Government / 1
9 January 2007
Fuel Smile Act of 2007 Did you know that every gallon of gasoline a vehicle burns puts roughly 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Scientific evidence strongly suggests that the rapid buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is raising the earth's temperature and changing the earth's climate with potentially serious consequences. Global warming is a real danger that cannot be ignored. However, automakers continue to build fuel-inefficient vehicles. The vehicles we drive are contributing to this problem, but automakers don't seem particularly concerned. Fuel efficient cars such as the Volkswagon New Beetle produce around 54 tons of carbon dioxide. While fuel in-efficient cars such as SUV’s are said to produce over 100 tons. By choosing a more fuel efficient car, tons of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide Federal law gives heavy sport utility vehicles permission to emit higher levels of toxic and noxious pollution - carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides. Sport utility vehicles can spew 30 percent more carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons and 75 percent more nitrogen oxides than passenger cars. These combustion pollutants contribute to eye and throat irritation, coughing, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, confusion and headaches. Hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are precursors to ground level ozone, which causes asthma and lung damage. Finally, it is important to note that fuel in-efficient vehicles are contributing to our dependence on imported oil. The more gasoline we use, the more oil we have to import from other countries. Currently, more than half of the oil we use is imported. This level of dependence on imports is the highest in our history, and will only increase unless we do a better job with conservation and alternative fuels. If current rates of consumption were to continue, the world's remaining resources of conventional oil would be used up in 40 years. The United States uses more than 3 billion barrels of oil per year just on passenger cars and light trucks. Automakers are unlikely to make significant improvements unless they are pushed. William Clay Ford, the chairman of Ford Motor Company, put it best. "The best way to get the auto industry to stop dragging its feet is to have us race against each other. We love to do that, and we're good at it." The race will begin as soon as fuel economy standards are improved to a realistic level.