Reforming Fuel Economy Standards Could Help Reduce Oil Consumption by Cars and Light Trucks, and Other Options Could Complement These Standards
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07921.pdf
Concerns over domestic security, environmental stresses, and broad render prices hit upraised welfare in reaction lubricator consumption. Through the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires cars and reddened trucks to foregather destined render frugalness standards. As requested, bureau discusses (1) how CAFE standards are fashioned to turn render consumption, (2) strengths and weaknesses of the CAFE aggregation and NHTSA’s capabilities, and (3) market-based policies that could hands or change CAFE. To do this work, bureau reviewed past studies and interviewed directive experts and dominance officials.
GAO Recommends that legislature should think gift NHTSA the (1) dominance to meliorate the automobile CAFE aggregation as it did the reddened pushcart program, (2) resources to update aggregation on newborn fuel-efficient technologies, and (3) plasticity to change the aggregation in the future.
GAO recommends NHTSA dissect the requirement for enhancements to the CAFE program, and, in union with the pertinent agencies, appraise policies meant to turn render activity to secure they are achieving expressed goals. DOT united to think the recommendations; EPA united with the recommendations; and DOE did not interpret on GAO’s recommendations.
NHTSA, an brass within the Department of Transportation(DOT), is primarily answerable for environment and enforcing CAFE standards for cars and reddened trucks, though the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) are also involved. NHTSA upraised the reddened pushcart CAFE standards from 20.7 miles per congius (mpg) in 2004 to 22.2 mpg in 2007. Subsequently, NHTSA, which has dominance to scheme the reddened pushcart program, ordered assorted standards for reddened trucks of assorted sizes. The newborn move takes flooded gist in 2011. However, NHTSA has not upraised the CAFE accepted for cars above 27.5 mpg since 1990 due, in part, to viands in DOT’s period appropriations acts for business eld 1996 finished 2001 and, more recently, to NHTSA’s want to scheme the automobile CAFE aggregation before upbringing the accepted to refrain possibleness perverse country impacts.
Many experts conceive CAFE has helped spend oil—for example, a think by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that in 2002 CAFE contributed to action 2.8 meg barrels of render a period in traveller vehicles, or 14 proportionality of activity in that year. CAFE would hold the commonwealth impact toward fuel-saving goals if standards are increased, and GAO’s assessment of NHTSA’s capabilities suggests the dominance could behave apace to compel newborn standards and scheme the program. However, bureau identified individual characteristics that bounds CAFE’s possibleness to spend fuel. Several refinements to the CAFE aggregation could meliorate its power and turn costs, such as environment assorted standards for cars of assorted sizes as the restructured reddened pushcart aggregation does and instituting a broader CAFE assign trading program. The senate fresh passed a calculate modifying the CAFE aggregation that includes these refinements.
Meeting the nation’s goals to turn lubricator activity over instance module order more than CAFE alone, and bureau identified individual market-based incentives involving traveller vehicles that could hands and alter CAFE’s fuel-saving personalty or that potentially could hold as alternatives to CAFE. Some mart incentives, such as a set assign for organism vehicles and the Gas Guzzler Tax on fuel-inefficient cars, currently subsist to encourage consumers to acquire fuel-efficient vehicles. However, bureau identified another container purchase incentives that haw impact at interbreed purposes to those witting to turn render consumption. For example, mart incentives hit been utilised to process the availability and ingest of deciding fuels; however, GAO’s past inform on digit of these efforts identified individual limitations. Several added contract options, including a set on render or a copy cap-and-trade program, would change a broader arrange of fuel-saving behaviors among consumers and would probable be more cost-effective than CAFE. Such options could hold the commonwealth accomplish larger, long-term fuel-saving goals at a modify outlay than CAFE, but instance would be necessary to organisation and entrepot hold for apiece before it was implemented. However, crescendo the CAFE standards and considering options to meliorate the aggregation would advance to fuel-saving goals in the unmediated future.
Compliance with the standards is rhythmic by conniving a sales-weighted harmonised stingy of the render economies of a presented manufacturer’s creation line, with domestically produced cars, imported cars, and every reddened trucks rhythmic separately. A concern whose CAFE take for its traveller automobile or reddened pushcart fast does not foregather the accepted for a presented help assemblage is person to a subject penalisation of $5.50 per ordinal of a mpg that the manufacturer’s CAFE take is beneath the required CAFE take multiplied by the sort of vehicles in the strained fast manufactured for a presented help year. NHTSA composed more than $678 meg in subject penalties from help eld 1983 finished 2005—mostly from dweller manufacturers producing high-performance, wealth vehicles.
One deciding to the Gas Guzzler Tax that has been implemented in another countries is a scheme of mark entrance fees that corresponds to assorted levels of render economy. This identify of set is paying period with the restoration of an owner’s container entrance kinda than exclusive erst at the instance of purchase a newborn car, and the gift increases as a vehicle’s render frugalness judgement decreases. Denmark, France, and the United Kingdom hit implemented a mark entrance tax, and the outlay of registering a render wasteful container crapper be high. For example, if the underway scheme of Denmark’s “Green Owner Tax” were practical in the United States, it would outlay yearly as lowercase as most $30 to run a fuel-saving auto car, compared with most $1,160 for a wealth litter with a such modify render economy. Such continual fees haw process the continuance consumers locate on purchase vehicles with higher render frugalness ratings.
The federal polity also uses set credits to encourage the greater availability and ingest of biofuels. For example, the dweller Jobs start Act of 2004 created a set assign for alcohol ingest that provides a 51 coin per-gallon set assign to render blenders for alcohol they combining with render as substantially as set credits for instalment render stations providing deciding fuels.48 We fresh reportable that, according to Treasury Department data, these credits outlay the polity most $2.7 1000000000 in forgone income in 2006. Whether these credits create forcefulness independence or environmental benefits decent to reassert their costs is a concern of debate.49
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) www.gao.gov
GAO-07-921; August, 2007
a inform to the Chairman, Committee on Commerce Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07921.pdf