‘Aggressive’ CAFÉ standard is not

Only under the aegis of the Bush Administration could an increase in fuel economy standards that has no legal teeth for seven years be called “aggressive.”

The nation’s fleet of new cars and trucks will be required to achieve 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015, the Bush administration said Tuesday.

Transportation Department Secretary Mary Peters outlined the plan on Earth Day, setting a schedule that was more aggressive than initially expected by industry officials.

Peters said the proposal was “an aggressive but achievable standard. I think we’ve got something that is going to significantly save fuel and help clean our air.”

Let me do the math for you that Mary Peters didn’t.

The current CAFÉ standard is 27.5 mpg. So, we have an increase of 4.1 mpg over 7 years. That’s a whopping 0.6 mpg per year.

Meanwhile, assuming that the formerly Big Three are wrong in betting on biofuels rather than hybrids, they’re in trouble, ranking last in hybrids. And, the continued lethargy in Detroit could become an ever-bigger self-inflicted wound:

"I think the car companies that decide to do the minimum to comply with the CAFÉ (fuel economy standards) won't be in business by the time that the CAFÉ schedule is over," says Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp.

Dinosaurs, indeed. I mean, how many more employees can the Big Three cut? I don’t care how many new execs Ford brings in to promote car quality, if it ain’t doing car efficiency, it won’t get much traction.