Well, duh....

Cut the horsepower, military, ceos agree

American motorists not only love their trucks and SUVs, but they want them ever more powerful, with 0-to-60 acceleration that used to be reserved for much lighter muscle cars. To feed that thirst for power, auto makers have boosted the horsepower in passenger vehicles by an average of 85% over the past 20 years, while increasing acceleration 25%, even as the average weight rose 30%. Not surprisingly, fuel economy has suffered and American thirst for gasoline has escalated dramatically. Now a high-powered group is blaming that NASCAR effect for driving the US into a dangerous dependency on potentially hostile crude oil suppliers. The Energy Security Leadership Council is urging Congress to launch an all-out effort to reduce gasoline consumption by dramatically increasing mileage standards and subsidizing alternative fuels. “Our nation is at risk, and it is time for serious action,” the leadership council, made up of former military leaders and prominent corporate executives, said in a report released this week. Environmentalists have long called for Washington to impose stricter fuel economy standards as part of the effort to combat global warming, and now they have some powerful allies who argue US interests are vulnerable to threats from oil-producing nations and terrorists who target distribution systems.

In its report, the Energy Security Leadership Council urged the government to mandate a 4% yearly improvement in overall fuel efficiency standards, and to include commercial vehicles that have been exempt from such standards. The council said such tougher mileage standards could reduce oil consumption by about four million barrel a day, equivalent to 20% of current US demand. The leaders also urged Washington to dramatically increase subsidies for bio-fuels and to speed up the commercialization of biomass ethanol. But the report noted the council is not proposing that the US aim for “energy independence,” saying such a goal is unrealistic. Rather, it wants the country to reduce its “oil intensity” — the amount of oil used to generate each dollar of economic output — by half in order to reduce the potential impact of another oil crisis. US auto makers have aggressively opposed a toughening of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, the so-called CAFE standards first adopted 30 years ago. Instead, they are working with the Bush administration and the National Highway Safety Administration to set new voluntary standards. Charles Territo of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in Washington said new mandates for fuel efficiency would drive up prices dramatically, and would prompt motorists to drive their older, less-fuel-efficient models longer instead of buying new cars. He said the reduction in fuel efficiency described in the council's report resulted from consumers' shift into SUVs and light trucks; he noted that individual models, on average, have improved by some 2% per year.
(Wall Street Journal 061215)