Talk of change after Sept. 11 a bunch of gas
The worst attack ever on the continental United
States -- the terrorist assault of Sept. 11 --
supposedly changed the nation forever. But a mere
six months later, the change is hard to see. Indeed,
the landscape looks depressingly familiar.
Church attendance has settled back to usual levels.
Travelers still smuggle dangerous objects past
airport security guards. American culture remains
superficial (celebrity boxing was a ratings smash!)
and self-absorbed. And politicians continue their
short-sighted quest for self-preservation.
With elections looming, Congress caved in to both
Big Business and Big Labor (aligned on this issue)
to resist raising the fuel-efficiency standards for
automobiles. That means that Americans will
continue to be overly dependant on petroleum flowing
from dangerous parts of the world, and American
soldiers will continue to put their lives at risk to
defend our right to drive inefficient vehicles.
So remind me again -- what has changed?
The terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11 should have
stunned Americans into acknowledging the price we
pay for guzzling gas. While we constitute only 4.5
percent of the planet's population, we use 26 percent
of its petroleum. The vast majority of that petroleum
comes from foreign sources, including Saudi Arabia
-- a difficult ally whose Islamist culture produced 15
of the 19 hijackers.
The easiest way to lower our dependence on foreign
petroleum is to require greater fuel efficiency in our
vehicles. While President Bush and his oil buddies
insist on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, that won't help. According to a recent report
from the Bush-led Energy Department, the U.S. will
have to import 62 percent of its oil by the year 2020 if
we don't drill in ANWR.
So what's the yield if we do drill? We'll import 60
percent, the report said. That's hardly worth the
damage to the Alaskan wilderness.
Conservation is clearly the best way to approach the
problem. American technology already has the
means to raise fuel efficiency. All that's required is
the will.
That, however, was sadly lacking last week, when
the U.S. Senate fell for the misinformation spread by
automobile manufacturers and their workers, who
claim that greater fuel efficiency will raise the cost of
cars and compromise safety. The increased cost
would lead to fewer vehicles sold and, in turn, more
workers laid off, they contend.
The Senate voted to give the Transportation
Department two years to study whether safety and
employment would be affected by higher Corporate
Fuel Economy standards. That's a cop-out. There is
already solid evidence the critics' claims are false:
They made the same claims in 1985, the last time
CAFE standards were raised, and their dire
predictions never came true.
Road deaths and injuries per mile traveled have
steadily declined, and jobs in the automobile
industry hit their peak in 1999. (Admittedly, many of
those jobs were in foreign-owned companies, such
as Honda.) The American automobile industry simply
doesn't want to change the way it has comfortably
done things for decades.
Because GM and Ford won the debate last week,
more young Americans will have to put their lives on
the line to defend oil pipelines. The United States
now imports about 25 percent of its oil from the
tumultuous Persian Gulf region. By the year 2020,
that is expected increase to 40 percent.
With a volunteer military, the burden of defending
American's oil interests will be borne disproportionately by the working class, while
the middle class continues to show its patriotism by plastering American flag decals
all over its huge SUVs.
Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Sundays and
Wednesdays.
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