As the new home of OSPIRG's environmental work, Environment Oregon can be contacted regarding this news release.
PORTLAND—Oregon consumers
will spend almost twice as much as they should to travel to Memorial Day hotspots,
because of short-sighted automobile fuel economy policies, according to a report
released today Oregon State Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG).
The new report, "Going
Nowhere: The Price Consumers Pay for Stalled Fuel Economy Policies,"
compared the current fleet-wide fuel economy average of 20.8 miles per gallon
to the technologically feasible 40 miles per gallon standard. OSPIRG's analysis
revealed that Oregonians would pay at least $977,566 less on gas this holiday
weekend if the miles per gallon standard were 40 mpg instead of 20.8 mpg.
"We can save consumers
money at the gas pump and reduce America's oil dependence by increasing fuel
economy to 40 miles per gallon for all cars and trucks over the next 10 years,"
said OSPIRG Field Director Laura Etherton, "we're disappointed the Bush
administration is failing to take action."
According to an analysis
by the Union of Concerned Scientists, implementing a 40 mile per gallon automobile
fuel economy standard over a ten year period would reduce transportation oil
consumption by one-third by 2020, save consumers $16 billion at the gas pump,
and reduce global warming emissions from cars and trucks by 20 percent.
"Consumers are paying
record prices because the Federal government has been AWOL in the fight to rein
in energy company abuses and decrease America's over-dependence on oil,"
said Josh Kardon, Sen. Wyden's Chief of Staff. "Oregonians can fight back
by demanding that cars and trucks go further on a gallon of gas," he concluded.
OSPIRG is a nonprofit,
non partisan public interest group with over 28,000 members in Oregon.
