Congressman Moran's News Commentary

As I am sure every automobile driver in Northern Virginia is painfully aware, gas prices have shot through the roof in the past several weeks. While the days of a dollar per gallon have long since past us, this week’s national average topped a whopping $2.15 per gallon, which from what I’ve seen, is on par with the low end prices in our region.

Our nation’s reliance on foreign oil as its primary source of energy for transportation puts our economy and national security in jeopardy. We risk becoming beholden to unstable foreign governments in the Middle-East, South and Central America, a number of which are despotic and relish the thought of crippling our democracy by leveraging their oil exports.

Some in Congress make the argument that we need to maximize our own oil production potential. A recent vote in the Senate broke a long standing fight over the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The legislative path is now clearer for this pristine land to be drilled for oil. Efforts to expand off-shore drilling on the east and west coasts are also underway.

I have long opposed these attempts to despoil our environment for the sake of oil production. The fact remains that the amount of oil potentially extracted from these sites would only be a drop in the ocean of our daily use of petroleum. I do not believe the environmental risks associated with drilling in ANWR and off-shore make the limited amount of oil that can be extracted worth the risk.

If we are serious about reducing our dependence on foreign oil and keeping our gas prices manageable, we need to get serious about a leading solution to the current situation. That would be to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, known in legislative speak as CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards).

Improving CAFE standards will provide short-term savings for consumers who will benefit immediately from decreased expenditures on fuel. Long-term benefits will include dramatically increased longevity of the world’s finite fossil fuel supplies. It is a fact that if we replaced today’s fleet of automobiles with cars and trucks that average 34 miles per gallon, we will save more oil than is recoverable from ANWR, offshore drilling in California, and imports from the Persian Gulf combined. Had the first Bush administration in 1991 supported this increase in fuel efficiency, that action alone would have displaced all the oil we import from the Persian Gulf today.

Although cars and light trucks consume approximately 40 percent of the oil used in the U.S., 8 million barrels per day, CAFE standards for automobiles have remained unchanged for close to a decade. Since 1986, the standard for cars has remained at 27.5 miles per gallon and the standard for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and other light trucks continues to lag even further behind at 20.7 miles per gallon. Because of the increasing number of light trucks, the average fuel economy of all new passenger vehicles is now at its lowest point since 1980, while fuel consumption is at its highest. Restricting CAFÉ standards has actually denied purchasers of SUVs and other light trucks the benefits of existing fuel saving technologies.

Higher CAFE standards will translate into additional dollar savings for consumers and create thousands of new jobs. According to a study by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, updating the CAFE standards could save consumers an estimated $30 billion annually and result in a net increase of 244,000 jobs nationwide, with 47,000 of these in the auto industry. Improved standards will also reduce pollution, including cancer-causing hydrocarbons and curb global warming by keeping more than 600 million tons of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere each year.

The next time you lift the nozzle at your local gas station, keep in mind that there is a way to bring gas prices back out of orbit. Congress should increase CAFE standards in the soon to be considered Energy bill. If House and Senate leaders and the White House do not, they only have themselves to blame for the high prices Americans continue to pay at the pump.

Rep. James P. Moran is Virginia's 8th Congressional District Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives.