Letter to the Editor of the Week! (part 2)

Elana Levin

Letter to the Editor of the Week! (part 2)

Heck, you find the funniest things where you least expect them. In the Wall Street Journal, a letter to the editor of the week worthy note from Congressman Sherwood Boehlert. Yup.

A fitting second Letter to the Editor of the Week for the week after "An Inconvenient Truth" hit the theaters.
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Fuel Economy Standards Won't Hurt Auto Safety
May 27, 2006; Page A7

Your editorial opposing fuel economy standards ("Not So Grande CAFE," May 8) that the standards amount "to the government dictating the kind of cars Americans will be able drive, even if those cars aren't safe on the road." This is wrong.

First, the goal of fuel economy standards is to enable Americans to drive the cars they want -- but that the automakers aren't producing. And what Americans want is the full range of vehicles available now, including SUVs, but with greater gas mileage. The technology exists to create those vehicles affordably, car buyers want them, and the nation needs them. The fact that they are not on sale is a classic market failure.

The safety charge is demonstrably untrue. The very same National Academy of Sciences study your editorial cited to complain about auto safety in the 1970s stated that, thanks to current technology, automakers can improve fuel economy "without reducing vehicle weight or size" and "without degradation of safety." That's what the scientific evidence says. Even a top official of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry trade group, acknowledged at a hearing before the House Science Committee that fuel economy could be increased without reducing safety.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R., N.Y.)
Chairman
House Committee on Science
Washington
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I've had friends that had to go on waiting lists to buy a hybrid vehicle because there weren't enough in their region to meet consumer demand. I think it should be obvious by now that there is a huge demand for more efficient vehicles, especially affordable ones. Yet the big thing American car makers have in their sites is making more big cars. In Long Island I recently saw a car the size of my apartment, immediately calling to mind the song by Metallica "The Thing That Should Not Be" (if you don't know the song, I think the title says it all).

Now might be a good time to give another shout-out to the Apollo Alliance or Jump Start Ford.