Gas guzzling continues

Providence Journal: It is one thing to talk about the nation's "addiction" to oil, another to do something about it. Unfortunately, President Bush has chosen talk over action. New fuel-economy standards for light trucks, a category that includes sport utility vehicles and minivans, will improve their mileage, but only by a little.
The new rules, announced in March, will affect vehicles made in the model years 2008 to 2011, and will save an estimated 10.7 billion gallons of gasoline over the vehicles' lifetimes. It sounds huge. But U.S. drivers go through that much gas in about a month. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta conceded that, even with the new rules, overall oil consumption will continue to rise. But then, population is rising.
Unhealthy tilt
Moreover, the new standards for light trucks are still lower than those for regular passenger cars, meaning that the rules remain tilted in favor of larger, more wasteful vehicles. Large pickup trucks are exempted from the new standards entirely, as are SUVs weighing more than 10,000 pounds.
The know-how and technology are available for us to do better. But Americans seem to lack the will. Absent any serious push from the public, carmakers have been putting all their ingenuity into, for example, better acceleration.
One result: our preference for larger, zippier vehicles has increased carbon-dioxide emissions by about 5 percent, according to a recent New York Times report. Thus the new standards do more than help keep us dependent on foreign oil. They increase global warming. All of it reflects poorly on U.S. leadership, as well as on Americans' unwillingness to change.