Why don light trucks and SUVs have to meet the same fuel-economy standards as passenger cars?
Light trucks and SUVs are subject to different fuel-economy standards because, when the standards were first conceived, lawmakers wanted to give U.S. farmers a break during the oil embargo of the ’70s. Those breaks remained in place long after the embargo disappeared. The Bush administration has taken small steps to correct this. Rules that went into effect in April 2006 will boost fuel-economy standards for light trucks by an average of slightly less than 2 mpg over four years. The expected gas savings — an estimated 10.7 billion gallons of gas over the next two decades — is less than what Americans now use in a single month. What’s the fuel-economy standard for a Hummer? Actually, there is no standard for a Hummer. That’s because really big vehicles — those weighing more than 8,500 pounds — aren’t covered by fuel-economy standards. When the standards were first developed in the ’70s, lawmakers assumed that any vehicle that large would only have industrial uses. They didn’t foresee th
