Gas Rationing Milestone

Update:
Gasoline prices in five states have topped $3 a gallon: California, Illinois, Nevada, Washington and Hawaii.

It has been 60 years since President Truman proclaimed victory over Japan (15 Aug 1945), and the big news "the day after" was that gas rationing had ended. No government mandated belt tightening with our current war effort. However, gasoline keeps hitting record prices: $66 a barrel yesterday and the average US price for regular unleaded hit a record $2.484, up 34 percent in a year. (How are we managing low inflation rates with hits like this?)

And yet ... our energy bill does little to curb consumption. Fleet mileage improvements? Not in this Congress. Fleet average for 2002 was 20.7 mpg: that's basically light truck mileage from 10 years ago! From 1995 testimony:

The express purpose of the fuel economy program was to reduce the U.S. vulnerability to foreign events by improving vehicle fuel efficiency over 1974 levels by 50% by 1980, and 100% -- to 27.5 MPG -- by 1985... CAFÉ standards reduced U.S. oil consumption by 3 million barrels per day (b/d) of oil while saving purchasers of new cars $3,300 in gasoline costs. As a side benefit, they reduce evaporative hydrocarbon emissions in the production, transport and use of gasoline by 500,000 tons per year...

Passenger cars achieved the 27.5 mpg standard in 1985 and topped at 28.8 mpg in 1987, dropping to 28.2 in 1994. Light trucks hit 21.7 mpg in 1987, dropping to 20.6 in 1994.

Forum: Does anyone care about high gas prices?
Tags: Gas Prices, Oil, Politics