From: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 11:25:22 -0400


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
April 25, 2006
Josh Dorner
202.675.2384

              Bush Speech On Gas Prices Ignores Real Solutions

           Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director

"While rising gas prices are hitting American consumers in the pocketbook,
President Bush continues to ignore the most obvious and practical solutions
to help consumers save money at the gas pump and cut America’s dangerous
dependence on oil.  The biggest single step we can take toward saving money
at the gas pump, curbing global warming, and cutting America’s oil
dependence is to make our cars, trucks, and SUVs go farther on a gallon of
gas.

"No investigation is needed to understand that America deserves a better
energy policy.  While it is important to investigate whether price gouging
is driving up gasoline prices, there is a deeper crisis facing the country.
In the State of the Union, President Bush admitted that America is addicted
to oil.  But instead of taking steps to cut that addiction, the Bush
administration has continued to move forward with its disastrous energy
policy that ignores real solutions.  The President continues to promote
technologies that are years or even decades away from becoming available in
order to distract the American people from the devastating realities of
today resulting from his failed energy policy.

"The technology exists today to make all new cars, SUVs, and other light
trucks average 40 miles per gallon within the next ten years.  Taking this
step would save the average driver over $2,200 at the gas pump over the
lifetime of their vehicle.  It would also save more oil than the United
States currently imports from the entire Persian Gulf and could ever get
out of the Arctic Refuge, combined.

"But instead of putting this technology to work, the Bush administration
has allowed its energy policy to be controlled by its friends in the oil
and auto industry.  Just two months ago, the Bush administration announced
pathetic new fuel economy standards for light trucks that by the
administration’s own admission would save less than two weeks worth of oil
over four years.  While the President pays lip service to hybrid vehicles,
his new fuel standards give the auto industry a perverse incentive to make
more of the biggest, least efficient vehicles on the road.

"Each time Americans go the gas station and fill up at record prices, they
understand that we need to take real steps to cut our oil dependence.  It
is time for the Bush administration to catch up with the American people.


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