Ted Ankrum, the Democratic Party nominee for US Congressional District 10 in Texas, has just celebrated Earth Day on April 22 by placing a Honda Civic Hybrid in service as his campaign vehicle. This is believed to be the first Texas candidate to lead by example in our fight for energy independence.
It was a typical campaign day in this Delay-engineered District, which stretches some 200 miles from the Houston suburbs to the far Western suburbs of Austin. I started by driving from my home in Cypress, Harris County to a charity pancake breakfast at the First Baptist Church in Pflugerville, from there to a meeting with campaign volunteers in North Austin, and from there to Brookshire in Waller County for a fund raiser for the Waller County Democratic Party. It was a 460 mile loop, with city and suburban traffic, and a lot of 70 mph highway travel. I averaged 44 mpg for the day.
The Honda Civic Hybrid has just been selected as the "World Green Car of the Year" by automotive journalists at the New York Auto Show. Despite being a Honda, the Hybrid Civic has 75% American parts and labor content. If you think $3.00 a gallon gas is just the first hill on the way to a mountain of even higher gas prices, we are all going to be conserving. We'll do that conserving by either driving less, or driving cars that use less gas. I've made my choice.
When I was Head of Conservation and Renewable Energy Commercialization in Jimmy Carter's Department of Energy, we put in place the energy conservation standards that have since doubled the US's energy efficiency. And we did it, Mr. Vice President, without lowering our standard of living one iota. It is you, Mr. Vice President, that is now lowering all American's standard of living by your past refusal to even consider higher energy conservation standards. I owned a new 1974 Chevrolet Kingswood Estate Station Wagon. It got 15 mpg. As a result of mandatory government auto fuel economy standards put in place some 30 years ago, today's equivalent station wagon almost doubles that. But, because every subsequent Congress has listened to the Detroit Auto Industry's pleas not to impose fuel economy standards on their cash cow, the SUV; we now find ourselves in the current pickle.
I propose that we apply the current gas guzzler tax on a car by car basis, including trucks and SUV's, rather than the current fleet-wide average, and raise the tax higher than it now is. We can then rebate all those taxes that have been collected to people purchasing vehicles getting better than the current Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standard of 27 mpg in direct porportion to how much more economical the car is. This is much better than raising the gasoline tax, which is very regressive. If you want a big'un and can afford it, enjoy! If you want to save money, get a fuel sipper. The used car market remains unaffected for people that need to purchase this way. Gas consumption goes down, so we all benefit from lower gas prices. In the short term, Detroit loses again, of course; as they have done with every shift is consumer behavior. This is an industry that drives using the rear view mirror, seemingly, and their hacks in Congress have been fully complicit. You may see my complete views HERE and contribute HERE