I recently drove my 2019 Chevy Equinox down to Bowling Green, KY. It was manufactured with the fuel economy standards set by President Obama. These standards were established to reduce the amount of CO2 that is put into the atmosphereby the transportation sector. Transportation now puts more CO2 into the air than the CO2 produced by heating and cooling buildings.
First, I will tell you thatI do drive with an eye on conserving fuel. I only drive 65 mph even when the speed limit is 70 mph. The total mileage for the round trip was about 960 miles and almost all highway driving. I achieved 42 miles per gallon with my Equinox SUV. About 8 years ago I was getting the same mileage with my compact 2004 Chevy Cavalier. Until 2013 I was happy to get 32 miles per gallon with my Chevy HHR,which is substantially smaller than the Equinox.
You can see that fuel economy standards have done a great job of pushing the car manufacturers to improve vehicle fuel economy. At 42 miles per gallon with the Equinox I used about 23 gallons of gas for the trip. If I had been driving my 2008 HHR I would have used about 30 gallons of gasoline. So in this one trip I didn’t burn 7 gallons of fuel that I would have before the fuel standards were improved by President Obama. That is about 1/5th fewer green house gases that were put into the air.It also saved me about $17.50 for the entire trip. That is figuring $2.50 per gallon of gas.
At this time President Trump is planning to roll back the fuel standards put in place by President Obama. If that happens we will be paying more money and polluting the air more for the same vacation trip. Over time you drive a vehicle, say 90,000 miles, you would save $1575 dollars in $2.50 per gallon gas. Even more importantly you are polluting the air 20% less than you would be without fuel economy standards. With the planet in Climate Crisis it is extremely important to reduce the green house gases that we put into the atmosphere by extending vehicle fuel economy standards instead of rolling them back.
Please call your Representative and Senators to let them know they should oppose the roll back of vehicle fuel economy standards.
