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Report endorses higher fuel efficiency standards



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A long-awaited report from the National Academy of Sciences is endorsing higher federal requirements for gas mileage to reduce both global warming and America's growing dependence on imported oil.

It said automakers have the technical means to "significantly" increase the standards, currently 27.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars and 20.7 for light trucks, mini-vans and sport utility vehicles.

But the report did not recommend any specific target, saying the painful trade-offs between safety, cost and other factors should be left to elected officials.

The report said that the United States would be consuming 14 percent more oil today if current fuel-efficiency standards had not been put in place. And it said "technologies exist that, if applied to passenger cars and light-duty trucks, would significantly reduce fuel consumption within 15 years."

Requiring better mileage would increase the cost of new vehicles, but the report said consumers could get back the added expense in fuel savings. For example, increasing the mileage of a mid-size sport utility vehicle from 21 mpg to 28 mpg would save enough over the lifetime of the vehicle to repay the added cost, at $1.50 per gallon.

The report -- a copy of which was obtained by CNN in advance of its formal release -- was immediately welcomed by environmentalists who had feared it might be unfavorable to their cause.

"This is a triple, but not a home run," said Ann Mesnikoff of the Sierra Club's Washington Office. The Sierra Club is pushing for a 40 mpg standard for all vehicles.

The report also contained ammunition for opponents of higher mileage standards. A majority of the 13-member panel that wrote the report said current mileage requirements had cost thousands of lives by inducing manufacturers to make lighter vehicles.

The lighter vehicles, for example, "probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993." But two of the panel members dissented from that finding, saying it is possible that no added fatalities could be laid to fuel standards.






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