Largest SUVs will no longer avoid standards
The Bush administration issued new rules Wednesday ratcheting up gas mileage requirements for pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans.
For the first time, the rules cover the largest SUVs on the road, such as General Motors' Suburbans, Tahoes and Yukons made at the company's assembly plant in Janesville.
Automakers will have to average 24 miles per gallon by 2011 models of SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans, the Transportation Department said. The current standard is 21.6 mpg.
Outlined amid growing public concern about U.S. dependence on foreign sources of oil and rising pump prices, the new rules represent the most significant changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards in three decades.
The new rules, covering 2008 through 2011, could save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles sold during the period and go further than an administration proposal issued last summer.
"The new standards represent the most ambitious fuel economy goals for light trucks ever developed in the program's 27-year history," said Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta.
The new rules do not apply to passenger cars, which must meet a 27.5 mile per gallon average fuel economy. They include SUVs weighing 8,500 to 10,000 pounds for the first time starting in 2011 but would not include large pickup trucks in the weight class because they are used primarily for work, Mineta said.
