key points. I would just like to add a few points to what Senator Feinstein said. I think that actually a report that you asked the Government Accounting Office to do, Mr. Chairman, on CAFE standards which was released in August 2000 does conclude that raising CAFE standards can help reduce U.S. oil consumption and thereby reduce global warming pollution coming out of America's cars and light trucks.

I think the critical point to start is with light trucks. The loophole that Senator Feinstein referred to has been in existence since the original law was passed in 1975. Light trucks then were only 20 percent of the vehicle fleet. Now they are about 50 percent. Minivans, SUVs, these vehicles did not really exist. Light trucks were work trucks. Now we see them being used as passenger vehicles in cities across the country.

A 14 mile-per-gallon SUV will emit more than 130 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. The average new car will emit only 74 tons, but the new Honda Insight, which utilizes gasoline-electric hybrid technology, will emit only 27 tons.

Even Ford Motor Company has recognized that SUVs threaten the environment by emitting more global warming pollution and more smog-forming pollution and that they also pose a safety hazard for other motorists. I think closing the light truck loophole would slash CO2 emissions by 240 million tons of carbon dioxide a year when it is fully phased in.

It is an essential first step to take, but we must also consider raising CAFE standards for all of our cars and light trucks to even beyond 27.5 miles per gallon. That is a first step, but it is not the last step. The key point to make here is that the technology does exist. The gasoline-electric hybrid technology which Honda is using on its Insight vehicle today, which Toyota is selling in its Prius vehicle, which Toyota has already shown at the Tokyo Auto Show, could make a minivan get 42 miles per gallon, and Ford Motor Company, which has pledged to put hybrid technology into its small SUV, the Escape. I think in the year 2004.

So I think we are seeing progress in fuel economy and that these technologies will allow our automakers to be leaders in the world, to show that we can do even better than 27.5 miles per gallon, which has been in place for 14 years, that we can vastly improve the fuel economy of the American fleet of vehicles and make a real difference and show the world that we are no longer sitting around and waiting for somebody else to move forward, that we are going to take a real step, the biggest single step that we could take to curb global warming.

I think that it is also important to note that, while these technologies are being used today, we need to make sure that they are not being used on single vehicles to reduce oil consumption or pollution, but to make sure that all vehicles are using this technology, so that we see real improvements across the board by all manufacturers in all vehicles.

The auto manufacturers are having real problems meeting the current CAFE standard, the 20.7 mile per gallon standard for light trucks. They are using all different kinds of games to meet that existing standard. Hybrid technology should not be one more tool in

the toolbox to avoid making real improvements. We need to see dramatic changes and we need to see a higher CAFE standard.

Ford and General Motors have made pledges in regard to their light trucks, to improving the fuel economy of their light trucks. But again, we need to see all manufacturers moving forward and we need to make sure that the standards which are in the original CAFE law, maximum feasible technology, cost savings, the need to save oil, that all these factors are considered to get the highest CAFE standard and the best CAFE standard that we can.

The Sierra Club has been calling for a 45 mile per gallon CAFE standard for our cars and a 34 mile per gallon standard for our light trucks. I think that is an important step to take.

I think that the polls show that Americans consistently support using fuel economy standards to reduce our oil consumption and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Two examples: The World Wildlife Fund from August 1999, a poll of light truck owners showed that 73 percent believe that their light truck should be cleaner and fully two-thirds would pay a significant amount more for their next light truck if it were a cleaner vehicle. 70 percent believe that automakers will not clean up their light trucks unless they are required to do so.

A Zogby International poll of predominantly independent and Republican voters in New Hampshire revealed that 75 percent favored increasing fuel economy to address global warming, even at an increased cost of $300 per vehicle.

I think the Union of Concerned Scientists has done studies that show that the gas-guzzling Ford Explorer, which is the most popular SUV sold in this country, and obviously known in the news for other reasons these days, but that vehicle could go from 19 miles per gallon to 34 miles per gallon using today's technology, and that technology would cost about $900 and certainly at today's high gasoline prices, a consumer would make that money back at the gas pump in about 2 years. These are cost effective ways of reducing our emissions and they should be taken.

I think, briefly, I would like to touch upon a couple of other things that we should be doing. Certainly, cleaning up our power plants, making our homes and our buildings much more energy efficient are steps we must take. Many electric utilities still use coal in this country. I would just point out that coal is an especially dirty fuel, producing nearly twice as much CO2 per unit of heat produced as natural gas and about a third more than oil. I think we can begin to convert these plants to natural gas, which is cleaner burning. We can do more by saving energy in our homes and in our buildings by issuing new energy efficiency standards for lighting, appliances, heating, and air conditioning.

All these things can help reduce our demand for electricity and energy and make us more efficient. We can also begin to look at wind power and solar power and clean renewable energy that will again reduce our emissions of CO2.

I think in today's high oil price situation, we should begin to look at CAFE standards because they will save us oil, they will reduce our U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It is a sensible and essential solution to the global warming problem. It is something we can do now. The technology is here, hybrid technology. Fuel cell tech

nology is on the horizon. We will see those vehicles on the road

soon.

I have to point out that there are high costs to inaction. If we fail to act to curb global warming, we will impose on our children enormous impacts on their health, on our coasts, on agriculture, and our infrastructure. Then we have to look at the fact that, what kind of a price tag can we put on the lost lives to heat waves and spreading infectious diseases?

Experts have joined in emphasizing that global warming has begun and now is the time to take action. I would urge that we look at the fuel economy solution, to allow the Department of Transportation to begin to implement the law, to look at the study that the National Academy of Sciences does, but to move forward so that we can begin to save oil and begin to make a real dramatic difference in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mesnikoff follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANN R. MESNIKOFF, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE, SIERRA CLUB, GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY PROGRAM, WASHINGTON, DC.

Introduction

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am Ann Mesnikoff, Washington Representative of Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on behalf Sierra Club's more than halfmillion members nationwide on solutions to global warming. My testimony will focus on the key solution of raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars and light trucks.

Global warming is the most significant environmental threat we face. Yet, the United States has entered the 21st century relying on dirty, polluting 19th century fossil fuel technology. In contrast, our economic competitors, Japan and Europe, use only half the energy we do to achieve roughly the same standard of living.

The key to curbing global warming is improving energy efficiency. Cars and light trucks alone emit 20 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide pollution and guzzle 40 percent of the oil used in this country. Raising CAFE standards is the biggest single step the U.S. can take to stem global warming. Our power plants, homes and buildings could also be made much more efficient by simply installing the best current technology. Energy efficiency is the cleanest, safest, most cost-effective way we can begin to deal with global warming.

Global Warming

The human race is engaged in the largest and most dangerous experiment in history-an experiment to see what will happen to our health and the health of the planet when we make drastic changes to our climate. This is not part of some deliberate scientific inquiry. It is an uncontrolled experiment on the Earth, and we are gambling our children's future on its outcome.

The rapid buildup of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases” in our atmosphere is the source of the problem. Over the last 100 years we have increased the concentrations of key global warming pollutants in our atmosphere. For example, carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary global warming gas, has increased by 30 percent. By burning ever increasing quantities of coal, oil, and gas we are literally changing the atmosphere.

The results of global warming pollution are already significant. Many regions of the world have warmed by as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Physicians at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Medical Schools and other medical institutions have issued grim assessments that global warming may already be causing the spread of infectious diseases and increasing heat wave deaths. Increased flooding, storms, and agricultural losses could devastate our economy. Sea level rise threatens to inundate onethird of Florida and Louisiana and entire island nations. If we do not curb global warming pollution, our children and grandchildren will live in a world with a climate far less hospitable than today.

The Evidence of Global Warming Mounts

For years climate experts have used powerful computers to predict the likely results of global warming. Scientists are now becoming increasingly alarmed as more and more of these predictions come true.

A series of disturbing climate-related events offer a taste of what global warming may have in store for us. The Sierra Club joined with seven other environmental organizations to produce a map of the world showing evidence and harbingers of global warming. The image is dramatic and demands action (Attachment A*). While we cannot yet prove that global warming has caused any one event, the list below is all consistent with the projections of climate models.

The 1990s were the hottest decade on record.

The hottest 11 years on record have all occurred in the past 13 years.

Ranges of infectious disease are spreading, and cases of infection are increasing around the world. Dengue fever infected victims in Texas in 1995, and in recent years malaria infections have occurred as far north as New York, New Jersey, and Michigan.

• Major shifts in temperature are already being felt. Some parts of the world have warmed by 5 degrees Fahrenheit or more in the last 100 years. The average temperature of the entire planet has risen 1 degree Fahrenheit.

• In 1995, after a period of unusual warming-4.5 degrees F. above normal-a 48 by 22 mile chunk of the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed. In subsequent years we have seen additional chunks of the ice shelf breaking off.

• Sea ice is thinning dramatically in the Arctic.

• Scientists have documented shifting populations and altered migratory behavior as animals, trees and plants attempt to adapt to a changing climate. Many species that cannot adapt are in decline.

• Sea levels have risen an average of 4-10 inches over the last century, destroying beaches and wetlands around the world, and flooding coastal areas.

• We are experiencing more common and severe winter floods, storms and summer droughts. More precipitation is falling in extreme weather events, and less in normal, gentle rains.

• Glaciers are melting on 5 continents and snow cover is disappearing, adding to sea level rise. Species that rely on cold waters and polar climates are shifting their ranges in an effort to escape the warming climate.

More than 2500 of the world's leading climate scientists, participating in the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), examined this and other evidence. They have concluded, "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." The IPCC scientists project that during our children's and grandchildren's lifetimes global warming will raise the world's average temperature by 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, the Earth is only 5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer today than it was 10,000 years ago during the last ice age.

Throughout history, major shifts in temperature have occurred at a rate of a few degrees over thousands of years. They were accompanied by radical changes, including the extinction of many species. Manmade global warming is occurring much faster; faster in fact than at any other time in human history. Unless we slow and ultimately reverse the buildup of greenhouse gases, we will have only decades, not millennia, to try to adapt to major changes in weather patterns, sea levels, and serious threats to human health. Plants and animals that cannot adapt to the new conditions will become extinct.

Like the tobacco industry, many of the corporations that produce carbon dioxide pollution are seeking to deny the truth. Rather than face the fact that our increasing dependence on coal, oil, and gas is altering our climate, many in industry have spent millions of dollars in an effort to discredit the IPCC, deny the reality of global warming and prevent action to curb it.

The Culprits: Fossil Fuels

Global warming is a pollution problem. Gas-guzzling cars and light trucks such as mini-vans and sport utility vehicles, are major sources of this pollution-about 20 percent of U.S. CO2 pollution. Global warming pollution also comes from the

*The attachments referred to have been retained in the Committee files.

burning of coal, oil, and to a lesser extent, natural gas, in our power plants. Coal is especially "dirty," producing nearly twice as much CO2 per unit of heat produced as natural gas, and a third more than oil. Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees "breath in" CO2, and can work to remove part of the pollution we release from the air. When trees are cut down or burned, however, they release carbon dioxide back into the air. The burning of massive areas of forest for farming in the Amazon, Asia and other areas of the world releases enormous large of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Solutions: We Can Curb Global Warming

The good news is we can curb and eventually stop global warming, but we must begin to act now. We can do this while strengthening the U.S. economy, especially in the face of very high oil prices, and creating jobs. The key to curbing global warming is improving energy efficiency. Our cars and light trucks, homes, and power plants could be made much more efficient by simply installing the best current technology. Energy efficiency is the cleanest, safest, most cost-effective way we can begin to deal with global warming.

The Biggest Single Step: Raising CAFE Standards

America's cars and light trucks spew out more CO2 than the total emissions of all sources in all but three other countries (China, Russia and Japan).

While there is no technology to scrub CO2 from our cars' exhausts, we can make them pollute less by making them more fuel-efficient. By using today's technology, car makers could safely increase the fuel economy of cars and light trucks without significantly changing their size or performance. The biggest single step we can take to curb global warming is to make our cars and sport utilities go further on a gallon of gas by raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to 45 mpg for cars and 34 mpg for light trucks.

Background

In 1975, Congress passed the most successful energy savings measure it has ever adopted-the provision setting miles per gallon standards for cars and light trucks. Responding to the oil crisis, Congress determined that making automobiles go further on a gallon of gasoline was essential to saving oil and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The corporate average fuel economy law passed with bipartisan support, and was signed into law by President Gerald Ford.

Congress established the initial standards, and delegated responsibility for setting new standards to the Administration, specifically the Department of Transportation. Congress provided the Administration with four factors to consider in setting new standards: technical feasibility, economic practicability, the effect of other federal motor vehicle standards on fuel economy, and the need of the United States to conserve energy.

Benefits of Existing Fuel Economy Standards

The existing standards save more than 3 million of barrels of oil per day and reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil. Without these savings, the U.S. would be importing at least 1.5 million barrels more every day than today's current levels. Even with the oil savings from CAFE, cars and light trucks consume 40 percent of the oil used in the U.S. every day—almost as much as we import.

A gallon of gas is essentially pure carbon and weighs about 7 lbs. When burned, the weight of the carbon is nearly tripled by the addition of the two oxygen atoms, forming CO2. Thus, every gallon of gas burned directly emits 19 lbs. of carbon dioxide from the tailpipe. Including upstream emissions from refining, transport, and refueling, each gallon of gasoline burned emits a total of 28 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. Raising CAFE therefore dramatically reduces CO2 emissions.

CAFE standards have additional benefits. CAFE standards help in the effort to clean the air. By reducing oil consumption, the standards keep 500,000 tons per year of carcinogenic hydrocarbon emissions, a key smog-forming pollutant, from upstream sources-refining and transporting of oil and refueling at the pump-and out of the air we breathe. The standards, therefore, improve air quality, helping polluted cities and states achieve Clean Air Act requirements. Because fuel economy for cars doubled between 1975 and the late 1980s, a new car purchaser saves an average of $3,000 at the gas pump over the lifetime of the car. With today's high fuel prices, CAFE delivers more than $40 billion annually in consumer savings. Consumers can spend these dollars in their communities on food, housing, and clothing, instead of on imported oil.