We want our SUVs

In 1999, the sale of SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans -- all conveniently lumped together as "light trucks" by the auto industry in order to avoid the higher fuel-economy standards that apply to passenger cars -- amounted to 44.3 percent of all vehicles sold, up from 9.8 percent two decades earlier.

In the same two decades, average fuel economy of new cars sold in the U.S. stagnated, and has actually dropped from a 26.2-mile per gallon peak in 1987 to 24.4 mpg now. Thanks to SUVs, the nation's new car fuel-economy average is the lowest since 1980, and we spew an extra 240 million tons of global warming gases into the air each year.

This has happened despite an array of technological advances -- fuel injection, multivalve cylinders and direct overhead cams -- that could have been applied to fuel efficiency but were instead used to propel heavier cars at faster speeds and with greater acceleration. SUV drivers have so far acted as if oblivious to the price of gasoline, even though they pay an extra $27.2 billion a year at the pump because SUVs use fuel less efficiently than cars.

Even now, there's no solid evidence that oil-price increases have changed purchasing patterns (though Ford Motor Company's recent announcement that sales of its Excursion have dropped is a welcome straw in the wind). And company president William Ford's mea sorta culpa on SUVs last month -- he warned that automakers were in line to be "the tobacco company of the 21st century" if they didn't deal with the environmental and safety problems caused by the gas-guzzling behemoths -- did not promise that his company would change its behavior. Still, it was a welcome outbreak of candor in a public dialogue about cars, oil and energy that is usually unencumbered by a high regard for truth.

As it stands, the United States consumes more than a quarter of the world's production of oil, even though it makes up only about 5 percent of the world's population. About a sixth of the world's oil production is used just to power the American transportation sector. Our ever-increasing demand for oil has stretched U.S. refinery capacity to its limits, with the not-surprising result that prices have gone up. Ah, the irony: Just when the free market showed signs of functioning, American politicians got upset.

True enough, gasoline prices typically "rocket and feather": They go up like a rocket, but drop haltingly, like a feather. It's for that reason, among others, that a 4.3-cent gasoline tax repeal looked ridiculous. Take away 4.3 cents in federal taxes from the price of gasoline, and the price that consumers pay almost certainly will drop a lot less than 4.3 cents: The oil industry pockets the difference. Oil companies have certainly enjoyed a windfall: A study by Public Citizen released this month found profits on average jumped 300 percent in the first quarter of 2000 -- not quite the 500 percent claimed by Gore, but a noteworthy number nonetheless.

But if higher prices accomplish what politicians refuse to consider -- forcing Americans to limit their consumption and conserve gasoline -- the trade-off is worthwhile. The unjustifiably low price of energy inhibits fuel cell, electric, solar and wind alternatives; and it doesn't accurately reflect the $95 billion a year we spend on imported oil, or the $50 billion a year we spend on maintaining a military presence in the Middle East.

The biggest cost, however, is environmental. Global warming is a fact: The only argument left is to what degree humans have caused it, and right now most evidence points directly at us. We consume oil price news in the same broadcasts that tell us that polar ice is thawing, that flowers bloom earlier each year and that temperature changes are disrupting animals' migration and hibernation patterns.

We focus on oil prices perhaps because we think possibly something can be done about them, and do not dwell on ominous and unprecedented events, like Hurricane Mitch, the North Carolina floods or the rise in summer heat, year after year, all across the country. We're the "what-me-worry?" country, whose lack of leadership in environmental issues makes foreigners wonder why they make the effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions if the most profligate energy user in the world won't. Here, it's eat, drink and be merry, and the tune is infectious. Now Democrats are dancing to it, belying their claim to be the true environmental party.

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