Fuel Savings Target of New UMaine Study
Contact: Jonathan Rubin, Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy, 207-581-1528; Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
ORONO– As engineers and scientists look for ways to increase fuel efficiency in cars and trucks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded a $177,247 grant to the University of Maine for research on a business oriented strategy to achieve fuel savings. Resource economist Jonathan Rubin, interim director of UMaine’s Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy, will lead the effort to study the benefits of a tradable fuel economy credit system.
Rubin will work with David L. Greene and Paul Leiby of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research program will include students at UMaine and the University of Tennessee which administers Oak Ridge.
A fuel economy credit system would provide an incentive for manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency, says Rubin, while still meeting consumer preferences. In a recent review of national fuel efficiency programs, a National Research Council committee suggested that such a system could produce greater fuel savings than increasing the CAFE (corporate average fuel efficiency) standards alone.
Vehicle manufacturers earn fuel economy credits when the average mileage of their fleets exceeds the federal standard. Those credits can be used to offset any penalties that are levied against the manufacturers when average mileage falls below the standard. The credits cannot currently be traded.
Researchers will study several types of tradable fuel economy credit systems. They will calculate the fuel efficiency benefits that result from changes in the rules governing how the system is structured.
The average fuel economy of new U.S. light duty vehicles (cars, light trucks, minivans and SUVs) now stands at 24.5 miles per gallon, a significant drop from its 1989 peak of 25.6 miles per gallon. It has been estimated that light-duty vehicles emitted 16 percent more greenhouse gases in 1999 than they did in 1990.