Dear Friends, If you bought a Toyota Prius to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of automobiles on the environment, you may be surprised to learn that your "green" car company, Toyota, has joined with other auto manufacturers to lobby Congress against the first real attempt to improve national fuel efficiency standards in two decades. So what in the world is happening? In June 2007, as you may recall, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. These new standards would ensure that the fleetwide average for all cars increased incrementally, from 25 to 35 miles per gallon by model year 2020. Against well-financed opposition from auto manufacturers, the bill also eliminated a loophole that allowed SUVs to be treated differently than cars. When the Senate CAFE bill reached the House of Representatives, however, reform stalled. House leaders then promised that fuel efficiency standards would be included in energy legislation when it moved to the House-Senate conference committee in the fall. Today, with the House-Senate conference committee back to work, well-heeled auto manufacturers are trying once again to block fuel efficiency standards that will reduce toxic air emissions, cut America's dependence on foreign oil, and save consumers money. Worse still, Toyota, the very company that sells the Prius and other hybrids with warm words about how these cars are green, better for the environment, and more mileage friendly has joined the big, dirty auto makers in opposing CAFE standards. Well, it ain't right. And Clean Air Council is leading a campaign to help Prius and Toyota hybrid owners let Toyota know that they want their car company to give Congress the same green message it gives its car buyers. We are going to hold a press event in Pittsburgh highlighting this issue at the end of next week. The event details are: Friday, October 26th @ 8AM NW Corner of Frick Park (Next to Frick Environmental Center, 2005 Beechwood Blvd.) Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Please email me at [email protected] to get more info. Bill Hassall Project Coordinator Clean Air Council 135 South 19th Street Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19103 Email: [email protected] Phone: 215-567-4004 x122 Fax: 215-567-5791 http://www.CleanAir.org/
Bill, If you had a factory that made the most fuel efficient 4 door 4+ seat petrol car in production in the world today would you want it legislated that all the other car makers had to make cars that are more competative with your superior car? Sorry but I never considered Toyota any greener than any other car maker, they are just a faceless company looking to make money. one of their products is one of the "greenest" cars on the market. My buying a Prius and using it rather than a conventionally powered car reduces MY carbon footprint not Toyotas. My electric company sells me green power from renewable sources, they also sell power from a 45 year old brown coal fired power station. I try to do the right thing buying the green product, I am under no illusions that beyond marketing, my power company gives a toss.
http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=39491&hl=cafe see below... "This is an email that I recieved from Toyota: Thank you for contacting Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. regarding your concerns with Toyota's position on federally mandated fuel economy increases. We share your interest in strengthening automotive fuel economy and, in fact, are actively lobbying for a significant increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (CAFE). Any assertion by anyone or any one website or blog that we are doing otherwise, is simply not true. There are various bills before Congress that would mandate new CAFE targets by 2020 and require both cars and trucks to meet that standard. At Toyota, we favor proposed legislation known as H.R. 2927, the Hill-Terry bill. This measure is aggressive and calls for increases in CAFE by as much as 40% by 2022. Although this won't be easy, we believe it is achievable. The bill maintains separate categories for cars and trucks. Please also note the following: - Toyota has always exceeded federal fuel economy requirements, and our passenger car line-up has the highest CAFE rating in the automotive industry. - Toyota is the only major automaker to consistently improve global warming performance since 2001, thanks to hybrids and better conventional technology.* - We're totally committed to ongoing improvement of fuel economy and emissions in all of our vehicles. In fact, our commitment to this is so deep, we spend $23 million every day on green initiatives and research. We are continuously striving to improve our fuel economy, regardless of federal mandates. So please understand that we, too, strongly support increased fuel economy standards. It's the right thing to do-and, we hope that we've been able to provide a little more insight into our environmental commitments and actions. To learn more, please visit our corporate blog and see our recent posts regarding this topic at http://blog.toyota.com/2007/10/post.html and at http://blog.toyota.com/2007/09/irvs-sheet-a-ca.html. Thank you for your interest in Toyota and the environment. Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. Corporate Communications"
