Sean Patrick Maloney: “last month, it was announced in my home district that New York City cabs are going green, as the Mayor plans to replace…”

“last month, it was announced in my home district that New York City cabs are going green, as the Mayor plans to replace the city's fleet with hybrid cars by 2012. The Joint Economic Committee recently released a report entitled, ``Money in the Bank, Not in the Tank'', which argues that we have to take the issue of improving fuel efficiency seriously. America's cars were more efficient two decades ago when our fleet-wide average was 26.2 miles per gallon. Now, our fleet-wide average for cars and trucks has slipped to 25.4 miles per gallon. Clearly, we're going in the wrong direction. And it's hurting our competitiveness--our nation ranks at the bottom of the list of industrialized nations when it comes to fuel efficiency. In Europe, fuel efficiency averages around 40 miles per gallon and they're looking to raise it to 51 miles per gallon by 2012. Japan is trying to get to 50 miles per gallon by 2010 across their fleet. If we raised CAFE standards to 35 miles a gallon from 27.5 miles per gallon, the average American family would reduce their spending on gas by nearly one-quarter. With families on course to spend more than $3,600 on average filling up their cars this year, this would be a savings of $900 a year. Despite major technology gains, especially hybrid technologies, and record-breaking gas prices, we are decades behind when it comes to making our cars more efficient.”