The Lack of Leadership on Fuel Economy

The Dallas Morning News is featuring a really good investigative story today about the kinds of cars our elected members of Congress from North Texas drive. You will remember that last week I posted a long rant about the importance of Hybrid Cars. I that rant, I wondered aloud why our elected leaders are not jumping on the bandwagon for great fuel efficiency and Hybrid Cars.

As this story shows, part of the reason is that the bandwagons they drive personally mostly get less than 20 MPG.

Here’s a comparison chart of the mileage our congressional delegation get from their cars:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R — 14 mpg
Sen. John Cornyn, R– 19 mpg
Rep. Sam Johnson, R– 14 mpg
Rep. Ralph Hall, R– 17 mpg
Rep. Pete Sessions, R– 16 mpg
Rep. Michael Burgess, R– 60 mpg
Rep. Kenny Marchant, R– 12 mpg
Rep. Joe Barton, R– 17 mpg
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R– 17 mpg
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D– 17 mpg
Rep. Chet Edwards, D– 18 mpg
Rep. Kay Granger, R– 17 mpg

It’s not just that we have representatives who, for the most part, drive gas guzzlers. It’s also that –to my way of thinking– this indicates they have no real commitment to solve the problem. In fact, several of them say in the story that the “solution”is “more drilling” for oil!! (I won’t list them here, but you can read the article to find out which of our reps think the real solution is to just drill for more oil…)

Actually, I sort of agree with them. I agree that we should increase the production of domestic oil. But! As a way of safeguarding the oil supply, not just increase the overall supply. In fact, this move to increase domestic production should be coupled with a drastic reduction in overall oil consumption.

By the way, you’ll note that one Representative does drive a car that gets 50 MPG. Care to take a guess what kind of car that is?

Yep. It’s a Hybrid. Toyota Prius.

So, hats off to Representative Michael Burgess (Republican-Flower Mound) for putting his money where his mouth is. As he says in the story:
“We’ve been paying lip service to alternative energy research”

He’s right.

And, as I said in my last post, you could argue that it’s not only hurting our pocketbooks but also our security too. And we all need better leadership on this issue.