Auto Emissions Report Ignores Safety Concerns
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Washington, D.C., August 10, 2005—Today, Environmental Defense released an updated report advocating higher restrictions on automotive greenhouse gas emissions. In the view of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, this is no different than demanding higher fuel economy standards. Such increases, however, have a lethal effect on traffic safety by reducing vehicle crashworthiness. As CEI and others have shown, the federal government's fuel economy program have had precisely this effect.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />
“Higher fuel economy standards increase traffic deaths, as the National Academy of Sciences found in its 2001 study on the federal fuel economy program. The environmentalists who are supporting CO2 standards have steadfastly ducked the safety issue in the past, and they are continuing to do so now,” said CEI general counsel Sam Kazman, who handled CEI's litigation against NHTSA on this issue.
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