Last week, Minority Leader Tom Daschle and several leading Senate Democrats announced their version of an energy plan. It's called taking away your SUV. Let me quote a passage from that piece of legislation:

(a) REQUIREMENT.--The Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, shall develop and implement mechanisms to increase fuel efficiency of light-duty vehicles to limit total demand for petroleum products by light-duty vehicles in the year 2008 and thereafter to no more than 105 percent of the consumption by such vehicles in the year 2000.

Translation: A fuel quota for soccer moms.

According to Wards Automotive Communications, the number of SUV's sold in the U.S. has increased an average of 16% per year from 1994 to 1999. Obviously, consumers continue to value the SUV as a safe, comfortable, and practical vehicle to get their families where they need to go. And yet, the Democratic plan would limit the amount of fuel those SUV's could use to 5% more than what they used in 2000 - and the gasoline quota would remain capped into the future. Even if the trend toward bigger SUV's tapers off, trying to legislate the "right amount" of gasoline that SUV's can use seems like an unrealistic, Washington-knows-best kind of solution.

If you think that your family might like to be driving an SUV for a while, you might want to hide your keys -- or consider putting a gasoline storage tank in the back yard. Because if Senate Democrats have their way, there will be no gas for you. Their "energy plan" means you get to fill the tank 1/3 full -- hope your kids don't have any dance lessons or soccer practice to attend.

	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
SUV sales	1,556,075	1,753,417	2,140,455	2,435,301	2,794,206	3,218,503
% increase		13%	22%	14%	15%	15%
Average Annual Increase						16%

Democrats want the Federal government to choose what kind of car you and your family can drive. They seem frustrated that consumers continue to buy SUV's, and are bound and determined to change that. Imposing a fuel cap for SUV's is simply the newest approach to limiting your ability to buy a larger, safer, more practical car for your family.

Conservation can be a part of, but is not a substitute for, a national energy plan. Instead of creating new fuel quotas for soccer moms, I urge Senate Democrats to start thinking of ways to improve America's energy independence.


Read the Congressional Research Service report, "Midwest Gasoline Price Increases." From June, 2000. (2mb, PDF format)