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ATA supports president’s fuel price initiatives
By eTrucker Staff
President Bush April 25 announced measures to try to stem increases in retail fuel prices, and Bill Graves, president and chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations, applauded the initiatives.
Bush is delaying this northern summer's deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an emergency stockpile of government-owned crude oil. “So by deferring deposits until the fall, we'll leave a little more oil on the market,” Bush said during a speech in Washington at the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for the ethanol industry. “Every little bit helps.”
The plan calls for making sure consumers and taxpayers are treated fairly, promoting greater fuel efficiency, boosting the U.S. gasoline supply and investing aggressively in gasoline alternatives. Bush also has ordered a federal investigation into possible cheating, price gouging or illegal manipulation in the gasoline markets. And he gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to suspend regional clean-fuel standards where it would help to maintain adequate fuel supplies.
The EPA option does not mean the agency will relax its engine emission requirements to allow for lower-quality quality fuel to be sold, said John Millett, an EPA spokesman.
“When there is an extreme or usual fuel supply circumstance,” he said, EPA can temporarily waive certain standards. “The president was just reminding people of that if it does become a problem, the EPA can act to relieve those problems.”
Millett said such suspensions are formed federally but only over specific areas, and for limited amounts of time.
Graves said the trucking industry had previously asked for action in each of the areas mentioned by Bush.
"In the short term, the actions announced by the president -- a temporary halt to deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a possible moratorium on the switch from methanol to ethanol as a fuel additive, and getting a grip on our industry’s 'boutique fuels' problem -- will buy some time for us to take a very necessary longer look at our energy situation," he said.
The U.S. trucking industry, which moves 70 percent of domestic freight, is on schedule to pay $6.6 billion more for fuel this year than last -- a total of $94.3 billion, Graves said. "The actions announced by the White House have the support of our motor carriers," he said. "In the long term, to do our job, we need an assured and adequate supply of fuel along with price stability. While energy conservation and the eventual conversion to new fuels may be the right way to go, each has to be done in a manner that will allow us to continue to move America’s goods ands products efficiently."
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