Fuel economy deal is near - DetNews.com

WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators had all but reached agreement late Wednesday on a compromise deal to hike fuel economy requirements to a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. A final deal may be announced as early as today that would raise passenger car fuel efficiency standards for the first time since 1983 and hike overall efficiency by 40 percent over the current 25 mpg average. They include keeping separate fuel economy standards for cars and trucks and extending the credit automakers get for making flex-fuel vehicles that can run on gasoline or E85 ethanol. Despite the concessions, however, the increase in standards, if passed, would represent a major defeat for automakers, who argue it will cost tens of billions of dollars in the next decade to meet the standards and could force them to stop building some of their biggest, most profitable models. The compromise energy bill is expected to also require the use of billions more gallons of ethanol and other alternative fuels and is expected to require automakers to make 50 percent of their vehicles advanced technology vehicles by the middle of the next decade. Levin declined to elaborate on the details of a proposed compromise over the dual-fuel credit automakers get for building vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol, a mixture of ethanol and gasoline. read more

[Tags]automakers, deal, bill, compromise, credit, energy, fuel economy[/Tags]

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