WASHINGTON – The nation’s fleet of new cars and trucks will be required to achieve 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015, according to Transportation Department Secretary Mary Peters. The U.S. government operates a fleet several hundred thousand vehicles including cars, SUVs, and trucks. This fleet consumes several hundred billion gallons of gasoline each year and contributes tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases, as well as air and water pollution to our environment.

Current government vehicle specifications do not include standards for fuel economy. They also do they specify any higher standards for particulate emissions, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants beyond what the EPA already requires for vehicles sold in the United States, according to according to www.RenewableEnergyWorld.com.

Also according to www.RenewableEnergyWorld.com, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is missing a major opportunity to save the tax payers money by spending less on fuel while encouraging development of more efficient and vastly less-polluting vehicles.

There are 3 vehicle types that seemed to be most broadly used by the federal government:

· Five-passenger sedans.

· SUVs.

· Mail and similar small trucks.

The DOT should create standards for each type of vehicle, based not on what they can simply purchase today, but instead on the more advanced vehicles that this country needs, according to a recent www.RenewableEnergyWorld.com article.