Progress on CAFE.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's about time.

After decades of inaction, the U.S. Senate last week approved the first significant boost in fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles since 1975.

With Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith voting in the affirmative, the Senate voted to raise corporate average fuel economy standards - often referred to as CAFE - from the current 25 miles per gallon to 35 mpg by 2020 for all cars, trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

It's an impressive achievement, especially given relentless efforts by the industry and auto-state lawmakers to deflate the CAFE increase. Now, it's up to the House to approve the tougher efficiency rules that America needs to address high gas prices, global warming and a dangerous U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

House lawmakers should brace themselves for an onslaught from an industry that claims it cannot meet the new standards, even though it easily managed to double fuel efficiency between mid-1970s and mid-1980s under the existing CAFE. Of particular concern is an effort by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., to pre-empt California, Oregon and at least 10 other states from passing their own laws to increase fuel economy by requiring tougher auto emissions standards.

The product of hard-won compromise, the Senate's CAFE legislation is predictably less than perfect. In one regrettable but politically necessary concession, lawmakers killed a provision that raised fuel efficiency standards by 4 percent annually after 2020 - a requirement that would have resulted in Americans driving 50 mpg vehicles by 2030. The Senate bill also allows federal regulators to set lower standards if they determine 35 mpg to not be "cost effective" in 2020 - an unnecessary escape hatch since the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that an even higher 37 mpg average is feasible and affordable using current technologies.

The CAFE increase is part of a comprehensive energy bill that contains both breakthroughs and disappointments. The former include new appliance efficiency standards needed to reduce energy waste and save consumers money, and a successful bipartisan effort to defeat efforts by coal producers to establish a coal-to-liquid program that could have significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions.

The disappointments include the defeat of a provision that would have created a national renewable energy standard requiring utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from renewable sources, such as solar, wind or biomass, by 2020. Even more regrettable was a procedural maneuver by Republicans who, at the bidding of the oil and gas industry, killed tax credits and incentives worth $32 billion for renewable energy producers.

The House should restore these worthy provisions to the overall energy bill, as well as the 4 percent annual increase in CAFE standards. That won't be easy, given the automobile, oil and gas industries' endless capacity for mischief and the lamentable determination by some Republicans and Democrats to do their bidding, even at the expense of America's long-term interests.