| During our mid-twentieth-century formative years,
we skipped lightly through the crackling leaves of the glorious autumn that followed
World War II. Bob Hope smirked and told us, "You can trust your car to the
man who wears the … big, bright Texaco star." Douglas Edwards' CBS News
sponsors gushed at Lansing's most powerful new product, the Oldsmobile 98 Starfire.
Engines displacing 400 cubic inches (6.55 liters) were common; one colossal model
swallowed 500 cubic inches (8.19 liters) during each rotation. Premium gasoline
(Remember Sunoco 260?) cost little more than a quarter a gallon. Aside from niggling
doubts brought on by Duck-and-Cover exercises, we led a life fueled by inexpensive,
limitless energy; we lived in Pleasantville.
Tomorrow was ours! The power company's shill, a birdie named Little Bill, happily
chirped his "cheap, cheap" song trumpeting electrically-powered time-
and labor-saving gizmos. The gas company's just-laid pipelines transformed coal
bins into sooty, grimy, hazy, unhappy memories. Best of all were the promises
made at the outset of the Nuclear Age: Electricity would be so inexpensive that
there'd be no need to measure our power consumption.
Fast-forward to April 21, 2005. The Executive Network Group (ENG) meeting
provided a jolting reality-check as Board Member and Executive Director Karl
Randall used the dour Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine to show ENG's membership
why the cheap-energy party ended long ago. Randall's presentation, "Why
does Gasoline Cost so Much? What I Can Do About it?" arched across
more nearly two generations of governmental thumb-twiddling, while our country's
dependence on imported petroleum zoomed from the then-significant 35% in the
early '70s to nearly 60% of current consumption. 1973's four-fold increase to
a barrel of oil by the nascent Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) struck an economic gong that reverberates through the American economy
three decades later.
OPEC caused Congress to leap into action, decreeing Corporate Average Fuel
Economy (CAFE) rules. Jointly administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), CAFE requires
each manufacturer's fleet to average 27.5 miles per gallon. CAFE is "is
the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon, of a
manufacturer's fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle
weight rating of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States,
for any given model year." Since reaching a plateau in 1987, Randall noted
a gradual decline in the national fleet's fuel-efficiency. Randall displayed
a chart showing that eleven of the twenty "best selling" vehicles
are light-trucks. Tellingly, "Congress did not specify a target for the
improvement of light truck fuel economy … Unlike for the passenger car
fleet, there is no default standard established for light trucks."
Randall's conclusions were succinct and politely blunt: "If you feel gas
costs too much, take action. If you feel concerned about the Middle East, take
action. The choices are yours."
Contact information:
Karl Randall
3440 Steeplechase Way
Grayslake, Illinois 60030
Voice: 847/548-6616
e-mail: karl_randall@alum.wvu.edu
-- by R. T. Jones (4/25/2005)
Karl Randall is an adjunct instructor of biology at College of Lake County and
other colleges in addition to being the Director of the Executive Networking
Group of Chicago. Mr. Randall has training in both science and business that
have enabled him to learn the interdependent relationships between biology and
business. His passion is to enable curious minds to better understand the world
in light of interdependent relationships.
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