This travel season, our energy dollars will leave the state more easily than we do

With summer just around the corner, Minnesotans may find themselves daydreaming about how they're going to enjoy the weather. Unfortunately, the daydream might be as far as they get.

That trip to the cabin or national park has become far more expensive with skyrocketing gas prices, and the oil we burn hurts more than just our wallets. Our oil dependence causes catastrophic damage to our beaches and coastlines, pollutes the air that we breathe and puts our climate in peril.

Minnesota imports more than $20 billion worth of energy each year. These dollars that leave our state do not stimulate our economy, but weaken it. Minnesotans have had enough of the price spikes, the air pollution, the catastrophic oil spills and the global warming pollution that threaten our economy, our environment and our public health. The longer we stay addicted to oil, the worse these problems will get.

So it's time to take the first big step toward getting off oil -- harnessing American ingenuity to build cars and trucks that will get our drivers farther on a gallon of gasoline. We should be building these new vehicles at the Ford plant in St. Paul, rather than closing that facility and shipping our dollars out of state. We could save money at the pump and reduce the air pollution and risk of oil spills that come from our dependence on oil.

Environment Minnesota, the organization I work with, recently released a report that found the average Minnesota family could save $538 in one summer if our cars and trucks met a standard of 60 miles per gallon -- a standard that the Department of Transportation and EPA have deemed within our reach by 2025. That extra $538 in our families' pockets will mean enjoying that drive to the cabin or park, arriving more confident that the waters and the air will be clean, and having money left over to put toward the cabin rental. While Minnesotans are expected to spend more than $2.4 billion at the gas pump this summer, a 60 mpg standard would save over half of that, while reducing oil consumption by 305 million gallons and cutting dangerous carbon dioxide pollution by 3 million metric tons.

We know that we can harness American ingenuity and use existing technology to make our cars and trucks much cleaner and more fuel-efficient. Over the next three years, more than a dozen electric vehicle models will be mass-produced in the United States -- and, I hope, even at the Ford plant in St. Paul. These cars offer superior automotive performance while consuming no oil on most trips and producing no tailpipe pollution. And they can be operated for less than 3 cents per mile. Even today, the Chevrolet Volt achieves an equivalent of 60 mpg on the road, and the Nissan Leaf achieves an equivalent of 99 mpg.

Recognizing that we have the technology to break our oil dependence, the Obama administration set standards for new cars and trucks built between 2012 and 2016 that will save billions of gallons of fuel. That was an excellent start, but we need to do more. And standards that the Obama administration is now developing for cars sold between 2017 and 2025 offer an excellent opportunity to do just that. President Obama should move clean cars into the fast lane by requiring that average new cars and light trucks meet a standard of 60 miles per gallon by 2025. He has every reason to do so -- not only will it benefit consumers at the pump, but it will protect our health and environment. And Americans agree; a recent poll showed 74 percent of Americans support a 60 mpg standard.

Clean cars would make our fun in the sun all that much better for summers into the future, benefiting America's families, our economy and our environment. The Obama administration should push ahead with the clean car standards that will make these benefits a reality. It's time to get this country off oil, and to get cleaner cars on the road.

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Ken Bradley is director of Environment Minnesota.

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