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What are the pros and cons of raising the fuel efficiency of the U.S. fleet of cars and trucks?
Jonathan Rubin, Economics Professor, University of Maine: "Increasing the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks is absolutely essential for all sorts of reasons. One is, for those people on fixed incomes and in rural areas--in Maine, it's particularly hard because of our rurally dispersed nature--we must increase efficiency not just of new cars but of the whole fleet. We need a turnover in the fleet, so to speak. So, that's the way to start. At the same time, that poses challenges in all sorts of other ways. Typically, we fund our highway infrastructure on gasoline taxes, and so as we make our cars and trucks more efficient, we're going to use less gas, and we have to think about new funding mechanisms to pay for the bridges and roads, public transport, and other things that we need. It's all tied together--you can't just change one part of the system."
