With gas prices continuing to rise, now would seem a good time for leaders in Washington to boost automobile fuel efficiency standards. The Bush administration, however, is prepared to back away from stricter requirements for the biggest SUVs. The administration also quietly held onto a report about national fuel economy trends – they’re stagnant – until after Congress passed an energy bill. In the absence of federal leadership, Americans are likely to force change with their pocketbooks. Some carmakers, not America’s big three, are ready to take their money.

Honda, according to its chief U.S. engineer, doesn’t agonize about gas mileage, it just builds the most fuel-efficient vehicle in every class. “You don’t need to do any market research,” the company’s chief U.S. engineer, Charlie Baker, recently told Newsweek. “You don’t need to do any fancy negotiations because you are never going to get anything approved by the board of directors without proving you have the best fuel economy in class. That’s it.”

It should be that simple, but American carmakers are still resistant to such radical thinking. They are currently being aided in this delusion by the White House.

According to media reports, the administration is expected to abandon a plan to boost fuel economy requirements for the largest sport utility vehicles, such as General Motors’ Hummer and Ford’s Excursion. Large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks weighing more than 8,500 pounds when loaded have been exempt from regulations. When the rules were written, such vehicles were few in number and were used for commercial uses. Now hundreds of thousands are sold each year. Business owners can even get a tax break for buying one of these behemoths.

According to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency, average gas mileage has dropped 5 percent since 1987-’88. The analysis was conveniently held until after Congress passed an energy bill that did not include provisions to raise fuel efficiency. In 1975, the average car weighed 4,060 pounds, could go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 14 seconds. It got 13 miles per gallon. By 1987, weight had dropped to 3,220 pounds while 0-to-60 time improved to 13 seconds and gas mileage averaged 22 miles per gallon. In 2005, weight was back up to 4,089 pounds, 0-to-60 time was down to 10 seconds and fuel efficiency slipped to 21 miles per gallon.

Technical innovations have made heavier cars go faster. They have not been used to make them more fuel-efficient. “EPA estimates that had the new 2005 light-duty vehicle fleet had the same distribution of performance and the same distribution of weight as in 1987, it could have achieved about 24 percent higher fuel economy,” the agency wrote in the June report.

The EPA helpfully added: “Fuel economy is directly related to energy security because light-duty vehicles account for approximately 40 percent of all U.S. oil consumption, and much of this oil is imported.”

Without higher fuel economy requirements, Bush administration claims of securing the country’s energy future ring hollow.