Perhaps it’s a combination of higher gas prices, the inescapable truth that America cannot drill its way to energy independence and the growing disconnect between SUV marketing and reality, but Congress finally seems poised this year to strengthen fuel-efficiency standards for those popular and oversized vehicles.

The House version of the Automobile Fuel Economy Act of 2001 to raise the efficiency standards for light trucks, a category that includes SUVs, has received the initial approval of two key committees, energy and government reform. This may not seem like much until considered in the context that similar legislation has been submitted every year for the last six years and has never made it past the first cut of congressional consideration. Further, the House bill is virtually identical to the Senate’s, co-sponsored by Maine Sen. Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, which lessens the possibility that final version could be gutted during the reconciliation process.

This legislation to gradually move the fuel efficiency of SUVs toward the 27.5 miles-per-gallon car standard is not, as critics in the auto industry have long claimed, an assault on the right of Americans to drive what they want, but an acknowledgment that the SUV of today is not the SUV of a decade ago that got, and perhaps deserved, an exemption from federal efficiency standards. In their original incarnation, the emphasis in sport utility vehicle was upon utility. It was a rugged, no-frills carry-all, a workhorse for contractors, farmers and the like, and if working-class light trucks deserved an exemption, these SUVs deserved one as well. Today’s SUV bears little resemblance to its ancestor – it is nothing less than an oversized luxury car – and the basis for the exemption no longer applies.

Another factor in the progress this legislation is making may be that Congress is simply tired of hearing automakers assert that voluntary improvement in SUV efficiency is better than government regulation and then watching them actually decrease efficiency. The latest move by the industry, calling for an expansion of the exemption to other types of van-like vehicles while preaching voluntary improvement may be the last straw.

If Congress passes this modest but important legislation Detroit will, in the end, come out ahead.

A familiar refrain during the last six debates on this issues has been that the industry is investing a fortune researching and developing the technology, such as fuel cells, that will lead to significantly greater gas mileage. What better way to ensure a nice return on that investment than to make shareholders of the biggest vehicles on the road?