From:
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/display.html?ID=284

Bush administration sued over failure to comply with first President Bush's
law
January 2nd, 2002

Contact Info:
Jay Tutchton, Earthjustice, 303-871-6034
Russell Long, Bluewater Network, 415-788-3666 ex 110
Peter Galvin, Center for Biological Diversity, 510-841-0812

San Francisco, CA-- Three environmental organizations filed suit in federal
court today to force 18 federal agencies to abide by a law passed in 1992
and supported enthusiastically by the first President Bush. The law--the
Energy Policy Act, passed in the wake of the Gulf War--requires federal
agencies to buy vehicles that run on alternative fuels as a way to reduce
the country's dependence on petroleum. The agencies with vehicle fleets in
the larger cities should be buying alternative-fuel vehicles at the rate of
75 % by now. They've failed abysmally. Principal among the defendants is the
U.S. Department of Energy, the very agency assigned to enforce the act.
Other defendants include the Departments of Justice, Transportation,
Commerce, Defense, Agriculture, Interior, and the Environmental Protection
Agency. Earthjustice is representing the Center for Biological Diversity,
Bluewater Network and the Sierra Club in this suit.

In signing the act into law, former president George Bush stated: “My action
today will place America upon a clear path toward a more prosperous, energy
efficient, environmentally sensitive, and economically secure future.”
Sadly, the federal government has strayed far afield from the former
President Bush’s “clear path.” This lawsuit is an effort to force a return
to the more “energy efficient, environmentally sensitive, and economically
secure future” envisioned by Congress when it drafted the act and the
President when he signed it into law.

“It is truly startling to find such wholesale non-compliance with a federal
statute whose purpose could not be more timely as we embark on a new round
of debates over the current President Bush’s proposed National Energy
Policy,” said Earthjustice attorney Jay Tutchton.

Congress passed the act to promote national security and environmental
protection by reducing oil consumption and boosting the use of domestic
replacement fuels. The act required the Department of Energy to develop and
oversee a plan to replace 10 percent of U.S. gas consumption with
alternative fuels by the year 2000 and 30 percent by 2010. It is no secret
that the year 2000 goal was not met. This failure is largely attributable to
the federal government’s failure to comply with the Energy Policy Act’s
requirements.

Under the act, all federal agencies with qualifying vehicle fleets (those in
larger cities) were required to purchase 25%, 33%, 50% and ultimately 75%
alternative fuel vehicles during fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999
respectively. For the year 2000 and beyond, the requirement remains at 75%.
Most federal agencies have not come close to meeting these minimums. For
example, the Department of Commerce purchased only 11% alternative fuel
vehicles in 1998, 16% in 1999 and 17% in 2000. Other defendants’ compliance
is similarly far short of the mark. Even the EPA purchased only 35%
alternative fuel vehicles in 1998 -- only a fraction of the Act’s 50%
requirement.

The Energy Policy Act further requires federal government agencies to
publicly submit annual compliance reports to Congress as well as publish
them in the Federal Register and post them on the Internet, which they have
not done. If they did, the public scrutiny encouraged by these reporting
requirements would reveal the agencies’ glaring non-compliance with the act.

"Using new technologies to clean up the air for our children's health is
what this law was designed to do. Why is the Bush administration pushing for
more oil burning when federal law requires it to take the lead in a
healthier direction?" asked Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological
Diversity.

"It's outrageous that even when the federal government is legally required
to reduce oil dependence, they can't do it. Their only policy is to buy oil,
and that's bad news for global warming and energy security, but good news
for oil sheiks," said Russell Long, Executive Director, Bluewater Network.

Loopholes within the Act allow federal fleet operators to purchase vehicles
that are alternative fuel capable, but do not require the vehicles to
actually run on the alternative fuel. Consequently, some fleet managers have
purchased vehicles that will run on either gasoline or ethanol and then
proceeded to run them on gasoline, completely thwarting the act’s goal of
reducing petroleum use and in violation of a 2000 Presidential Executive
Order.

The act further instructed the Department of Energy to consider extending
the alternative fuel fleet provisions to local government and private fleet
operators such as municipal fleets and private shipping companies if the
federal government did not meet the act’s goal of reducing gasoline use. The
Department of Energy states that it is working on such a rule, but has
missed deadlines contained within the act for this rulemaking by years.

Today’s lawsuit seeks compliance with the reporting and purchasing
requirements of the Act as well as the overdue rulemaking for local
government and private fleet operators.