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Focuses on fuel-economy and safety regulations in the U.S. automobile industry. Reasons why the automobile industry as resisted U.S. governmental efforts to improve fuel-efficiency; Review of the last 15 years in the auto industry, noting that gas has been relatively cheap and a lack of motivation to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles; Breakdown of the costs in the industry, noting bigger, gas-guzzling vehicles generate higher profits; Comments from a General Motors Corp. spokesman regarding fuel-economy policies in America; Results of new research suggesting smaller cars can be just as safe as bigger vehicles; Comments from David L. Greene, a research fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy research lab, who co-authored a research paper on automobile crashes; Conventional wisdom regarding automobile safety that Greene's paper refutes; Speculation about new fuel-economy regulations.

The article reports that technological innovation has led to a sharp increase in energy efficiency and is actually a net saver of energy by a 10-to-1 ratio across the economy. This is the finding of a report released today by the Technology CEO Council. The paper, written by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, found that it takes half the energy to produce $1 of economic output than it did in 1970 and that energy savings has soared since 1996.