Carhenge. (Photo by Marshall Mayer)

The Obama administration has already established a standard 35.5 mile-per-gallon fuel-efficiency average for cars, light trucks and SUVs manufactured in 2016 and beyond. The discussion now is over how much the standard should be increased to by 2025. The administration has slated an announcement on its decision about this for September.

Eco-advocates are seeking a 62-mpg standard. The big car companies, including GM, the one that taxpayers still own one-fourth of, are aghast. It's the usual whine, which comes down to the usual claim: no-can-do, too-expensive, unsafe.

Rank-and-file Americans should be deluging the White House to make that 62-mpg standard a reality. Not only would it save them gobs of money, but a soon-to-be-released study by Ceres Coalition concludes that it also would generate 700,000 jobs in 2030:

Boston-based Ceres said the employment boom would come if the Obama administration adopted this fall a 6 percent increase per year in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which would roughly equal 62 miles per gallon by 2025. "Less money spent at the pump means more money for the U.S. economy and more jobs," said Ceres spokesman Peyton Fleming. "The weaker the standard the fewer the jobs that will be created."

The analysis on improved fuel-efficiency standards was conducted by Management Information Services, Inc. Findings:

Job Creation: A net gain of nearly 700,000 full-time jobs nationwide in 2030. 60,000 of these would be in the automobile industry.

Savings and redirected money: $152 billion in fuel savings at the pump in 2030 over business as usual. Of that total, $59 billion would accrue to the automobile industry as part of the purchase price of cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

In addition, a 62-mpg standard would consume roughly 2.0-2.5 billion fewer gallons of gasoline in 2030, in the range of 35-40 percent less than what is now consumed annually.

Fleming told Daily Kos that the findings are based on an estimated $3200 increase in the 2030 cost of making vehicles burn fuel more cleanly and efficiently. Assumptions are that about 18 million new light-duty vehicles will be sold that year. For purposes of the analysis, gasoline prices were assumed to be an inflation-adjusted $3.54 a gallon in 2030. That seems low, perhaps, but if it is, then the savings and shifted spending would be even greater. The analysts based their gasoline prices on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2011 Annual Energy Outlook projections.

The incremental costs, Fleming said, are based on findings in the Technical Assessment Report produced by the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board in September 2010 for their path “B” 6 percent per year case.

The full report will be released in late July along with state-by-state job impact estimates.

Of course, in an even better scenario, most newly manufactured cars and light trucks will no longer fuel themselves with gasoline at all in 20 years. But reaching that goal will require considerably more political will to confront the car companies (including the one the taxpayers bailed out and still own a hunk of) than seems to exist in Washington at the moment.