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Cut Diesel Taxes

Diesel engines are about 30 percent more efficient than comparable gasoline engines. The EPA estimates that if one-third of Americans drove diesel vehicles, we'd save 1.4 million barrels of oil a day. So why aren't diesel engines creating the same buzz as hybrids? "People think diesel is very dirty because of the old days," says Lucian Pugliaresi of the Energy Policy Research Foundation. In fact, the transition to ultralow sulfur diesel, completed last December, means that diesel fuel now has at least 97 percent less sulfur. But federal excise taxes are higher on diesel than on gasoline (see chart at right), hampering its adoption. State taxes are lower on average, but that could change. For example, this year the Arkansas House of Representatives approved a bond measure asking voters in 2012 to pass a nickel-a-gallon tax increase on diesel. The public should realize that raising these fees would undercut a technology that squeezes more energy out of each barrel of oil.