As the ruptured deep-water oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has reminded us, our national reliance on gasoline often comes with harsh side effects.

So we continue to appreciate the leadership President Barack Obama has shown in trying to make our cars and trucks dramatically more fuel-efficient and cleaner.

In bypassing Congress on Friday — but with significant buy-in from automakers — Obama said his goal was to cut automobile air pollution and fuel use in half within 20 years.

It’s a heady goal, and one that will raise the price of vehicles. But ultimately we think it’s the right call, and will help prod automakers into making better vehicles.

The president’s latest move basically improves upon his landmark effort last year to streamline a patchwork of differing regulations and present clear national standards for cars and light trucks. The goal is to produce a vehicle fleet that averages 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

His new directive orders the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to further strengthen those requirements and extend them beyond 2016, but Obama did not specify new levels. Further, the new directive would for the first time require the big rigs that haul the nation’s freight to also meet fuel and emissions standards.

Another component of Obama’s mandate frees up further federal support for research and development that could produce better technologies, such as making electric cars more attractive to consumers.

Yes, last year’s mandate is expected to add as much as $1,300 to the cost of a new car, but depending on pump prices, it could be recouped since the cars would use less fuel.

The country could save 1.8 billion barrels of oil from 2012, when the original mandate begins, to 2016. That equals a year’s worth of oil imported from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria combined.

An odd confluence of events makes the president’s unilateral actions possible.

In the past, it was up to Congress to establish so-called Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. But mammoth California and a coalition of 13 other states sought tougher standards. Automakers argued for a uniform standard. Meanwhile, both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the EPA were developing standards.

Finally, Obama’s decision to bail out and essentially nationalize two of the Big Three meant that the auto lobby suddenly lacked any real clout in Washington.

Opponents say Americans still want bigger cars and trucks and that efficiency standards will lead to smaller cars that won’t be as safe or comfortable. We share some of those concerns, but trust the innovation and creativity automakers have displayed in recent years will remedy the situation.

Later this year, Nissan will begin sales of an all-electric sedan that seats five and travels 100 miles per charge. The Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid promises to get 230 mpg in city driving. It’s due out this year.

Those innovations weren’t coming fast enough, and government needed to play a role to spur that creativity.

Cutting greenhouse gases and reducing the need for oil is a goal we share with this administration, and these policies make sense to us on many levels.