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 he Sierra Club
awarded Ford Motor Company the "Exxon Valdez Award"
for environmental destruction to recognize Ford's newest sport-utility
vehicle (SUV), the Excursion. The Excursion is a four-ton "super
duty" sport utility vehicle that guzzles enough gas to make
Saddam Hussein smile. At a time of mounting concern over global
warming, air pollution, and oil exploration in fragile wilderness
areas, this gas-guzzling SUV is a rolling monument to environmental
destruction.
 The nine-passenger Excursion
is a suburban supertanker, stretching more than 19 feet in length
and slurping one gallon of gasoline for every 12 miles it travels.
This "suburban assault vehicle" spews as much global
warming pollution into the air as two average cars.
"The Excursion guzzles
gas and pollutes the air," said Daniel Becker, Director
of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. "It's
basically a garbage truck that dumps its pollution into the sky."
The Excursion is so large
that it won't be classified as a "light vehicle," the
category for normal-sized cars, trucks and SUVs. The Sierra Club
is urging the Clinton Administration to strengthen clean-air
laws so the Excursion and other SUVs will be allowed to pollute
no more than cars.
"The Ford Excursion is
a rolling ad for improving auto pollution standards," Becker
said. "The Clinton Administration is deciding how much to
restrict pollution from SUVs, and their proposal has a loophole
big enough to drive a Ford Excursion through. Ford has cost-effective
technology sitting on the shelf that would improve gas mileage
and cut pollution. That technology would more than pay for itself
for consumers in lower gasoline costs."
Last year the Sierra Club
held a tongue-in-cheek contest on the internet to "Name
That Gas Guzzler." Web surfers who visited the site offered
humorous names and slogans for Ford's then-unnamed behemoth.
The Sierra Club's winning
name for Ford's new road hog was "The Ford Valdez Have You
Driven a Tanker Lately?" Ford Motor Company has apparently
decided not to use the Sierra Club's suggestion.
Ford's Excursion was conspicuously
absent from their display at the Detroit Auto Show in January.
At a time Ford Motor Company is stressing a new-found commitment
to the environment, the massive gas-guzzler projects the wrong
image. On December 21, 1998, Business Week quoted a Ford
insider as saying, "The Excursion isn't a thing you want
to roll out with trumpets and brass bands." 
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