Roger Melanson, minister of New Brunswick’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, today announced aggressive new fuel-efficiency standards for passenger vehicles sold and used in the province.

The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency standards, widely considered to be the benchmark for North American fuel-efficiency, call for an average fuel-efficiency for passenger vehicles of 35.5 mpg in 2016, rising to 41.7 mpg in 2020 and 54.5 mpg by 2025. Melanson, however, called the Americans “wusses” for setting such unambitious targets and announced New Brunswick’s own fuel-efficiency goals.

The initiative calls for all vehicles sold and operated within the province to have a minimum fuel-efficiency of 100 mpg (US) or 2.35 l/100km by 2018. Any vehicle that does not meet this minimum efficiency will be illegal to operate after Dec 31, 2017.

“We recognize the hardships that this will place on New Brunswickers,” explained Melanson. “However, we believe that to fight climate change we must all make sacrifices. We hope that the rest of the world will follow our example.”

Anh Tuan