Today Show (12-17-02)

ANN CURRY, co-host: But first, more than one of every four vehicles sold in America today is an SUV, making it the most popular vehicle on the road. Well now one group is fueling a fiery controversy producing television ads saying that the extra gas guzzled by your SUV makes it a threat to national security. Well, syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington is the co-founder of the new group Americans For Fuel Efficient Cars, and Csaba Csere is the editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine.

Good morning to both of you.

Ms. ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Good morning.

Mr. CSABA CSERE (Editor-in-Chief, Car And Driver Magazine): Good morning.

CURRY: Ari--Arianna, first to you. Your ad campaign, which is--the ads are running in January, tries to convince Americans to give up their SUVs, having SUV drivers saying things like, 'I helped hijack an airplane.' 'I helped blow up a nightclub.' 'I gased 40,000 Curds.' Are you saying that people who are driving SUVs are contributing to terrorism?

Ms. HUFFINGTON: Ann, we're using the exact same logic that the Bush administration is using in the drug war ads it is running, which claim that using drugs has financed terrorism. We are saying that there's a much more credible link, if you accept that logic, between using gas guzzling cars like SUVs and supporting terrorism, given that Saudi Arabia, for example, is our second largest foreign oil supplier. We import 740,000 oil barrels a day from Iraq, and clearly our oil addiction is becoming an impediment in our ability to fight the war on terror.

CURRY: You use these ads as well as your Web site which has a script that includes, in part, "Oil money supports some terrible things. If you drive an SUV you may too."

Ms. HUFFINGTON: Well...

CURRY: Csaba Csere, what--what do you think? I'm going to turn to Mr. Csere. What do think about this message and that--that if you own an SUV, if you drive an SUV, you are supporting terrorism?

Mr. CSERE: Well, first off, the United States only imports about 12 percent of its oil from the Middle East, so the argument that all of our oil money is going to the Middle East is ludicrous. That 12 percent is not being purchased from the Osama Petroleum Company. Furthermore, I don't know why you would want to demonize just SUVs, pickup trucks, as a whole, get mileage just as poor as SUVs do and so do a lot of other vehicles. I mean, the--the--the most inefficient vehicles on the market are limousines in New York City that are sitting there idling curbside going nowhere. They get zero miles per gallon. So I don't know why we want to pick on the SUVs that are so popular.

CURRY: OK. Now, Arianna, I know that you've driven in a few limousines, even though you drive a Toyota, so what do you have to say about what he just said?

Ms. HUFFINGTON: Well, first of all, let me just say that we don't want to demonize anyone. I was driving an SUV myself up until a year ago, a gas guzzling Lincoln Navigator that got 13 miles a gallon. It was really September 11th and the fact that we all want to do something for the war effort that made me give up my SUV and now I'm driving a Prius, a Toyota Prius, 52 miles per gallon. And the fact is that I can transport my two kids to school without any problem. You know, we are at war. We are being told that again and again. We are on the brink of war with Iraq. There is no question that importing so much oil from the Middle East is compromising our ability to play hard ball with anti-American, terrorist supporting, regimes all around the Middle East.

CURRY: But Arianna, I have to interrupt because, you know, what Mr. Csere also said is that the US is buying its oil from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, two countries who support the US in the war against terrorism. There seems to be the rub.

Ms. HUFFINGTON: Oh, Ann. Ann, here we are. Saudi Arabia is clearly supporting terrorism. We have the evidence of charitable donations from Saudi Arabia going into the hi--two of the hijacker's accounts. We have evidence of them supporting suicide bombers. There is no question that the fact that we are kowtowing to Saudi Arabia is prompted by our dependence on them for oil. And really all we want to do with this campaign is what the Designated Driver campaign did in the '80s. We want to make it really patriotic to give up our SUVs, to affect people's behavior by encouraging them, by educating them, by asking them to connect the dots between our lifestyle choices and our ability to fight effectively the war on terrorism. And we also want to ask our leaders to pass legislation that would improve fuel efficiency standards. And ask Detroit to produce SUVs, for example, that use hybrid technology, to use the entrepreneurial spirit of America to improve the cars we have on the road.

CURRY: All right. I'm going to need to interrupt you because I need to ask Csaba Csere a question.

Mr. CSERE: Well...

CURRY: Go ahead. Go...

Mr. CSERE: Well, there's--there's a huge variety of SUVs on the market right now. Some of them are large, some of them are small, some are medium-sized. You can't simply paint this entire class of vehicles with a broad brush and then say they're all inefficient. And furthermore, you know, a Toyota Prius is a fine car, but it barely holds four people. It doesn't work for everybody. If you have a boat, if you want to tow something, if you have two kids and want to carry the neighbor kids someplace else you need a larger vehicle and a lot of Americans are very satisfied with a medium-sized SUV that provide tremendous utility.

CURRY: That said, I need to ask you this. There seems to be a bit of a drum beat, Jumba--Csaba Csere, because not only have we heard this from Hollywood, but--but there also has been a message from Evangelical Christians in the Mi--Middle America saying--asking with ads, "Would Jesus have driven an SUV'? Do you hear the drum beat?

Mr. CSERE: Well, and I don't know quite where this comes from because, you know, SUVs are somehow being painted as unsafe, inefficient, hurting people. The fact is...

CURRY: Well, they are. But--but--but a lot of them are inefficient if you're only getting something like 15 miles a gallon.

Ms. HUFFINGTON: You know, Ann--you know, you are correct.

Mr. CSERE: Well, some of them are. But a lot of vehicles--but pickup trucks are just as inefficient. You know, when you ask, 'What would Jesus drive?' Jesus was a carpenter. He'd probably be driving a full-sized pickup truck that's every bit as inefficient as a--a large SUV.

Ms. HUFFINGTON: You know, Ann, you are--you are--Ann, you asked--you asked--Ann, you asked where is this coming from? It's really coming from the people. I just wrote a column posing the possibility for such a campaign and I was overwhelmed by the response, over 5,000 e-mails from people ranging from businessmen to students, including people out of work, offering to make a contribution to get these ad--ads on the air.

CURRY: Well...

Ms. HUFFINGTON: Our ads were made entirely by contributions from ordinary citizens, $5, $10...

CURRY: Well, what--what...

Ms. HUFFINGTON: ...that made it possible for us to produce them. That shows the people really want to get involved. In the second World War we were actually expected to do with three--only three gallons of gas per week, and here we are being actually extremely...

Mr. CSERE: But there's a fine...

Ms. HUFFINGTON: ...extravagant with our oil consumption.

CURRY: I'm--I'm sorry, you two. I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt. Obviously, this debate is to be continued. Arianna Huffington and Csaba Csere, thank you both for letting us begin this debate this morning.

Ms. HUFFINGTON: Thank you.