I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER GODDAMN WORD ABOUT MY CARBON FOOTPRINT (CONT’D): Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm hops into gas-guzzler in Boston. “The Department of Energy did not respond to a request for comment about the Suburban and how that squares with the discussions of sustainability and efficiency. It wasn’t immediately clear what year the SUV was.”
Plus: Feds fume over Herald’s Jennifer Granholm SUV gas story.
The Herald’s story about U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm riding around Boston in a gas-guzzling SUV has the federal department fuming.
Granholm made the front page in Saturday’s paper when she followed up her comments here about the need for more investment in efficient, sustainable infrastructure through President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill by hopping right into a Chevy Suburban Premier, which doesn’t rank particularly well in terms of environmental friendliness.
But the feds felt like the Herald’s focus on the “gas-guzzler” SUV was just pumping up a non-issue.
“Would the Herald run this kind of a story if it was a minivan? Shame to see journalism like this at a time when there a real dollars coming to Massachusetts that will lower costs and create jobs for families and workers,” a Department of Energy spokeswoman said in a statement emailed over on Saturday. . . .
The webpage maintained by Granholm’s own Department of Energy that is the government “official source” for fuel economy lookups pegs the 2021 Suburban at somewhere between 16 and 23 miles per gallon overall, depending on whether it’s using diesel, premium gas or regular gas. For city driving — as the slow going in the area right around Fenway is — the SUV can get as few as 14 miles per gallon.
A couple of quick Google searches show the Suburban — whose webpage on the Chevy website reads “Welcome to the big life” — showing up on multiple top-10 “gas-guzzlers” lists. . . .
To answer Granholm’s flak’s question about minivans — the least-fuel efficient one of those still gets overall 20 miles to the gallon, rating better than her sizable ride in both gas consumed and emissions, per her federal website.
Minivans aren’t cool, though.