By voting to increase fuel-economy standards for the first time in three decades, the Senate has told automakers: Enough delay, enough gas guzzlers, enough pollution and enough failure.

We urge the public to call on the House of Representatives to build on the Senate's momentum, reject the auto industry's desperate attempts to derail this progress and strengthen this compromise fuel- standards legislation to guarantee that it makes meaningful progress.

Fuel-economy standards have barely budged for 20 years, and the carefully balanced, bipartisan compromise that was included in the Senate's energy bill will get them moving ahead for the first time since the original Corporate Average Fuel Economy law was signed by President Ford in 1975.

The biggest single step that the United States can take to curb global warming and save oil is to raise the fuel economy of our cars and light trucks.

By making our cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles go farther on a gallon of gas, Americans can save billions of dollars at the pump, curb global-warming pollution and slash our dependence on oil, making our nation safer and more secure.

By achieving a 35-mile-per-gallon standard in 2020, the Senate bill will save us 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, save consumers $25 billion at the pump each year and create more than 170,000 new jobs.

In the coming weeks, the House will have the chance to make the same choice or stop this historic move forward dead in its tracks. U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., will offer an amendment to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's energy legislation with strong CAFE standards.

There will undoubtedly be attempts to slow down, defeat or weaken this amendment. If automakers were half as good at making efficient cars as they are at fighting new environmental and safety laws, they'd all be enjoying record profits.

They have been using the same excuses and scare tactics for decades to oppose every major improvement in safety and emissions. We can expect more of the same in the House.

The American people and the Senate saw through these cynical ploys. At a lunch with the CEOs of the big three U.S. automakers, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who was previously an opponent of CAFE increases, lambasted the executives for outrageous ads, claiming the Senate proposal would "take your pickup truck away."

In addition to continuing the progress made in the Senate on CAFE, the House will also have the chance to correct a major shortcoming of the Senate's energy package. Because of a series of procedural moves by a small group of senators, the Senate failed to include a modest renewable electricity standard, despite the support of a supermajority in the Senate and the fact that 23 states have already adopted similar standards.

An amendment requiring that 20 percent of America's electricity come from clean, renewable energy sources is expected to be voted on for inclusion in the House energy bill.

The House must take this opportunity to tell automakers to make the kind of vehicles that are good for consumers, good for the environment and, ultimately, good for the automakers themselves.

— Daniel Becker is the director of Sierra Club's Global Warming Program.