Audi Availability?

According to Autobloggreen, available in England, this Audi A4 TDI Diesel gets 46 miles per gallon.....

Meanwhile, the gasoline based A4 which is sold in the US gets a modest 30 miles per gallon.

So Americans are stuck with cars that get lower mileage, and the US government refuses any attempt to increase domestic oil production.

From James Lileks.

It’s not that we cannot produce any more oil; you suspect that some are motivated by the belief, perverse as it sounds, that we should not. We should not drill 50 miles off shore on the chance someone in Malibu takes a hot-air balloon up 1000 feet and uses a telephoto lens to scan the horizon for oil platforms. Also, there are ecological concerns. (The ocean is a wee place, easily disturbed.) There’s something else that may well be my imagination, but I can’t quite shake the feeling: high gas prices and shortages of oil make some people feel good. This is the way it has to be. Oil is bad. Cars are bad. Cars make suburbs possible. Suburbs are the antithesis of the way we should live, which is stacked upon one another in dense blocks tied together by happy whirring trains. So some guy who drives to work alone has to spend more money for the privilege of being alone in his car listening to hate radio?
Good.
Yes, I know, projection and demonizaton and oversimplification. But this is true: there’s a side of the domestic political structure that opposes expansion of domestic energy production, be it drilling or nukes or more refineries.
The long-term upside seems indistinct, and the short-term downside seems rude and obvious.