Senators push fuel standard
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Printable FormatProposal calls for 1-m.p.g. jump annually
Detroit Free Press
WASHINGTON -- Fuel economy standards for cars and trucks would increase about 1 mile per gallon annually, unless federal regulators could justify smaller increases, under a bill unveiled Wednesday by a bipartisan group of eight senators.
The bill, spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., escalates the political pressure on automakers, which have fought any proposal to set targets for fuel economy improvements. While the bill also includes several incentives for companies and consumers to speed the spread of more efficient vehicles, the bill's sponsors say national security requires automakers to do more to reduce the nation's thirst for oil.
"It is clear that the Achilles heel of the most powerful country on Earth is the oil we import and cannot live without," Obama said in a statement, noting that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have advocated attacking oil infrastructure to disrupt American society.
The Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, the industry trade group that includes General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG and Toyota Motor Corp., said it opposes the proposal because the auto industry is rolling out fuel-efficient technologies as fast as it can.
"We already have a process in place where the government crushes all the data and comes up with a maximum feasible fuel economy standard," alliance spokeswoman Gloria Bergquist said. If the bill's increases "were feasible today, they'd be set today."
More lawmakers have championed higher fuel economy standards as gas prices have hovered around $3 per gallon and oil prices have surged to near $80 a barrel amid conflict in the Middle East. The average fuel economy of U.S. vehicles has been stagnant for several years, with consumers preferring more power and luxury than fuel economy.
Most automakers have long opposed the idea of federal fuel economy rules and have argued that increases would hurt U.S. jobs, decrease vehicle safety and save little, if any, fuel.
Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set tougher mileage standards for pickups, sport-utility vehicles and vans for the 2008-11 model years, raising the average from 21.6 m.p.g. to 24 m.p.g. But the 27.5 m.p.g. standard for passenger cars hasn't been raised since 1986.
When it increased truck standards, NHTSA also changed how automakers meet the goal, setting a model-by-model standard rather than an average from a company's truck sales. Automakers had long complained that hitting the average forced them to build vehicles that customers didn't want and limit popular but fuel-thirsty models.
In April, President George W. Bush asked Congress for authority to revamp the car standards just as NHTSA had done for trucks. But that proposal has been trapped in the House as several lawmakers backed a proposal to raise average fuel economy standards to 33 m.p.g. over the next 10 years.
Under the senators' proposal, NHTSA could still set a car-by-car standard but would assume those standards will increase by 4% a year. The agency could reduce or stop the increases if it found they weren't feasible, safe or justified by the cost of fuel and companies could trade credits under the system.
The bill would also create tax incentives for automakers and auto-parts suppliers that revamp old factories to produce fuel-efficient technologies. It also would remove the cap on tax credits for hybrid vehicles, a provision Detroit automakers had backed to minimize the benefits to foreign competitors.