Advertisement

Panel blasts expanded CAFE standards

By LISA TROSHINSKY, for United Press International

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The adoption of stricter fuel economy standards for U.S. automobiles would be synonymous with murder, claim two Washington think tanks.

This is because requiring auto makers to manufacture cars and light trucks that get more miles per gallon inevitably means producing smaller vehicles, which are unsuited to protect passengers during a crash, said panel members at a news conference sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Advertisement

At issue is upgrading the Corporate Average Fuel Economy program, known as CAFE, a law enacted in 1975 in reaction to the 1973 oil embargo as a way to conserve gasoline and reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil. The current CAFE standard for passenger cars is 27.5 mpg; for light trucks, it is 20.7 mpg.

The Senate will soon vote on the so-called Kerry bill, proposed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., that would combine the CAFE standard for cars and light trucks, and raise the standard to an average of 35 mpg by 2013. If the current standard was a combined average, it would be 24.5 mpg. The bill would also remove fuel economy exemptions currently given to sport utility vehicles.

Advertisement

The Kerry bill is part of the broader energy bill, which went to the Senate floor last week. Legislators expect to have a vote on CAFE in about two weeks, said David Wade, Kerry's press secretary. The House passed the energy bill last summer, which included no CAFE improvements.

Proponents of raising the CAFE standard say it would reduce oil imports and protect the environment.

James MacKenzie, senior associate at the liberal World Resources Institute, argues that "Oil, cars and the battle in the Persian Gulf are intimately linked. We're doing battle in the Gulf to support and protect our lines of oil. We're importing half our oil now; two-thirds of our oil consumption is for transportation. We should change the standard to require that light trucks achieve the same standards as do cars."

Alex Veitch, spokesman for the Global Warming and Energy Program at the Sierra Club, says: "The only provision in the Senate Energy bill that would cut out dependence on oil and save money at gas pumps is the provision to increase CAFE standards. If the standard was raised, in 10 years time you would save more oil each day than we currently import from Iraq and Kuwait combined."

Advertisement

But those against increasing CAFE -- a position held by all the members of Tuesday's Heritage/CEI panel -- say the regulation doesn't solve the problems it sets out to fix, and significantly increases safety hazards.

"CAFE kills between 1,300 and 2,600 people per year," Sam Kazman, general counsel at CEI, said at the event. "For single vehicle crashes, there is a four to eight times higher death rate for people who crash in small cars."

"The bill would increase the (CAFÉ) standard by 50 percent within 10 years, which is physically impossible to do (in terms of manufacturing), according to the recent National Academy of Sciences report," said panelist Barry Felrice, senior manager of regulatory affairs at Daimler Chrysler.

Felrice also said that combining the fuel standard average for cars and light trucks would put companies like Daimler Chrysler, whose main line of business is light trucks like SUVs, at a disadvantage.

"Since 65 percent of our business is trucks, which have a lower fuel economy than cars, our average car fuel standard would have to be 78 mpg to comply with the combined 35 mpg average," he said.

"The problem CAFE is solving is the envy of people who can't afford SUVs," said panelist Robert Crandall, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Crandall said CAFE doesn't decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil or improve the environment because studies show that when cars burn less gas, consumers drive more.

Advertisement

"Consumers want big, fuel inefficient cars," Crandall said. "There are other solutions to the oil and environment problem, like subsidizing domestic oil production, and a carbon tax, which would target not only gasoline, but all carbon rich fuels."

David Montgomery, vice president of the economic consulting firm Charles River Associates, said at the Heritage/CEI event that there are costs associated with CAFE standards other than safety.

"There are the costs of technical fixes to make autos be more fuel efficient; costs of mixed shifting, which is when the manufacturer can't get the cars up to standard and they price the products so people won't buy trucks and people are induced to choose vehicles that are not their first choice; and the cost of lost performance, like acceleration and drivability," he said.

"Raising the CAFE standard to 35 mpg would increase the cost of an SUV by 10 percent over one year and add more than 20 percent to the cost of a new car," Montgomery said. "A 1 percent change in price equals reduction of 15 percent in new car sales, which would equal a 10 percent drop in employment in the car industry."

Advertisement

Regarding the issue of safety, Wade said the recent NAS study found there will be "no downside on safety by raising CAFE," and that automobile companies can increase fuel efficiency with technologies without decreasing vehicle size.

But Felrice argues that although fuel efficiency has increased 1.5 percent a year for the past 20 years due to new technology, added safety and luxury components desired by consumers add weight to the autos, which brings down the overall fuel efficiency.

"Consumers don't value fuel economy because the price of gas is so low," Felrice said. "New technology is going for luxuries."

Latest Headlines