Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the purpose of the amendment before us is very simply to increase CAFE , despite all the flaws with the CAFE system. This is not just a study as is being suggested. The purpose of this amendment is very clear from the wording of every single whereas clause and every resolve clause: it is to increase CAFE , despite the many flaws in the current CAFE system.

If anybody has any doubt about what the purpose of this amendment is, I urge them to read it, and particularly the last paragraph which urges the Senate not to recede to section 320 of the bill as passed by the House of Representatives, which prevents an increase in CAFE standards.

Now, some have said all this amendment does is provide for a study. Well, this is a study whose results have been prejudged and preordained, by the authors of this amendment, because there is not one word in this amendment about safety concerns, as the Senator from Missouri and my colleague from Michigan have talked about, or about the increase in the number of deaths which have resulted from CAFE . Those are not our allegations but safety experts' allegations. There is not one word in this amendment about the loss of American jobs and the discriminatory impact of CAFE against domestic production. I will get into that in a moment.

This isn't just a study we are talking about. The sense-of-the-Senate resolution specifically says that the Senate should not recede to a section in the House bill which prevents an increase in CAFE standards. It doesn't say anything about not receding to a section which prevents a study. It doesn't talk about a study which looks at highway safety, impact on domestic employment, favoritism toward imports, discriminatory impacts on domestic manufacturers and workers. It doesn't talk about that at all. There is not a word about any of these issues in this amendment--only about increasing the CAFE standards.

There are many flaws in the CAFE approach. My colleagues have already gone into some of those flaws at length. But first I want to again quote, very briefly, from the National Academy of Sciences' automotive fuel economy study, so that people don't think opposition to this amendment comes only from folks who have a lot of automobile production in their State--although we do and we are proud of it, and we are determined that it be treated fairly and sensibly. We surely stand for that, and we do so proudly. But this is the National Academy of Sciences speaking here. The National Academy of Sciences said the following in this automotive fuel economy study:

The CAFE approach to achieving automotive fuel economy has defects that are sufficiently grievous to warrant careful reconsideration of the approach.

`Defects that are sufficiently grievous.' There is not a word about studying those defects in this amendment. I have looked really hard through this amendment. I read it a couple of times this afternoon. I can't find anything about studying those defects that are `sufficiently grievous,' according to the National Academy of Sciences--that they should be part of the study. The purpose of this resolution is to increase CAFE , to bring about the result that CAFE is increased.

Now, why not do that? Why not increase CAFE ? Sure, let's just increase the number from 20 to 25, or 30 to 35, or 35 to 40. Why not? We will save fuel. The answer is, because there are a number of other considerations that have to be looked at, which weren't looked at when this CAFE system was put into place. CAFE has had a discriminatory impact on the domestic industry and has had a horrendous effect on safety and resulted in the loss of thousands of lives.

Now, the safety issue has been discussed this afternoon, but I want to just highlight one or two parts of it, although the Senator from Missouri has just spoken to it. There was a USA Today study. This isn't an auto industry study. This isn't an auto supplier study. This isn't the UAW study. This is a study by USA Today looking at statistics on automobile highway deaths. Here is what the USA Today study found. They found that in the 24 years since a landmark law to conserve fuel was passed, big cars have shrunk to less-safe sizes, and small cars have poured on the road, and, as a result, 46,000 people have died in crashes. They would have survived in bigger, heavier cars, according to the USA Today analysis of crash data since 1975 when the Energy Policy and Conservation Act was passed. The law and the corporate average fuel economy standards it imposed have improved fuel efficiency. The average passenger vehicle on U.S. roads gets 20 miles per gallon versus 14 miles per gallon in 1975. But the cost has been, roughly, 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained, this analysis shows.

Is it worth looking at fuel economy? Of course it is. Is it worth looking at 46,000 deaths? Is it worth putting that on the scale and at least looking at it? It sure ought to be. There is not a word about that in this resolution, nothing about safety. We are told this amendment is only about a study. Well, if so, it is the most one-sided study I have ever seen.

Now, it has been argued: Wait a minute, aren't these deaths the result of small cars running into big vehicles? Again, the study answers that. Tellingly, it says most small-crash deaths involve only small cars--56 percent in 1997, from the latest Government data. They run into something else, such as a tree, or into one another. In contrast, just 1 percent--according to this article--of small-car deaths occurred in crashes with midsize or big sport utility vehicles in 1997, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to the agency that enforces the safety rules.

That is one of the major problems with CAFE --the safety problem, the loss of life.

There are other problems as well. I would like to spend a few of the minutes allotted to me to talk about the discrimination of this system against domestic production. One of the many problems with CAFE is that it looks at the entire fleet. It looks at the average of the manufacturers' fleet. That fleet could be predominantly small in size. It could be predominantly medium in size. It could be predominantly large in size. It doesn't make any difference what your mix is; you must meet the same corporate fleet average.

If you have produced, for instance, historically many small vehicles, then because of the way the CAFE rules are jiggered, there are no effective limits on how many large vehicles you can sell. But if historically you have produced larger vehicles, then it has a tremendous impact on your production and a penalty for the production of more.

The result of this is that if, as in the case with the imports, you have focused on lighter vehicles rather than the heavier vehicles, which are very much now in demand, CAFE has no effect whatsoever on your production or on your sales. But if you are a domestic manufacturer that has focused on the larger vehicles, it has a huge effect on you and on the number of jobs you might have.

There is no logic or fairness to that kind of approach. CAFE didn't say you have to increase by 10 percent the efficiency of your light vehicles, or your medium-size vehicles, or your heavier vehicles. It says: Take your whole fleet together and reach a certain standard.

Some people say: Well, aren't the imports more fuel efficient? The answer is no. Pound for pound, there is no difference between an imported vehicle and a domestic vehicle. A domestic vehicle is probably a little bit more fuel efficient.

Take two vehicles of the same size. Take a GM and Toyota pickup truck--the GM Sierra, and the Toyota Tundra. They both weigh about the same. These are their highway ratings: 18 miles per gallon for the GM vehicle, and 17 miles per gallon for the Toyota vehicle. The GM vehicle is more fuel efficient than the Toyota. These are the same size vehicles. Now we are comparing apples and apples--not fleet averages which are apples and oranges, but apples and apples. The city rating is the same thing. The GM Sierra has a 15-miles-per-gallon rating. The Toyota Tundra has a 14-miles-per-gallon rating. So the discriminatory impact does not have anything to do with the efficiency of vehicles of the same size since, if anything, the domestic vehicle is at least as efficient as the import when you compare the same size vehicles.

Then where is the discriminatory impact? The discriminatory impact arises because the import manufacturers have tended to focus on the smaller vehicles instead of the larger vehicles. They have room to sell as many large vehicles as they want without any impact. CAFE does not affect them. Any manufacturer that has focused on the smaller vehicles instead of the larger suffers no impact when CAFE goes up.

Let's go back to that Tundra and that Sierra. How many more vehicles could General Motors sell? These are the same size vehicles. With the GM vehicle being slightly more fuel efficient than the Toyota vehicle, how many more can GM sell under CAFE ? None. How many more can Toyota sell? Over 300,000 more.

Does that do anything for the air? It is costing American jobs. It doesn't do a thing for the air. All it does is tell people if they want to buy a vehicle, a large vehicle, they have to buy the imported vehicle, and not the domestic one. The domestic manufacturer is penalized if it is produced under the CAFE approach.

CAFE was designed in a way--I don't think intentionally, and I pray to God it wasn't--but it was designed in a way which has a discriminatory impact on the domestic producer because of the way in which their fleets happened to be designed historically--because of the type of cars they sold historically--and not because the imported vehicle is more fuel efficient. It isn't.

These numbers are typical. If you have two vehicles of equal size, one import and one domestic, they are about the same in terms of fuel efficiency.

So when you increase CAFE , all you are saying is buy an import. That is what this thing drives people to do. The import manufacturer isn't penalized. There is no limit effectively on how many larger vehicles the import manufacturers can sell. It bites on the domestic manufacturers--not on the imports. That is a huge effect on jobs in America, with no advantage to the air.

Do we think it does good to the air to tell people to buy yourself a Tundra instead of a Sierra? Does that do anything for the air? Quite the opposite. It hurts the air. The Tundra is not as fuel efficient as the Sierra. Yet there is no penalty whatsoever under CAFE for the import manufacturer selling basically an unlimited number of heavy vehicles.

We have a system in place now which has had a very negative effect on safety and an increase in the number of highway deaths. These are not our figures but figures of people who are on the outside looking at the statistics of the highway safety folks. It has had a negative effect in terms of domestic versus imports, which is discriminatory.

Again, I want to emphasize this. It is a very important point. Some people think the imports are more fuel efficient. They are not.

It is the key point. They are not more fuel efficient--slightly less; if I had to characterize--there is no difference, basic difference, pound for pound.

What does this amendment do? It expands the current system. We have CAFE ; let's increase the CAFE standards. Let's not even look at impact on safety, increased highway deaths, or discriminatory impact on domestic production. That is not referred to in this amendment. Just fuel. That is it.

But CAFE's discriminatory impact takes such a narrow vision, a narrow view on jobs in America. I hope this amendment is defeated. It is pointing in a very narrow direction, in a direction which ignores the discriminatory impact on jobs in America. It ignores safety issues and focuses on one piece of an issue, ignoring totally the other parts.

Finally, the Government and the private sector or private industry have put together a partnership for new vehicles. This partnership is focusing on new technologies and new materials, trying to see if we cannot find ways to have larger vehicles with higher fuel economy. This partnership is looking at lightweight materials, advanced batteries, fuel cells, hybrid electric propulsion systems; experimental concepts sometimes, but things which will--in a cooperative way--achieve the kind of goal which CAFE theoretically was aimed at achieving. This partnership approach for a new generation of vehicles is working. It is in operation now. It is the right way to go. The Government contribution to this partnership has been about $220 million a year. The private sector's annual contribution to this partnership has been slightly under $1 billion a year. We have this investment in a partnership, in a new generation of vehicles which is aimed at achieving significant improvements in fuel efficiency without the downsides, which have been described here--the negative safety impacts and the negative effects on domestic production. That partnership is now in its fourth year. We should allow that partnership to proceed. It is on a cooperative track, aimed at achieving goals without such negative side effects.

I hope the Senate will reject this resolution and will keep on the partnership track which is being so productively followed.