HEADLINE: Report on Fuel Economy Is
Less Optimistic in Final Form
BYLINE: By
KEITH BRADSHER
DATELINE: DETROIT, July
30
BODY: As the House prepares to
debate this week how much automakers should improve the fuel economy of new
automobiles, a federal panel produced a carefully hedged report today saying
that considerable gains were possible but might pose safety risks.
The final report is less optimistic about the
opportunities for improving fuel economy than a draft report that the panel sent
to nine outside reviewers three weeks ago. The final report foresees significant
improvements in gas mileage over the next 15 years, instead of the 6 to 10 years
cited in the executive summary of the draft, and does not include a statement
that fuel-economy gains can be made with minimal changes in vehicles' weight and
minimal effects on safety.
The report immediately
became the subject of a tugging match pitting the White House and conservative
Republicans in Congress, who want the administration to decide fuel-economy
policy, against Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress, who want
Congress to pass a law raising gas mileage standards.
Each Transportation Department budget for the last six years has
contained a provision that bars the spending of any government money to review
or change fuel-economy policies. The provision was pushed through by Republican
majorities in the House and Senate to prevent President Bill Clinton from
raising gas-mileage standards. But the provision passed in last year's budget
bill, when President Clinton was still in office, remains in effect through
Sept. 30 and has prevented the Bush administration from pre-empting Congress by
taking action on fuel-economy regulations.
President
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney said earlier this year that they were
waiting for the report from a National Academy of Sciences panel before deciding
how to proceed on the fuel-economy portion of their energy policy. But Ari
Fleischer, the White House press secretary, said today that the budget provision
would allow administration officials only to read the study, not give it a more
serious review.
"The prohibition that the Congress has
passed on the administration reviewing the National Academy of Sciences' study
destines the study to gather dust until October," Mr. Fleischer said during his
daily briefing today. "And that's why the administration has strongly urged
Congress to remove the prohibition."
The House is
scheduled to take up the fuel-economy issue on Wednesday or Thursday. A bill
supported by conservative Republicans and sent to the House floor by the Energy
and Commerce Committee calls for the administration to require a small increase
by 2010 in the gas mileage of light trucks, a category that encompasses sport
utility vehicles, pickup trucks and minivans. Democrats and moderate Republicans
hope to amend that bill on the floor with a provision that would require light
trucks to begin achieving the same gas mileage as cars.
Current regulations require each automaker to produce a fleet of cars
with an average gas mileage of 27.5 miles a gallon and a fleet of light trucks
with an average of 20.7 miles a gallon. The regulations also allow automakers to
use a special system for calculating fuel economy that adds an extra 18 percent
to vehicles' actual fuel economy.
Another rule allows
automakers to add up to 1.2 miles a gallon to the actual fuel economy of their
fleets if they produce large numbers of vehicles that can burn either gasoline
or ethanol. While large numbers of these dual-fuel vehicles are being
manufactured, the report concluded that very few of them are burning ethanol,
and the report recommended that the program be canceled.
Politicians and lobbyists on both sides of the fuel-economy debate
argued today that the report supported their points of view while sparring over
changes made between the draft report and the final version.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who favors higher
fuel-economy standards, said, "Congress should act, and I think over all this is
a very positive report for increasing fuel efficiency." She
said that the report still favored her view that raising gas-mileage
standards would slow global-warming gas emissions and improve safety.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers took the opposite
view, contending that the report showed that fuel-economy issues were so complex
that they would have to be handled by the Transportation Department. In a
statement reviewing the report, the alliance chose to emphasize some statements
that had been changed between the draft report and the final report,
particularly regarding safety.
The final report said
that the shift toward smaller and lighter vehicles that followed sharp increases
in fuel economy during the Carter administration had been linked to "an
additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993." But other passages in the
report were less pessimistic about the safety consequences of an increase in
gas-mileage standards, and two panel members dissented from the majority on
whether there was even a connection between vehicle weight and the overall
number of traffic fatalities.
Auto industry lobbyists
and environmentalists alike contacted members of the panel after an article
about the draft report appeared in The New York Times on July 17, Paul R.
Portney, the panel's chairman, said at a news conference today. But the draft
report was reworked not because of outside contacts but because of 400 comments
received from the nine outside reviewers and because members of the panel
spotted errors in the draft report and changed their minds about some issues, he
said.
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Chart: "Toning Down a Report on Gas
Mileage" The final report from a National Academy of Sciences panel
on raising fuel-economy requirements was less optimistic than the draft report
sent to outside reviewers early this month. Here are some of the changes made
between the draft and final reports:
TIME PERIOD
FOR FUEL-ECONOMY GAINS: The 13-member panel said it had made a mistakein the
executive summary of its draft report in stating how long it would take to
improve gas mileage.
DRAFT REPORT: Technology
exists that could be incorporated into passenger cars and light-duty trucks,
within the next 6-10 years, which would provide significant improvements in fuel
economy.
FINAL REPORT: Technologies exist that,
if applied to passenger cars and light-duty trucks, would significantly reduce
fuel consumption within 15 years.
TRAFFIC SAFETY
EFFECTS OF HIGHER MILEAGE: The panel split, with two members writing a dissent
to say that fuel economy could be raised without affecting safety, while the
rest of the panel opted for warning of safety problems.
DRAFT REPORT: Significant fuel-economy gains in all vehicles can be
achieved with minimal or no weight reduction and therefore minimal negative
safety implications.
FINAL REPORT: Sentence
deleted.
OVERALL RECOMMENDATION The
committee toned down its final recommendation, saying that elected officials
should decide whether to require tougher fuel-economy standards.
DRAFT REPORT: Because of concerns about greenhouse
gas emissions and the level of oil imports, the federal government should
intervene to increase gradually the fuel economy of the personal vehicle fleet
beyond that expected to result from market forces alone.
FINAL REPORT: Because of concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and
the level of oil imports, it is appropriate for the federal government to ensure
fuel-economy levels beyond those expected to result from market forces
alone.
Document 524 of 739. 