03-23-2002
POLITICS: America Keeps On Trucking
What do values have to do with gas mileage? A lot, as it turns out. The
great "values" divide defined the 2000 presidential election
map. Now it has transformed a debate over fuel-economy standards into a
cultural showdown and, in the process, demolished any hope for a new
federal energy policy.
Environmentalists favor higher fuel-economy standards as a way to reduce
air pollution and combat global warming. September 11 gave them an even
stronger argument: "We can completely rid ourselves of all of the
dependence" on oil from Saudi Arabia by adopting a 35 miles per
gallon fleet average, Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D.,
observed. The nation's current fuel-economy average is just 24 mpg-and
dropping.
Opponents of higher standards argue that the change would cost jobs and
would discriminate against U.S. automakers. And when stricter standards
came before the Senate, the proposal was portrayed as an attack on the
American way of life.
Brandishing a photograph of a European mini-car, Senate Minority Leader
Trent Lott, R-Miss., proclaimed: "We should not have the federal
government saying you are going to drive the `purple people eater' shown
here.... This type of car may be fine in Boston or Chicago, but it is not
fine in Lucedale, Mississippi, or Des Moines, Iowa."
Nonsense, liberals protested. Boosting fuel economy is not a matter of
lifestyle. It's a matter of technology. "Here is the truth,"
Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., argued, brandishing a different photo.
"This is the Ford Motor Company's own advertisement. They advertise
an SUV ... that gives you all the room and power you want but uses half
the gasoline."
The auto industry countered by mobilizing a powerful ally: rural America.
"Farming's tough enough with healthy-size pickups," a farmer
declared in a newspaper ad sponsored by the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers. "Imagine hauling feed barrels around in a
subcompact." The rallying cry was "Save our pickup
trucks!"
"I submit to you, the back of the pickup truck is the `think tank' of
rural America," Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., said on the Senate floor.
Think he's kidding? The pickup has proven to be a powerful symbol. Ask
Sen. Fred D. Thompson, R-Tenn., who first campaigned in 1994 by driving
around the state in one. Ask Victor Morales, the Texas Democrat who was
propelled to victory in the 1996 Senate primary from his pickup truck. Or
ask gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno, who's campaigning across Florida
in hers.
According to the automakers' alliance, 18 of the 19 Democrats who voted
against higher mileage standards are from states where fewer new cars were
registered last year than new "light trucks," including pickups,
vans, and SUVs.
The March 13 Senate vote on raising corporate average fuel economy
standards turned into a collision of values. Both Senators from 13 states
voted to toughen the CAFE standards. They represent much of the Northeast
(Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island,
and Vermont); the Pacific Rim (California, Hawaii, Oregon, and
Washington); plus Florida and Minnesota. Support for tougher fuel
standards was concentrated in "National Public Radio America."
The heartland, by contrast, didn't like the idea.
The Senate rejected higher mileage standards, by a 62-38 vote. Opponents
had courted two key constituencies that had favored Al Gore in 2000:
auto-producing states, such as Michigan, Maryland, and Wisconsin; plus
suburban women.
Why do many women like to drive vehicles that resemble armored personnel
carriers? Safety is a big reason. "We have to cope with road
rage," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., asserted. "We have to
cope with 18-wheelers ... just barreling down toward us."
Safety concerns were buttressed by a National Academy of Sciences report
concluding that CAFE standards might have caused from 1,300 to 2,000
additional highway deaths in 1993 because they reduced average car size.
Supporters of higher standards countered that greater fuel efficiency can
now be obtained without significantly reducing vehicle size or
weight.
For soccer moms, however, the argument was about convenience as well as
safety. "American women love SUVs," according to Mikulski.
"When you are a soccer mom and you are ... carpooling or have kids
with gear, you need large capacity."
One suburban mother complained in an industry-sponsored radio ad,
"The government wants to take away my SUV."
In the end, an economic issue turned into a cultural issue.
Environmentalists got run off the road by a powerful alliance between
rural America and the suburbs. The SUVs and the pickup trucks left the
environmentalists in the dust. So what's left of a new energy plan? Mainly
President Bush's proposal to allow limited oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. And that initiative faces near-certain death in
the Senate. If liberals have to give up on new fuel-efficiency standards
and conservatives lose on new drilling, not much room for compromise will
remain.
What about the national security argument for energy independence? There's
a counterargument to that, too: If Americans are forced to drive smaller
cars, the terrorists will have won.
William Schneider
National Journal
