04-06-2002
LOBBYING: Running on All Cylinders
The advertisements painted a grim, at times apocalyptic, future for
millions of American motorists. If the Senate required the auto industry
to meet stiffer fuel-efficiency standards, the ads warned, soccer moms
would be forced out of their sport-utility vehicles, and farmers would
have to give up their pickup trucks.
One of the spots-which were mostly paid for by the auto industry-declared
that hauling snowmobiles would be left to compact cars rather than to the
family's beloved SUV or prized pickup. A small-business owner popped up in
another ad. He and his truck were "joined at the hip," he said,
and Congress would "put both of us out of business" if it voted
to raise the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards.
Detroit's seven-figure ad blitz, on radio and in print, was part of a
huge, coordinated lobbying campaign by auto manufacturers, auto dealers,
and the United Auto Workers of America to defeat Senate legislation that
would have hiked CAFE standards by 50 percent over the next 14
years.
Aired and published inside the Beltway and in about 10 largely rural
states, the ads helped put the auto-labor alliance over the top on March
13, when the Senate voted 62-38 to delete specific mileage requirements
from a pending energy bill. The successful measure, backed by 19 Democrats
and 43 Republicans, directs the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration to study the fuel-efficiency issue for two years and to
come up with an alternative mileage proposal that must weigh the impact on
jobs and auto safety.
The carmakers spent lavishly to win over key Democrats from rural states
and those Senators facing tight re-election contests. The Big Three pulled
out their checkbooks to retain Beltway lobbyists well connected on Capitol
Hill. Detroit also hired grassroots consulting firms to gin up public
opposition to tougher standards. Perhaps most important, it called on the
vaunted grassroots muscle of the UAW and the National Automobile Dealers
Association to hammer home warnings about the increased costs and
lifestyle sacrifices for ordinary Americans if the mileage standards were
raised.
"In a nearly evenly divided Senate, when labor breaks with the
Democrats, it's almost impossible for the Democratic-environmentalist
position to prevail," says Larry Sabato, a government professor at
the University of Virginia. "Some liberal Democrats are so closely
aligned with labor that they're not going to turn their backs on a union
on a bread and butter issue."
"When you line up the manufacturers, the UAW, and the dealers, you
have a powerful coalition," says Robert Liberatore, the top in-house
Washington lobbyist for DaimlerChrysler Corp. But he insisted that the key
to victory was that the environmentalists and their Senate allies
"overreached."
Environmental groups and their congressional backers-which included 31
Senate Democrats, six Republicans, and independent James M. Jeffords of
Vermont-counter that it was the auto industry that overreached by making
exaggerated claims of dire consequences.
"The shocking thing to me is that Senators fell for the irresponsible
and backward-looking approach of Detroit," says Dan Becker, the
Sierra Club's director of energy and global warming policy. "The Big
Three took a Luddite approach," and ignored technology that would
allow them to meet tougher requirements. Becker and others note, for
instance, that next year Ford Motor Co. is slated to unveil an SUV that
gets 40 mpg.
To defeat tougher CAFE standards, the auto lobbyists adopted "the
same line that they took in 1975," says Sen. Richard J. Durbin,
D-Ill. Detroit insisted it has to make "fatter, bigger, and heavier
cars," adds Durbin, noting that Detroit's "lack of progress in
technology and inability to compete with foreign auto companies is
indefensible."
First passed by Congress in 1975 and amended in 1989, CAFE standards
currently require light trucks, including SUVs and minivans, to get 20.7
mpg, while passenger cars and other vehicles have a standard of 27.5 mpg.
But the average mileage of all vehicles sold in the country has been
declining over the past decade and is now close to 24 mpg, largely because
of Americans' love for light trucks and SUVs, which account for about half
of all new vehicle sales.
Many environmental groups backed a measure sponsored by Sens. John F.
Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., that would have raised the
fuel-efficiency standard for all vehicles to 36 mpg by 2016.
Durbin complains that the Big Three "couldn't come in and defend
themselves on the issue, so they sent in the workers. It troubles me,
because I think the workers have been misled."
Still, many analysts were surprised that the amendment introduced by Sens.
Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., killing the stiffer
CAFE rules passed so easily. After all, the nation is in a war against
terrorism, and America still depends heavily on imported foreign oil.
Backers of the Kerry-McCain measure said that it could have saved up to
2.5 million barrels of oil per day, roughly what's imported from the
Middle East, and would have benefited the environment.
But the auto industry's lobbying and advertising trumped that argument
with a "pretty clear" message that focused on "jobs, the
economy, consumer choice, and safety," says Ken Cole, who runs the
Washington office of General Motors Corp.
The auto lobby and its allies followed a familiar playbook. The UAW and
the auto dealers trade group concentrated on key rural states and those
places with major auto plants. One result was that three out of the four
Democratic Senators from the Dakotas-the exception was Majority Leader
Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota-voted for the Levin-Bond measure. The
UAW and the auto companies co-hosted rallies in such states as Michigan,
Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Alan Reuther, the UAW's top lobbyist in
Washington, says he visited almost 20 Senate offices and met mostly with
the Senators themselves.
"We made it clear to folks that this was an important jobs
issue," says Reuther. "Given everything happening with the
economy, legislation ought to take a more cautious approach." The UAW
sought a more modest approach, such as requiring automakers to improve
fuel economy by pegging it to a uniform percentage measured over a period
of years rather than through a fixed miles-per-gallon target.
"What the Big Three feared the most was a modest bill," Reuther
says, noting that he tried but failed to interest environmentalists in a
percentage approach.
The auto dealers also pressed hard. Rob Braziel, a top lobbyist with the
19,000-member NADA, says his group contacted every Senator's office and
brought some two dozen dealers to Washington just before the vote. Because
light trucks are overwhelmingly popular in rural states, he says,
"that's where the bull's-eye was pointed."
For maximum effect, the Big Three used their regular outside lobbying
firms, as well as several new hired guns. DaimlerChrysler, which had
already been using Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Timmons and Co.
Inc., got extra help by hiring John Breaux Jr., the son of the Louisiana
Senator. The junior Breaux focused on Southern Democrats such as Mary L.
Landrieu, D-La., who voted for the Levin-Bond measure.
General Motors, which has long relied on the Duberstein Group Inc., a
bipartisan lobbying shop, last year brought on Steve Ricchetti, a former
deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and once a top staffer at
the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. GM also hired the grassroots
firms Dewey Square Group and DCI Group, which, respectively, have good
ties with Democrats and Republicans.
"They've been working with us to enhance our internal grassroots
lobbying capability," explains Cole, who became GM's top Washington
hand last year after Andrew H. Card Jr. departed to become White House
chief of staff. Cole says that there was "excellent cooperation
between the UAW leadership at the plant level and our plant
managers."
Meanwhile, the powerful Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers brought on
new lobbying talent by tapping Griffin, Johnson, Dover & Stewart,
which boasts Pat Griffin, who used to run the legislative affairs office
in the Clinton Administration. The alliance also hired the grassroots firm
Qorvis Communications.
A hefty advertising campaign augmented the industry's message. The ads
were mostly sponsored by the industry-backed Coalition for Vehicle Choice,
which boasts farm groups and other nonindustry members.
To be sure, the auto lobby-especially the dealers association-is generous
with campaign donations. Last year, the auto industry gave nearly $4
million in individual, PAC, and soft-money donations to federal candidates
and to the political parties, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics. Republicans received 79 percent of the money.
Despite the largesse from the other side, backers of raising the CAFE
standard say they made mistakes. "We could have done a better job
across the board," says McCain, noting that polls showed that 70
percent to 80 percent of the public favored higher fuel-economy
standards.
But, McCain insists, the debate "was trivialized" by the auto
industry's use of scare tactics. He charges that opponents skewed the
debate by focusing unfairly on "little cars that are used for parking
in inner cities in Europe."
For their part, auto lobbyists insist that the debate was fair and that
they're committed to raising fuel economy, albeit more modestly.
Liberatore of DaimlerChrysler, who declined to discuss specific targets,
says that his company intends to soon introduce more fuel-efficient
vehicles. "Irrespective of what Congress does, there will be
increases in CAFE, and we're going to work with NHTSA," he
says.
Meanwhile, some Senate sources say a chance remains that strong CAFE
legislation could be pushed this year, perhaps by Durbin, in the omnibus
energy bill that the Senate still has to finish. "What we failed to
do was to tie our energy security to CAFE," says Durbin. "We let
the critics argue that this was simply a lifestyle issue."
Peter H. Stone
National Journal
