08-11-2001
POLITICS: Will That Be Six Cylinders or Eight for Your Grocery Cart,
Ma'am?
Can you imagine one transportation initiative that would put real money in
the pockets of working families, increase fuel efficiency without the
slightest compromise of passenger safety, and benefit the environment-all
without a penny of cost to, or a syllable of regulation from, the federal
government?
You don't have to imagine it. It's been here, although unremarked, all
through the recent energy bill debate over what the suburbanization of
light trucks should mean for the fuel regulation of light trucks. Issued
in the mid-1970s, when the invasion of the SUV was barely a gleam in
Detroit's eye, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards mandated
gas-mileage minimums for all models in a specific class of vehicles, but
went easy on the class into which SUVs now fall. An amendment,
co-sponsored by Reps. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Sherwood L. Boehlert,
R-N.Y., would have brought the CAFE standard for SUVs to parity with that
of other passenger vehicles as of 2007. On August 1, the amendment was
defeated, 160-269. (A slight increase in the overall CAFE standards did
pass the House.)
Environmentalists hope that the Senate will act differently, but even if
it doesn't, there is a surefire strategy that they can employ. The
strategy is so simple that it can be explained in three words: two-wheel
drive. It can be supplemented with two more words that carry less weight,
both in terms of market share and environmental impact, but some weight
nonetheless: six cylinders.
Automotives for dummies: Four-wheel drive means more vehicle weight, which
means more fuel use, even if the vehicle is never put into
four-wheel-drive mode. More horsepower means a bigger engine, which also
means more fuel use. It follows that two-wheel drive and fewer
cylinders-features both readily available in gleaming, spacious SUVs being
sold at a dealership near you-mean greater fuel efficiency. It also
follows that, without touching a hair on the head of the auto industry,
consumers can, to a meaningful degree, succeed whether or not the effort
to close the "SUV loophole" ultimately fails.
It was surprising to me (actually, it was surprising to the congressional
staffer who pointed this out to me, at which point it became surprising to
me) that such specific, practical considerations got virtually no
attention in the course of such a heated debate over such a specific,
practical policy question. According to statistics supplied by
Detroit-based Ward's Communications, which tracks the auto industry, 68
percent of the SUV models manufactured in the United States in 2000 had
four-wheel drive. A significant minority-more than 28 percent-had
eight-cylinder engines. Somewhat oddly, then, environmentalists framed
this issue strictly as a matter of what type of SUV automakers can be
ordered to manufacture in the future-when it is clearly also a matter of
what type of SUV that people choose to buy right now.
Thus were drawn the familiar battle lines between the friends and enemies
of regulation. Opponents of the amendment argued that the CAFE standards
are generally counterproductive; that broadening them would benefit
foreign manufacturers at the expense of American ones, and thus cost some
U.S. workers their jobs-all the while spiking the number of highway deaths
due to the production of lighter-weight vehicles. Advocates of the
amendment argued that the hike would help the environment without hurting
Detroit, which, they say, has the technology for safe efficiency and-no
small thanks to the obese profit margin on those SUVs-the resources to
implement it.
Now, there are many instances where a given industry should be held
accountable for hazards over which the consumer has no control. But the
environmental impact of SUVs is not one of them, at least not entirely-and
that's not just because it's the consumer's choice to buy an SUV in the
first place. Take the popular Ford Explorer. Using the prices quoted on
edmunds.com, a Ford Explorer XLT with four-wheel drive costs $29,745. The
same model with two-wheel drive costs $27,780, almost $2,000 less.
According to Jason Mark, director of the clean-vehicle project at the
Union of Concerned Scientists, the two-wheel drive weighs 250 pounds less
and will get more than an additional mile per gallon. Et voila: the
customer who chooses the two-wheel drive saves a bundle at the dealership,
plus a bit at the pump, and does more to save the earth than he would do
in eons of sorting paper from plastic.
Needless to say, in a car market that now includes the electric-gas hybrid
engine, a mile or two more per gallon is hardly the clean-air cutting
edge. But the whole focus here is squeezing more out of the SUV-and in
that very narrow regard, this option is remarkably handy. It does not ask
Americans who need and want to drive big, high, wide trucklets not to
drive big, high, wide trucklets, or even to drive them less. All it does
ask is that people who are suburban soccer moms and dads, and not cowboys
or jungle trackers or Nordic woodsmen, acknowledge, at the point of
purchase, that they are suburban soccer moms and dads, and not cowboys or
jungle trackers or Nordic woodsmen.
Uh-oh. Houston, we have a problem: a self-image problem.
"It's the whole mythology of the rugged American, off-roading with
gadgets and gizmos," says Sierra Club spokesman Allen Mattison.
"It doesn't appeal to your psyche as a big grocery cart." So,
according to the strangely harmonious account of environmentalists and
auto-industry lobbyists, the fact that the SUV frequently is a big grocery
cart mustn't intrude on our psyches-even if that psychic preservation
comes at the cost of precisely the kind of environmental impact from
precisely the kind of vehicle debated earlier this month.
Of course, there are drivers who legitimately have loads to haul or
treacherous roads to face. My problem isn't with them. Then again, a large
part of the SUV market isn't about them. True, sales of four-wheel drive
vehicles do skew heavily to the north. But let's face it: "the
north" isn't just Maine and Minnesota; it's New Jersey and Delaware.
And while most SUVs are built with the V6 engine, rather than the V8, and
the V6-to-V8 ratio is growing in favor of the V6, huge V8s such as the
Chevy Tahoe keep selling like hotcakes. To the degree that most SUV
purchases involve need, it is widely acknowledged to involve not what
buyers do need, but what buyers might need.
"The SUV is all about capabilities," says Jon Harmon, director
of truck communications at Ford. "It's the `occasional imperative';
people who get a V8 engine because they tow a boat twice a
year."
Hey, what's wrong with that? If one usually hits the mall but might one
day hit a snowbank and can afford the gizmo that will get one out of that
snowbank, why not go for it? There's nothing wrong with that-provided that
one is either among those who see no real relationship between fuel
emissions and the environment, or among those who are untroubled by it.
Otherwise, one could not, of course, dream of buying a vehicle fit for
once-in-a-blue-moon heroics and then using it for everyday
schlepping.
None of this is necessarily to dismiss environmentalists' push for
industry-wide modification of SUVs. It is certainly arguable that the
action of consumers cannot make anywhere near the impact that the action
of an entire industry could. But it is undeniable that consumer choice has
been-awful pun alert-fueling the growth of SUVs, in dimension and
quantity. After all, fuel efficiency, which involves the rate at which an
engine uses fuel, has been on the increase year after year. But fuel
economy-gas mileage-has declined. Why? Consumer demand. Eron Shosteck,
manager of communications for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers,
Inc. cites a survey, published in October 2000: "Of 26 things that
people look for in new vehicles, gas mileage is 25th." Thus, it is
ridiculous to excoriate an industry's failure to regulate itself, without
so much as mentioning consumers' failure to regulate themselves.
God, I hate to sound like such a shrew. No one needs lipstick or cable
television or chocolate mousse or wrapping paper. Everyone needs a good
dose of self-delusion. But in this instance, a little rational
cost-benefit analysis does seem to be in order. After all, the purchase of
a vehicle is one of the most important environmental decisions anyone
makes-certainly more important than whether to drink from Styrofoam or
bundle today's newspapers. On the list of personal-conservation offenses,
purchasing gas-thirsty superfluities just for the kick of knowing they are
there has got to be close to the top. Doing so while damning the thought
of drilling in the Arctic is over the top.
"The Sierra Club has 700,000 members," says Shosteck. "I'd
like to see how many of those people buy eight-cylinder
SUVs."
Frankly, so would I.
Tish Durkin
National Journal
