2002 Awards Dinner --
October
9
2002
Awardees
Past
Awardees
2002 Table
Sponsors
2002 Associates Summit --
October 10
Agenda and
Presentations
2001 Summit
Recap
Dinner Co-chaired by
Associates Summit Sponsored by
2002 Associates Summit on Energy
Efficiency
Speech by
Gregg Easterbrook, The New Republic
October 10,
2002
Almas Ballroom, 1315 K Street, N.W. Washington, DC
Remember in the winter of 2001, just after George W. Bush took
office, when the number-one public policy issue said to be faced by the
United States was an energy crisis? Remember the immediate aftermath of
the September 11 attacks, when it dawned on us that Osama bin Laden is a
Saudi and that most of the hijackers were Saudis, and yet the United
States buys nearly one-quarter of its imported petroleum from the Persian
Gulf – transferring at least $20 billion annually to the Saudi princes who
support Islamic fanaticism? Remember when President Bush declared Iraq an
“evil” state, without pausing to add that the United States annually buys
$10 billion in crude oil from Saddam Hussein, subsidizing Saddam’s weapons
programs, his sybaritic lifestyle and his ruthless repression of 20
million Iraqis? Remember when you read that U.S. domestic petroleum
production continues to decline, meaning that unless something changes
this country will grow ever-more dependent on Saudi and Iraqi oil?
Remember when you read that SUVs and “light” pickup trucks are exempt from
the fuel efficiency standards that apply to regular cars and that this
special favor to wastefulness explains why U.S. petroleum consumption,
crude-oil imports from the Gulf, and greenhouse gas emissions are all
trending in the wrong direction?
In the aftermath of September 11, here is what has been done about these issues: Nothing.
Since the September 11 attacks the United States has taken no action of any kind regarding petroleum policy. Oil imports from Saudi Arabia continue unabated, with close to one-third of Saudi government revenues funded by American oil sales – meaning that a large share of the financing of anti-American Saudi clerics and of anti-American, Saudi-backed madrassas across the world, originates with the United States. Individual petroleum firms have backed off somewhat on purchasing from Iraq, but only, as the Washington Post recently reported, because Saddam’s corrupt brokers demand excessive kickbacks, not as a result of any new government policy. SUVs retain their special low-mileage standards, as well as special exemptions from safety and environmental rules; the SUV fad, an exercise in national selfishness, has if anything grown worse since September 11, and Gulf state fanatics smile every time an SUV leaves the showroom here.
Domestic crude-oil production keeps declining, and exploratory drilling remains banned in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) -- the best hope to find an “elephant” oil field in the United States. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise -- up 14 percent in the last decade -- with virtually all the increase coming from SUVs, pickup trucks and residential energy use, not from industry. The only energy-policy advance in the past year is congressional approval to open the Yucca Mountain atomic-waste storage facility, which ensures that atomic power plants will continue operating. But since the Yucca decision had been in the works for more than a decade and was close to certain in any case, this isn’t much to write home to mom about.
Energy policy has reached such an impasse that Congress hasn’t even
moved the 2002 energy policy bill. They can’t pass it even though all hint
of policymaking has long since been expunged! The Senate debated the bill
off and on throughout the winter and spring, staging various
publicity-oriented showdowns but then putting off the House-Senate
conference needed to enact anything. The World’s Greatest Deliberative
Body seemed to feel that when it comes to energy policy, what the United
States needs is no change at all. How reassuring. Now the conference is
meeting, and is proving itself unable to do more than bicker about
side-show issues such as ethanol percentages. On every significant
energy-policy question – every one – Congress is hiding under the desk,
trembling. How reassuring!
As in any instance when the Washington
policy machinery seizes up, there is plenty of blame to go around. George
W. Bush and his White House are terrified of the politics of action
against global warming. Why I don’t know, since in the short-term the
principal greenhouse reform would be to improve the efficiency of
fossil-fuel use, which would reduce U.S. dependence on Persian Gulf
imports -- making such an action worthwhile even if neither the climate
nor Saudi terrorists were concerns. Early in his presidency, Bush asked
the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for advice on what to do about SUV
miles per gallon (MPG). After the NAS inconveniently presented the case
for higher standards, Bush waffled, venturing only that the Department of
Transportation should “begin rulemaking” -- which may take years -- rather
than supporting any of the fuel-efficiency improvement proposals that as a
result died in Congress.
More generally, Bush and his inner circle seem to share the oil-man’s worldview that American suzerainty over Gulf oil is essential to the United States economy. It’s true that influence in the Gulf was a great achievement by the first generation of American oil men, who wrestled the allegiance of most of Gulf states away from the British and Germans during the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. But is this involvement still essential today?
Well, maybe the Gulf is essential to a wasteful United States energy economy. Between non-Gulf oil producers and untapped potential for new efficiencies here, the United States could, with relatively practical steps – surely, without any painful lifestyle change – drastically reduce its imports of Gulf state oil. Cutting Gulf-state imports in half is a realistic goal, if we would only take action on fuel economy and domestic production. A 50 percent cut in Gulf state oil imports would increase national security, reduce funding for terrorism, reduce the need for the United States to be involve in Gulf state affairs, reduce U.S. defense spending, reduce the need to risk U.S. lives in Gulf state wars and not coincidentally, hold down the world price of oil, by lowering American demand. So why hasn’t President Bush proposed such an initiative – for that matter, proposed anything that would reduce United States oil consumption?
One reason is political hypocrisy. Bush says he wants sacrifice from U.S. soldiers, but is unwilling to ask voters to sacrifice anything having to do with their SUVs, or oil companies to sacrifice anything having to do with a profitable status quo. The other reason, I think, is that Bush is a prisoner of the oil-man’s worldview, one in which it is a good thing that the United States is a quasi-imperial power in the Persian Gulf. Arguably, this might have been in a good thing from roughly the 1920s to 1950s. Today this view is a dangerous anachronism. And this dangerous anachronism prevails in the White House.
For their part, Democrats are equally committed to inaction. In March a fuel-efficiency deal brokered by John Kerry and John McCain was poised to come before the Senate. It would have required that new American autos reach an average of 36 MPG by 2015, a goal called realistic by the National Academy of Sciences, and would have dropped special treatment for SUVs. Currently, new SUVs are allowed to average seven miles per gallon less than new cars; various gimmicks in the rules mean that real-world SUV MPH averages are lower still. Partly as result, average new-vehicle fuel efficiency in the United States is today at the lowest point in 22 years.
The McCain-Kerry approach would have reduced petroleum use and greenhouse gases in a sensible, technologically feasible manner, while making roads safer by discouraging production not of medium SUVs such as the Ford Explorer but of ultra-heavy, antisocial vehicles such as the Ford Expedition, Chevy Tahoe and General Motors Hummer, which today constitute not only rolling announcements that the buyer has psychological problems, but rolling threats to public safety. Fuel efficiency improvements would not spell the end of the SUV as a vehicle class, and they surely would not, the National Academy of Sciences stated, force everyone to drive in econo-boxes. The two main impacts of the McCain-Kerry proposal would have been to stop the antisocial ultra-heavy SUVs, while requiring all large car designs to trade off some horsepower for fuel efficiency. And United States cars and SUVs are already plenty fast, typical acceleration of new vehicles increasing about 10 percent per decade over the last 30 years. Many modern vehicles, including many SUVs, are now too fast for average drivers to control them, one reason rollovers are a rising cause of highway death. This is especially significant since, to my knowledge, there is no right to speed.
Worried that McCain and Kerry would accomplish actual reform, opponents hurriedly brought forward a Senate amendment that essentially banned any immediate increase in SUV MPG, and the amendment passed with only 38 votes against. Since on this resolution a “nay” was a vote in favor of fuel economy, this means only 38 members of the United States Senate -- and only 31 of 50 Democrats -- favored immediate MPG improvement. Following the disgraceful blocking of McCain-Kerry, many Democrats then also voted for one of American history’s most scandalously selfish special-interest favors, a rule prohibiting tighter fuel economy standards for “light” pickup trucks. In addition to not being light, the majority of “light” pickup trucks are used as cars, not for commercial purposes, and their kill rate when it comes to causing deaths of other drivers is the worst of any mass-production vehicle on the road. Yet the United States Senate, Democrats assenting, voted to make sure no one does anything about this!
Because oversized vehicles are Detroit's most profitable vehicle type -- owing partly to an import protection that lives in violation of free-trade rules -- the United Auto Workers and Democrats from UAW states joined conservatives in an unholy alliance to oppose progress on fuel efficiency. SUVs would still be profitable for Detroit if they were safer and more fuel-efficient; the desire for large vehicles would not vanish if tonnage and acceleration were moderately reduced, which is all that’s required for big fuel-efficiency gains. Yet Republicans in the White House are not willing to take any action on greenhouse gas or oil import dependence, and Democrats in the Senate are not willing to give up any special-interest sweetheart deal on oil waste at the gas pump. So much for the public sacrifice in the national interest that was supposed to reign after September 11.
I’ve been reading Keith Bradsher’s exceptional new book about the history of the SUV, “High and Mighty.” It’s a chronicle of 20 years of public-policy fiasco. Regulators enacting rules that actually encouraged SUVs to become heavier and more wasteful; Congress carving out special exemptions to reward SUV waste and pollution; automakers covering up evidence that SUVs are unusually dangerous. I’m going to go into some detail about SUVs to prove a larger point on energy policy gridlock.
Today it is said in Washington that nothing can be done about SUVs because the public is addicted to them and no politician has the guts to speak the word “no” on any subject affecting the middle class and upper class. But consider the hostile character of SUVs – their size, deliberately aggressive designs and the way advertising encourages the idea that in an SUV you can drive like a lunatic and force others to jump out your way. This is why we have “road rage” today. SUVs are not a response to road rage; they are the cause of road rage, a vehicle designed to make drivers more hostile. Wouldn’t middle-class and upper-class voters benefit from sensible steps to reduce road rage?
Beyond this, public perceptions of the SUV are fallacies. During the Senate debate, for example, my home state senator, Barbara Mikulski – Maryland has factories that make SUV components -- shamelessly declared that women need SUVs to feel safe on the road. Well, women might feel safe in an SUV. Clearly buyers think SUVs are safer. Bradsher’s book provides 100 pages of evidence that they are not. You are slightly more likely to die in an SUV than in a car, because SUVs roll over and their brakes are nowhere near as good as car brakes. You are four times as likely to kill someone else in an SUV as in a full sized car.
Which brings me to the next shameless political point. During the same debate, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri – Missouri has an SUV assembly plant – declared that government should not infringe the right of buyers to choose SUVs. But there is no right to do that which harms other. This isn’t like a First Amendment situation regarding what you read or think or who you worship, or a Fourth Amendment situation regarding what you do within the walls of your home. Driving an SUV or a “light” pickup is a public act that creates public risk to others, to say nothing of excess pollution and national security problems owing to oil waste. The Founding Fathers would shiver to hear politicians of today assert a “right” to cause harm or to act irresponsibly in the public square.
Congress bowing down to worship the SUV shows the state American energy policy has sunk to. We’re not only unwilling to face energy issues when there is a need to reduce waste, greenhouse gases and political dependence on the Gulf. We’re unwilling to face energy issues even when inaction is causing Americans to die.
An added reason many Democrats were lukewarm on improving SUV mileage is that the enviro lobby granted them a free pass on this issue. Enviros lobbied with white fury against ANWR drilling, though ANWR exploration could almost certainly be accomplished with little or no environmental harm. The key moment came when the League of Conservation Voters told members of the Senate that this year’s rating in the League’s influential voter scorecards would essentially be determined by their ANWR votes.
But after carpet-bombing Congress on ANWR, enviros lobbied only modestly on the MPG issue. Why the difference? ANWR drilling is both a pleasantly symbolic ideological issue and, since 99 percent of donors to environmental groups don’t live in Alaska – where the overwhelming majority of Alaskans favor ANWR drilling -- ANWR can be defeated without personally affecting 99 percent of environmentalists in any way. On the other hand, there are plenty of environmentalists and enviro donors who drive big SUVs – especially the gas-guzzler-loving Hollywood elite that helps fund environmental lobbying. Hollywood elites, especially, very strongly believe that somebody else ought to converse petroleum. Had a higher MPG standard been enacted, some environmental donors might have had to look at themselves in the mirror, rather than just denouncing others. And just as neither Republicans in the White House nor Democrats in the Senate were willing to ask even the tiniest sacrifice of their constituents, enviros were not willing to ask anything of their SUV owners, either.
And what of an ANWR/MPG compromise? My magazine, The New Republic, crusaded for an energy deal that would have combined permission for exploratory drilling in Alaska with higher vehicle fuel economy. Such a middle-ground compromise would have reduced America’s addiction to Gulf oil, diminished the economic power of Gulf-state fanatics, cut greenhouse gases, and kept petroleum-production jobs at home rather than outsourcing the work to Saddam. An ANWR/MPG compromise would have required both sides to surrender some ideology and recognize the other side's reasonable arguments.
And so the idea went absolutely nowhere. In fact, only three members of the United States Senate endorsed both ANWR drilling and higher SUV mileage. Here is the honor role; it won’t take me long to read:
Daniel Akaka (Democrat-Hawaii)
Judd Gregg (Republican-New
Hampshire)
Daniel Inouye (Democrat-Hawaii)
Three total votes for common-sense energy progress!
Sometime in the weeks to come an energy bill will probably pass –
sometime in our lifetimes, anyway – but all that is on the table now is
crumbs, symbolic gestures and various special favors to the connected. The
current bill, if signed, will be widely touted as containing incentives
for wind power, renewable fuel, and other desirable improvements. But such
incentives have already been in law for 20 years, and “green” energy still
accounts for only about 1 percent of all U.S. power and even if all goes
well will account for only a small amount years hence. The real action is
on fossil fuel use, and what’s needed is to make real strides against Gulf
imports; real improvements in energy efficiency, especially vehicle miles
per gallon; and to increase domestic exploration. We’ve had one year since
September 11 supposedly shook us out of complacency. And we haven’t lifted
a finger.
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