Senate Backs Sensible Fuel Economy Standard

AP/Wide World Photos

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., discusses the CAFE issue with members of UAW Local 594 at GM’s Pontiac, Mich., assembly plant.

The U.S. Senate adopted a sensible, bipartisan approach to improving fuel economy standards for cars and trucks in March, thanks in large part to a grassroots lobbying effort by UAW activists.

The legislation, sponsored by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin and Missouri Republican Christopher Bond, passed by a strong 62-38 margin on March 13, as an amendment to the overall energy bill before Congress.

A number of senators decided to support the amendment after hearing from UAW members, who have a vital interest in how the auto industry is regulated.

The Levin-Bond bill requires the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to recommend increases in the current 27 miles-per-gallon (mpg) corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard for cars within 24 months. The agency must take into account fuel economy, vehicle safety and the impact on U.S. jobs.

Conserving Energy--and Jobs
The CAFE standards, first passed in 1975 with UAW support, promote fuel efficiency by requiring each automaker to meet a miles-per-gallon standard for the entire fleet of vehicles it sells in the United States.

The UAW continues to support “mandatory fuel economy standards…to promote fuel efficiency and reduced dependence on imported oil,” UAW Legislative Director Alan Reuther told a Senate Subcommittee last December.

Our union, Reuther told Senators, supports a comprehensive approach to energy and environmental policy, including controls on sulfur emissions, tax credits for the sale of advanced fuel-efficient vehicles, and better public transit, to provide “energy-saving alternatives to private motorized modes of transportation.”

But proposals first floated this winter by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., later joined by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., leaned toward a one-sided approach to energy issues, with the danger of destroying thousands of good-paying union jobs in the process.

“We do need conservation,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., a backer of the Levin-Bond bill. “I believe in job conservation. American job conservation.”

Kerry, Hollings and McCain wanted to raise the CAFE standard to an unrealistic 36 mpg by 2015. This leaps far ahead of the feasible fuel standards projected in a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences.

Bias Against the Big Three
The Kerry-Hollings-McCain proposals would have hit UAW members with a double whammy, aiding foreign automakers at the expense of the Big Three--and giving the Big Three new incentives to move small car production overseas.

Speaking at a town hall meeting with members of UAW Local 2166 outside GM’s Shreveport, La., plant in February, UAW Vice President Richard Shoemaker said an extreme boost in CAFE standards “would discriminate against General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler.”

“Their product mix is more oriented toward larger cars and light trucks,” explained Shoemaker, who directs the union’s General Motors Department. “It would result in the Big Three having to increase their fuel economy by 40 to 50 percent, compared to less than a 15 percent increase required for Honda.”

Although the Shreveport event was co-sponsored by GM, Shoemaker did not hesitate to criticize a little-known aspect of the proposed CAFE legislation which would have led to more Big Three outsourcing. Kerry, Hollings and McCain would have given NHTSA the option of eliminating the distinction--required in current law--between domestic and foreign car fleets.

High Cost, No Benefit
There is no discernible environmental benefit to combining foreign and domestic fleets for the purpose of calculating fuel economy standards--but the jobs impact would be huge.

“The Big Three would be able to outsource their small car production to foreign countries,” Shoemaker warned. “Why? Because they would no longer be required to average the fuel economy of more efficient, domestically built small cars with less efficient large cars produced here.”

The Levin-Bond amendment is likely to remain intact in the final energy legislation passed by Congress, because the bill passed by the House of Representatives last August includes a similar measure.