Senate Upholds Longstanding
Ban On Tighter Fuel Standards

(Editor's note: This article makes scant direct reference to it, but the issue should be of interest to anyone anticipating buying a new pickup in the near future.)

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The Senate rejected an attempt recently to lift a five-year ban on government studies into whether fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks should be raised.

The 55-40 vote to maintain the freeze was a victory for the auto industry, which insists that the imposition of tougher fuel standards, particularly on sport utility vehicles, would result in cars that are less safe, higher costs and reduced consumer choices.

Congress in 1975 set the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standard at 27.5 miles per gallon on new passenger cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks. A manufacturer's CAFE for autos is the average fuel economy for all its cars, from the smallest subcompact to full-size sedan.

But while average gas mileage for new cars nearly doubled from 1975 to 1989, to 27.5 mpg, it has since declined because of the boom in sales of SUVs, which like minivans must meet only the lower standards of light trucks.

Demands for changes to deal with this change, however, have been blocked since 1995 by the House, which has inserted language in the annual Transportation Department spending bill that bars the government from even studying the need to change fuel efficiency standards.

The Senate has quietly gone along with the House language until this year, when Sens. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., Richard Bryan, D-Nev., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., offered their resolution putting the Senate on record as opposing the House provision.

Their proposed amendment was to the $49 billion transportation spending bill for fiscal year 2000.

``I own three Jeeps, I love my Jeeps,'' Feinstein said. ``But I have no doubt that my Jeeps can have the same kind of fuel efficiency standards'' as passenger cars.

She said improving fuel efficiency could eliminate tons of carbon dioxide from the air and would be ``the largest single thing, bar none, that we can do to influence global warning in a positive way.''

Gorton noted that the auto industry made the same unsubstantiated argument back in 1975 — that CAFE standards would force everyone to drive subcompacts — and said it was ``bizarre that we should prohibit even a study'' of future standards.

(Unsubstantiated? Has Sen. Gorton gotten a good look at the tin cans that pass for cars these days? Perhaps he's overlooked years of traffic fatality figures and the findings of safety experts that these undersized, underpowered, frameless and thin-skinned excuses for automobiles are death traps when in collision with anything more substantial than a housecat. It is just that reality which has propelled so many American drivers into so-called "sports utility vehicles" in self-defense. Most of those would come out second-best in a head-butting contest with a '59 Caddy, but they are immeasurably safer than the alternative. All that aside, tighter CAFÉ standards would wreak havoc with a vehicle that had to pull a loaded gooseneck. — Ed.)

Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., said the 1975 law did force Americans into buying smaller and less safe vehicles. ``CAFE standards have killed people, they will continue to kill people because cars have been lightened to the extent that they do not protect individuals,'' he said.

Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., said the Transportation Department is obligated by law to set new fuel standards in each model year and ``if the House funding prohibition is stripped from this bill the Department of Transportation will raise CAFE standards.''

``A yes vote is a green light to raise CAFE,'' agreed Gloria Bergquist, spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Automakers are joined by the United Auto Workers in opposing changes in CAFE standards because of concerns that jobs on light truck assembly lines are in jeopardy.

Groups such as the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists say an increase in standards could significantly help the environment and that automakers have the technology to improve efficiency without sacrificing safety or performance.