AUTOS

Court Orders Fuel-Efficiency Versus Safety Study: The U.S. Court of Appeals has ordered the government to study whether its 27.5 m.p.g. automobile fuel-efficiency standard “kills people” by forcing car companies to make vehicles smaller and less crash-worthy. The decision came in a lawsuit filed by General Motors Corp. and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based research group. Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety, which favors higher fuel-economy standards, said the ruling merely orders the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration--the federal agency that sets the standard--to reconsider the safety question. “It’s simply dotting i ‘s and crossing t ‘s,” Ditlow said. “I’m confident NHTSA will reach the same decision all over again.”