Clinton Eases Stand on Auto Fuel Economy

Responding to urgent promptings from leading Democrats in Michigan and other Midwestern states, presidential nominee Bill Clinton has somewhat softened his advocacy of proposed new laws to mandate higher fuel economy standards for cars.

While he still supports a 40-mile-per-gallon goal, Clinton said Saturday that one possible approach “may be having separate goals for different sized cars,” a move that some environmentalists say could open a potentially troubling loophole in the proposed law.

Clinton’s move may blunt the ability of Republicans to use the fuel economy issue against him in the industrial Midwest, the area where he and his running mate, Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, conducted their latest bus tour Saturday.

At the same time, however, any significant shift by Clinton on the issue runs the risk of reigniting concerns among environment-minded voters in other hotly contested states like California and Colorado. Republicans there have begun using direct-mail campaigns to raise questions about Clinton’s environmental record as governor of Arkansas.

The issue provides a good illustration of how policy is shaped during the heat of a presidential campaign and shows the competing pressures on Clinton as he tries to weld a coalition that includes both environmentally active voters and workers concerned about the impact that environmental rules may have on their jobs.

Republicans have pursued a two-pronged strategy on environmental issues--telling factory workers in the Midwest that Clinton would risk their jobs by imposing too many environmental regulations while telling voters in other parts of the country that as governor Clinton imposed too few.

In Ohio, for example, Clinton awoke Saturday morning to a half-page GOP ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper charging that his backing of a 40-mile-per-gallon fuel economy rule would send “20,000 Ohio auto workers from the assembly line to the unemployment line.”

The claim is based on a study by the Motor Vehicle Manufacturer’s Assn., which made the unlikely assumption that car companies, rather than redesign cars to meet a 40 m.p.g. standard, would lay off all their workers and close down all assembly lines that make cars that do not meet that standard.

Despite the claim’s questionable accuracy, the advertisement illustrates the sort of political pressure Clinton has faced on the issue.

In Michigan, for example, Republican Gov. John Engler recently predicted that tougher fuel economy standards are “going to be a killer issue” against Clinton in his state. And at last week’s GOP convention in Houston, White House economic adviser Michael J. Boskin called new fuel economy rules a “neutron bomb” that would destroy the U.S. auto industry.

Under current federal law, automobile companies must ensure that cars they sell in the United States average 27.5 m.p.g. Because the rule prescribes an average for a company’s entire fleet, an auto maker may use a line of cars that get better mileage than the standard to “offset” those that do worse.

Last April, in a speech at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, Clinton endorsed legislation proposed by Sen. Richard H. Bryan (D-Nev.) that would raise that standard to 40 m.p.g. within a decade. Environmental groups strongly support the bill while the automobile industry and the United Auto Workers union both oppose it. President Bush has said he would veto any such legislation that reaches him.

Auto industry officials say the higher standard would cost too much to implement. Environmental groups, however, point out that some foreign car makers are already producing lines of vehicles with higher fuel efficiency than Detroit offers.

For weeks, union officials and Midwestern Democrats such as former Michigan Gov. James J. Blanchard and Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan, the automobile industry’s most powerful congressional champion, have pressured Clinton to abandon his support for Bryan’s bill, according to sources close to the campaign.

The issue has been under intense debate within the campaign. In the end, Clinton declined to abandon his position, but in response to a pre-planned question posed to him by Blanchard after Clinton spoke Friday to the Detroit Economic Club, he offered a vaguely worded but potentially significant modification.

“I support the goal of the proposed Bryan bill, which is 40 miles per gallon,” Clinton said. But, he noted, questions have been raised about the technological feasibility of the goal.

“I still think we ought to have a goal to try to keep increasing those standards because that reduces fuel use in America, cleans up the environment and moves us forward,” he said.

But Clinton also said he was “flexible” on the issue, adding, “I don’t think we should ask the impossible.”

Clinton repeated the statement Saturday, telling reporters in Cleveland: “We’re going to have to raise the mileage, but there are all sorts of ways to do it that won’t cost jobs.”

Environmental groups, however, have viewed the sort of modification Clinton suggested with great suspicion, fearing that the automobile industry will use whatever flexibility the law provides to evade major changes in their fleets.

Already, they argue, auto makers have shifted production from cars to vans and light trucks in large part because those vehicles face less restrictive fuel economy rules.

But given the pressure Clinton has been under and given Bush’s all-out opposition to any new fuel economy standards, environmentalists took a warily supportive position toward Clinton’s stand.

“We’re glad Gov. Clinton has held firm on a tough mile-per-gallon law to protect the environment despite enormous pressure,” said Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club’s chief lobbyist on the issue. “Obviously, we’ll need to work with his staff to assure that the bill stays strong as pressure continues to increase,” Becker said.

The Democratic candidates’ travel schedule underlines the importance of Midwestern states in which automobiles remain a key industry. Clinton and Gore, accompanied by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) traveled across northern Ohio on Saturday, displaying the now-typical bus trip routine of photogenic rallies interspersed with stops along the highways to greet and shake hands with groups of supporters.

Bush, who traveled to the state constantly in the 1988 campaign, plans to visit again later this week.

Clinton and Gore began the day Saturday speaking to a mostly black audience at a senior citizens’ center in East Cleveland. From there, they drove to the mostly white community of Parma, a bastion of working-class and middle-class voters, many of Eastern European descent. There, he shook hands with hundreds of supporters who waited for him in the bright sunshine before going into a local restaurant for a well-photographed lunch of doughy pirogi.