SUV Mileage Debate Shifts to Personal Gear
As Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lobbied her Senate colleagues to toughen fuel economy standards for gas-gulping sport-utility vehicles, one of the problems she faced was apparent just outside the U.S. Capitol.
The parking lot used by her colleagues was full of SUVs of all models. Feinstein herself owns three.
It is tough to regulate something so popular, a point driven home to Feinstein and her allies recently.
They wanted to remove a congressional prohibition on making fuel standards stricter, figuring that the timing was right given all of the grumbling on Capitol Hill over high gasoline prices.
But they ran into opposition, not only from the auto industry and anti-regulatory Republicans, but from labor unions and many Democrats.
Ultimately, the Senate voted to seek a study on establishing tougher miles-per-gallon rules. But the standards, frozen by congressional action since 1995, are likely to remain unchanged for at least another year.
Congress’ blocking of stricter fuel-economy rules is a testament to the popularity of SUVs--which climbed from 5% of new vehicle sales in 1985 to 19% last year--and to the political horsepower that goes along with their commercial success.
Unlike other issues on Capitol Hill that often split Congress along ideological or party lines, the debate has some lawmakers taking a more personal interest in the subject.
Industry: Efficiency Would Sacrifice Size
“I love my Jeeps,” Feinstein told her colleagues during a recent Senate debate. “But I don’t see why they shouldn’t be just as fuel efficient as the sedan we also drive.”
Environmentalists have called tougher fuel economy standards the single most important step that Congress can take to reduce global warming. SUVs emit more carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global warming, than cars, they noted.
The auto industry contends that stricter rules would lead to a radically different SUV: a lighter, smaller and less powerful vehicle that consumers would not buy.
“The only way you can make a minivan, light truck or SUV have the same fuel efficiency of a car is to make it a car,” asserted Gloria Bergquist of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Under a 25-year-old law, light trucks, which include SUVs, minivans and pickups, must meet a “corporate average fuel economy” standard of 20.7 mpg, contrasted with 27.5 mpg for passenger cars.
Some SUVs get as little as 13 mpg. But car makers are permitted to average the standard across their fleets, so that smaller fuel-efficient cars can offset the guzzlers. Nevertheless, car makers paid $16.3 million in penalties last year for missing those targets.
The Sierra Club favors increasing the standards over a 10-year period to 45 mpg for cars and 34 mpg for SUVs and other light trucks, said Daniel F. Becker, director of the group’s global warming and energy program.
Although the House recently voted to block any increase in standards for another year, Becker applauded the Senate vote to conduct a study. If approved by a House-Senate conference committee, he said, the measure “jump-starts” the process of making vehicles go farther on a gallon of gas.
Advocates of tougher standards point out that the average fuel economy for model year 1999 for all vehicles dropped to 23.8 mpg, the lowest since 1980. A high of 25.9 mpg was recorded for model years 1987 and 1988, according to federal authorities.
When the standards were enacted, light trucks made up about 20% of sales and were largely used for work. Today, light trucks account for nearly half of all new passenger vehicles sold in the United States.
Some SUVs, such as the Ford Excursion, and some pickup trucks exceed the 8,500-pound gross-weight limits of vehicles covered by the fuel-economy law.
Among those lobbying against tougher standards is the Coalition for Vehicle Choice, a Washington-based group that seeks to “preserve the freedom of Americans to choose motor vehicles that meet their needs.” It is headed by Diane Steed, a former head of the federal traffic safety agency during the Reagan administration.
“For all the rhetoric you hear that Americans really want more fuel-efficient vehicles, they’re out there in the showrooms and people don’t buy them,” said Jeff Miller, the group’s legislative director.
The group, whose members include car makers, the American Farm Bureau Federation and recreational groups, contends that stricter U.S. fuel economy standards would have little effect on global warming, a claim that environmentalists dispute.
Labor unions have also lobbied against tougher standards, arguing that they would jeopardize jobs. “Domestic auto workers need to be able to build the larger cars and trucks American consumers want,” the Teamsters said in a letter to lawmakers.
Technology May Exist, but Incentive Doesn’t
The Union of Concerned Scientists contends that it is possible to develop a more fuel-efficient SUV. Using a computer model, the organization said it had designed a Ford Explorer that gets 28 mpg, 50% more than the model now on the market.
“The reality is that the technology is there,” said Jason Mark, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists transportation program in Berkeley.
He estimated that the technology could increase the vehicle’s cost by $575 but said that consumers would make up the expense in gas savings in less than two years.
“That vehicle might run on paper,” responded industry spokeswoman Bergquist, “but I’m not sure it’s going to make it up the steep hill in my neighborhood.”
David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a coalition of business, consumer, government and environmental leaders, argued, however: “It can be done if there is a will. The government needs to step in and give the auto companies a good kick in the muffler.”
Ironically, the House recently voted to eliminate $126 million in federal funding for a joint government-industry program that the Big Three car makers promoted. The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles aims at producing a vehicle that would get 80 mpg by 2004.
A number of environmental groups supported the cut, claiming that the program is being used by car makers to avoid improving fuel economy on existing vehicles. The program, a pet project of Vice President Al Gore, also drew opposition from lawmakers who regard it as corporate welfare.
To propose any changes in SUVs, environmentalists acknowledge, is to tamper with something that is precious to a growing number of Americans.
“If you raise questions about [SUVs’] fuel economy and their safety, it’s frequently perceived as an attack on their drivers,” said David Hirsch, transportation policy coordinator for the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
That sentiment was expressed by opponents of tougher standards during the Senate debate last month.
“Now Washington wants to tell [people] what kind of car they can buy,” Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) complained.
Support Vanished in Election Year
Environmentalists said that they had lined up more than 150 House members to support lifting the prohibition on tougher standards. But when the issue reached the House floor in May, no lawmaker pushed for a vote. One environmentalist likened it to Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown just before he kicks it.
“It was disconcerting watching the Democratic and Republican leadership, usually at odds, working hand in glove to prevent environmental progress,” said the Sierra Club’s Becker.
One lawmaker said that it was not the time to further anger labor so soon after a number of Democrats backed permanent trade relations with China over labor’s objections. Others said that, as Democrats fight to take control of the House, they see no need to force lawmakers to choose between two allies: labor unions and environmentalists.
“I became convinced that, not only did we not have the votes, but it would be more divisive on our side of the aisle than it was on the other side of the aisle,” said Rep. John W. Olver (D-Mass.), who favors tougher standards but decided not to seek a vote.
“You had no strong signal from the administration that this was a battle they were willing to enter into,” added Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who also supports lifting the prohibition on increasing the standards. “This is not a season where people take just idle votes.”
Some environmentalists complained that the Clinton administration has not been aggressive enough in pushing for tougher standards. Clinton has objected to the freeze but signed transportation bills in the past that included the provision, which forbids the Department of Transportation from studying new standards.
George T. Frampton Jr., acting chairman of the president’s Council on Environmental Quality, said it would have been pointless to veto the bill in the past because it did not appear that there were enough votes in Congress to sustain the action.
“However, as time goes on, the [provision] increasingly becomes an embarrassment to the Congress,” he said.
The Clinton administration also has called tougher fuel standards critical to stemming increased U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Currently, more than half of the petroleum used in the United States is imported.
If the House-Senate conference committee agrees, the study would be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences with the federal Department of Transportation. It would examine, among other issues, how new standards could affect passenger safety as well as U.S. auto industry jobs.
The study was a compromise worked out among senators, environmentalists and auto industry officials in a side room of the Senate chamber during last month’s debate on the standards.
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SUVs and MPG
The increasing popularity of sport-utility vehicles, combined with their lower average fuel economy, has contributed to a lowering of overall average fuel economy.
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SUV Sales
Sport-utility vehicles have made up a larger share of vehicles sold in the U.S. since the mid-1980s: *
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1985: 5.0%
2000*: 18.5%
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* First four months of 2000
Source: Ward’s AutoInfoBank
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Fuel Economy Comparisons
Compared with autos, SUVs are subject to less-stringent light-truck fuel economy standards. Here are fuel economy averages for cars, light trucks and all vehicles combined:
*
Cars
1980: 23.5 mpg
1999: 28.1 mpg
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All vehicles
1980: 22.5 mpg
1999: 23.8 mpg
*
Light trucks
1980: 18.6 mpg
1999: 20.3 mpg
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Source: Environmental Protection Agency
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THE ELECTRIC BUZZ
Battery-powered vehicles get car pool rights and free airport parking. Yet demand is low. B1
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Fuel Standards
Congress in 1975 passed fuel standards in response to the energy crisis. Each car maker must meet minimum fuel-efficiency levels for their vehicle fleets each year.
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* Cars: 27.5 mpg
* Light trucks, including SUVs, minivans and pickups: 20.7 mpg.
* To see how your car compares, go to www.fueleconomy.gov
