Interesting that even Toyota is balking at this; of course they sell far more gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks in North America than all the other foreign automakers combined, and not even their smallest non-hybrid cars in North America get 35 MPG average, especially under the more stringent '08 EPA testing standards. Even they would have to bump their CAFE rating by about 50% to achieve this.Detroit Free Press wrote:Senate OKs raising fuel economy standards
Increase to 35 m.p.g. is first since '75
June 22, 2007
BY JUSTIN HYDE
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate approved an energy bill late Thursday that includes the first increase in total fuel economy standards since 1975, as backers of a 35-mile-per-gallon standard by 2020 won over enough senators to overwhelm the opposition of Michigan's two senators and Detroit's automakers.
The bipartisan deal comes as a rebuke to Detroit's automakers and Toyota Motor Co., which had lobbied furiously for a lower standard after calling the 35-m.p.g. target unachievable.
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It puts added pressure on automakers to improve fuel economy on trucks.
Shortly before midnight, senators voted 65-27 to pass the full energy bill, including the fuel-economy provisions which were added earlier Thursday without debate.
The auto industry and its allies, including the UAW, now turn their attention next to the U.S. House, where the battle over fuel efficiency standards could restart as soon as next month.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and the other senators said their proposal would help the industry and pledged to back some programs giving the industry aid for advanced technology. But the backers also said the industry has fought against fuel economy increases for too long.
"For 23 years, Detroit has said no, no, no," Feinstein said on the Senate floor. "The time has come to say yes, yes, yes."
Michigan Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, who failed to halt the larger energy bill containing the tougher standards in a procedural vote, said they would continue to fight the proposal.
"We need a plan that stretches the industry, not breaks it, and the current bill misses the mark. We are going to continue working with our colleagues in the House to secure a result that is good for the environment without unfairly punishing the American worker," Stabenow said.
If the bill does become law, "the end result will be lesser choice, and people will not be able to buy the vehicles they want," Levin said. "If this stands in the House, I think this will damage the industry and damage consumer choice."
What concerns automakers most about the Senate bill is the increased standards for trucks. While the bill requires federal regulators to set separate standards for cars and trucks based on their size and other attributes, it also forces them to ensure the industry hits the 35-m.p.g. target.
Automakers say that means their cars would have to average about 40 m.p.g. by 2020, and trucks would have to achieve about 30 m.p.g., but that the proposal doesn't spell out how regulators would force individual companies to meet industry-wide goals.
In 2006, new cars averaged 29.8 m.p.g., while trucks averaged 22.2 m.p.g., and industry officials say meeting the truck targets could force them to stop selling larger pickups and SUVs. That could be especially challenging for Chrysler Corp., which relies on trucks for 72% of its sales.
Although the fuel economy increase still faces several hurdles to becoming law, the vote reflects the momentum that tougher efficiency rules have on Capitol Hill, thanks to higher gasoline prices, concerns about global warming and growing worry about U.S. dependence on foreign sources of oil. Levin said Detroit automakers "don't have many friends" on Capitol Hill, and that the industry posed a "juicy target" for environmental concerns.
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said he would try to insert a similar fuel economy increase into any energy legislation that the House tries to pass this summer.
The pact from the 35-m.p.g. coalition strikes a requirement in the bill that the industry increase fuel economy by 4% annually after 2020, leaving the final word on future increases to federal regulators.
In a change from a previous compromise proposal, the new plan also would require federal officials to set requirements for automakers to build certain numbers of flex-fuel and other alternative-energy vehicles. Nissan Motor Co. had been lobbying hard to keep flex-fuel vehicle requirements out of the energy bill.
The Levin alternative had offered to set standards of 36 m.p.g. for cars by 2022 and 30 m.p.g. for trucks by 2025, or about 30 m.p.g. overall by 2020. Levin and Stabenow proposed some changes in their plan Wednesday, but were not willing to match the 35-m.p.g. target.
"There are no two senators from any other state that I have seen fight harder for their industries than Sen. Stabenow and Sen. Levin," Feinstein said. "Even so, we couldn't come to an accommodation."
Automakers now must meet standards of 27.5 m.p.g. for cars and 22.2 m.p.g. for trucks; the car standards are the same ones that Congress passed in 1975, while the truck standards have been raised slightly in recent years.
President George W. Bush criticized the Senate plan Thursday, saying it was less than the goal of 35 m.p.g. by 2017 that he proposed in his State of the Union address in January. Environmental groups had said the Bush goal was misleading because it was pitched as a target for federal regulators who set the final standards, not a legal requirement for the industry.
Bush said his plan would reduce gasoline consumption by 20% by 2017, but the Senate plan would cut gasoline usage by half that amount.
"We can do much better than that. We really can," Bush said in a speech at an Alabama nuclear plant. "We've got to be optimistic about what America can do when we put our mind to doing something."
On the other hand, while this might seem like a good move on the surface, this bill could be a totally meaningless gesture: It also requires automakers to make half their new vehicles E85-compatible within the same timeframe (something that is trivially easy to do). If the CAFE E85 credit system is still in effect (and as far as I know this bill hasn't reversed that; we'll see what happens when it comes up for renewal next year), it would mean that automakers would have no problem meeting the 35-mpg standard without lowering actual consumption at all, since under the E85 credit system, a 15-mpg vehicle that can run on E85 is counted as 40 MPG, even though on average it will only burn E85 1% of the time.
What a pathetic joke. In fact, why not dump the CAFE system altogether and replace it with fuel taxes. As far as I'm aware, no European countries legislate fuel economy standards for motor vehicles, yet high fuel taxes encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. The only real step forward I see on this bill is holding cars and light trucks to the same standards.
