The chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler met with Senate lawmakers today, less than a week before Democrats plan a vote on a sprawling energy bill, and asserted that the bill?s proposed increase in mileage requirements would be impossible to meet and would gravely damage the industry.
The bill would raise the average mileage requirement for passenger cars to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from the current 27.5 miles per gallon, and it would include light trucks and sport-utility vehicles in that requirement.
But key House and Senate Democrats are pushing a softer standard, and they appear to have a good chance of getting what they want. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, both of Michigan, are drafting a bill that would raise mileage requirements but give car companies opportunities to escape the requirements if they appeared to be too difficult to meet.
In the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the speaker, is on a collision course with a fellow Democrat, Representative John Dingell of Michigan, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who has proposed a bill that also includes numerous escape hatches for car companies ? ?off-ramps,? as supporters call them.
Levin and Stabenow are cowards. I know Markey is against Dingell’s treacherous plan; I wonder what we can do to strengthen his hand.
It’s just so damn depressing that we have to deal with this crap from Democrats. Heaven save us from our “friends”.
“It’s just so damn depressing that we have to deal with this crap from Democrats. Heaven save us from our “friends”.”
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In the immortal words of Tip, all politics are local. How many democratic congressmen and senators would be elected in Michigan who bashed the auto industry?
The so-called Big 3 of the US auto industry are already reeling in the face of higher efficiency vehicles from almost all other producers. Now they are trying to stop legislation that would require them to compete in this global automobile marketplace. Ironic, isn’t it? Maybe it’s a corporate death wish.
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As for Levin, et al., the problem with some politicians is that they are so easily polliticians. They worry more about getting elected than about doing the right thing. Their interests may rest with corporate managers and unionists in the next election cycle, so long as money rules the vote; but if the people of Michigan look at their long-range interests, even to the next generation, they will see that fuel efficiency is the central issue confronting automobile manufacture. They will welcome higher mileage requirements to keep their companies viable.
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An auto maker resisting the energy crisis is resisting reality.
…the problem with the American headquartered “big 3” auto companies isn’t so much an energy crisis, but over-capacity in the auto assembly market worldwide. With autos being more reliable, it is less likely that Americans will discard their autos after only 2-3 years, as was fairly common in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, more and more foreign labeled cars are assembled in the US–Honda in Ohio, Toyota in Tennesse, BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes in Alabama. But, given transportation costs, it is unlikely that Big 3 cars that are assembled in the US could efficiently be exported from the US for sale in other countries.
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As an addendum, I’ll mention that both GM and Ford have for a long time had subsidiaries in Europe. It was mentioned a long time ago that European Ford subsidiary originated the Escort design. And GM has owned Opel (a German auto company) since the 1920s–indeed GM tried to import the Opel Kadett into the US in the 1960s or 1970s, but it didn’t catch on. At least the Big 2 are competing in the global automobile marketplace.