Proposed Fuel Economy Measure Shows Dick Cheney's Heavy Hand

Source: Public Citizen Press Release

Proposed Fuel Economy Measure Shows Dick Cheney’s Heavy Hand

Posted: 09/06/2007

Public Citizen’s Press Release

A new report released by Public Citizen today outlines in detail the backroom meetings held by Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and high-level White House officials to create a proposal to overhaul fuel economy standards. Normally, specific government agencies have responsibility for drafting proposals particular to their scope of interest. When vehicle fuel economy became an issue however, many high-level officials from the White House stepped in to “assist.” Sometimes the Department of Transportation was left completely out of the loop in some of these meetings.

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While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stakes claim to the sliding scale idea, Public Citizen’s report tells a different story. After digging though massive amount of documents obtained from the Office of Management and Budget as well as NHTSA through a Freedom of Information Act request, it was discovered that e-mail and calendar records show staff from the Office of the Vice President meeting with NHTSA officials and playing a dominant role in creating the sliding scale from 2001-2003. In fact, some meetings excluded NHTSA staff entirely. At every meeting that can be tracked down, at least one member of Cheney’s staff also was deeply involved.

A sliding scale would only serve the auto manufacturers. Instead of requiring the fuel economy of all vehicles in a manufacturer’s fleet to attain a specific mile-per-gallon average - thereby creating an incentive for automakers to offset gas guzzlers by producing more fuel-efficient vehicles - the new system would set mile-per-gallon targets for each size of vehicle. This would allow companies that pump out larger gas-guzzling SUVs to have a lower fuel economy target than companies producing passenger cars.

It ditches the statutory demand for the best fuel economy standards, basing public policy not on public need but, instead, on biased cost-benefit bean counting. Additionally, if a sliding scale were instituted the public will be less safe on the nation’s roads as it entrenches problems of incompatibility, given its incentives to manufacturers to continue making larger vehicles. The only way to truly achieve more fuel efficient fleets of vehicles is through the adoption of strict corporate average fuel economy standards that leave no loop-holes for the auto industry to abuse.

Read more: http://www.citizen.org/autosafety/fuelecon/nhtsacafe/articles.cfm?ID=17058

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070907/BUSINESS02/709070320/1002

Cheney's hand in fuel rules claimed
Advocacy group sues to block changes
September 7, 2007

BY JUSTIN HYDE

FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

WASHINGTON -- A Washington auto advocacy group claimed Thursday that Vice President Dick Cheney and the Bush administration devised a 2006 change in fuel economy standards for trucks that eases requirements on automakers, with limited input from federal auto industry regulators.

Public Citizen, which has sued to block the standards, says it based its claims on data gathered through a Freedom of Information Act request showing Cheney's staffers attending at least 45 meetings on fuel economy standards between 2001 and 2003.

The standards unveiled in 2006 changed the way regulators calculate how an automaker meets a fuel economy rule. While the old system averaged the fuel economy of all the vehicles an automaker sold, the new version sets a standard that varies based on a vehicle's size.

Public Citizen sued the administration over the standards, saying they were weaker than allowed by law. Robert Shull, Public Citizen's deputy director of auto safety and regulatory policy, said the records show transportation officials in a "junior partnership role" as the rules were written.

:grr:

Every Republican since Raygun took Carter's solar panels down off the White House roof in 1981. It's just that Cheney was so blatant and systematic about it.

clinton was hardly an environmentalist either regarding climate change. Now his VP......