Whats down the road in Australia..

[ozpont]

.. our political 'leaders" and lobby groups.. tend to follow american leads so often..  .. I wonder how long it will take before we start hearing locally.. greenies using similiar pressure tactics to make political mileage out of ..  our fuel economy.. all in the name of 'looking after us".. of course...
("Cafe" is the US " Corporate Average Fuel Economy" .. being a the sales weighted average fuel economy)

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Years ago, Brookings Institution economist Bob Crandall declared that however you care to define the problem, CAFE is not the solution. His judgment has proved reliable as usual. The mandatory fuel economy program, born in 1975, has achieved none of its purported goals. Imported oil today accounts for a larger share than ever of our total consumption; we use more gasoline than ever because we have more cars and drive more miles, etc.

As for global warming, the impact is virtually nada. Washington could ban gasoline altogether and global greenhouse gas emissions would continue to grow. So why is revamping CAFE on the verge of becoming, by acclamation, Washington's primary gesture this year on global warming?

You can learn a lot about the political system from what's about to happen to the auto industry. You might just rush out and hug a special interest. To be blunt, the looming CAFE update is the product of a political lynch mob. It's coming because the auto industry can no longer defend itself.

Keith Crain, publisher of Automotive News, sadly told his readers recently: "Congress is on a rant for better fuel economy. For many members of Congress, the automobile industry has little or no credibility. . . . If the Detroit 3 went away and, like Great Britain, we had no more domestic industry, there would be no tears shed and no mourning in Washington."For many members of Congress, the automobile industry has little or no credibility. . . . If the Detroit 3 went away and, like Great Britain, we had no more domestic industry, there would be no tears shed and no mourning in Washington."

Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman, framed Washington's operative political perception this way: "Toyota is miraculous and GM is run by a bunch of aging stumblebums who wouldn't know technology if it hit 'em in the face."

Translation: The auto industry is the softest target politicians can find on which to discharge the pressure politicians feel to "do something" about climate change.

President Bush, whose White House once regularly issued little-read reports questioning the cost-benefit tradeoff of the existing CAFE standards, now wants to impose an ambitious new fleet-wide requirement of 34 miles per gallon (up from 27.5 today) by 2017.

Senate Democrats have their own bill, proposing 35 miles per gallon. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens favors whacking the auto makers as a means to protect Alaska's energy sector. His bill: 40 mpg. Oil and chemical lobbyists applaud wildly, delighted to see the "kick me" sign shifted to another industry. Meanwhile, California and nine other states are poised to adopt emissions rules that, if upheld in the courts, would foist a 43 mpg standard on the nation.

Contrary to myth, auto makers have steadily improved the energy efficiency of their vehicles by nearly 60% since 1975 -- and consumers used these gains partly to afford bigger, more powerful cars, with more safety and comfort features. Want to know where the industry's fuel economy efforts have been going? Some 272 million additional gallons are burned per year to haul around the average citizen's heftier mass, according to an analysis by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Illinois.

Miraculous technologies will not spring into being when Congress waves its wand, revealing to auto makers dramatic new ways to achieve mileage gains without sacrificing other vehicle qualities cherished by consumers. To meet the new standard, auto makers will have to offer smaller, less-powerful cars than Americans, with their dollars, have shown they prefer. There will be less room for the dog and kids. Don't try towing a boat. It will be harder for an aging, fatter population to climb in and out. Costs incurred to make the car run farther on a gallon of fuel will be costs not incurred to make the car safer, more comfortable, more useful.

No, these ends won't have been deliberately designed into the revamped CAFE program. Politicians have no real idea what effect their proposals will have. They're charting a political path to a purely political goal: to avoid criticism and receive praise on the issue of climate and energy.

And CAFE is a familiar instrument indeed -- a folly that was originally piled on another folly, the federally imposed price and allocation controls on gasoline that led to gas lines in the 1970s. CAFE has lacked any rational purpose since those controls were discarded. But it has assumed a venerable and handy status as a way of blaming the auto industry for selling us cars we choose to buy.

There's a lesson in civics here. There are no votes in good policy per se. There are only countervailing pressures from motivated groups whose interests are a serviceable proxy for the real cost of policy excursions that politicians peddle to voters as a free lunch.

But Detroit has been on the losing end of the symbolism wars for years. Hollywood celebrities do a couple turns around the block in a Prius and heap aspersion on the cars preferred by pudgier, mostly older Americans who drive hundreds of miles a week.

Foolish clergymen seeking the limelight participate in "what would Jesus drive?" campaigns. Answer: not the pickup trucks and SUVs that half of all American car buyers actually buy.

President Bush advises Detroit to make "relevant" products, presumably unaware of how Washington puts a thumb on the scale to make it harder for Detroit to deliver the mix of vehicle attributes (including price) that appeals most strongly to customers.

Not one voter in ten thousand can be expected to learn how the CAFE rules work and their real consequences. Organized interests are of necessity the defenders of the public welfare in such cases. We are likely to get some abysmally bad public policy on fuel economy in the coming weeks. The cost of the car industry's political weakness will be found in the sticker price of your next car.

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