MORE MILES TO THE GALLON, PLEASE: WHY DETROIT SHOULD WORRY

摘要

At the Chicago Auto Show on Feb. 6, General Motors exec Gary L. Cowger was defending the fuel economy of GM cars and trucks to reporters, saying his company was adding technology to make conventional cars more fuel-efficient. But Cowger was cut off by Vice-Chairman Robert A. Lutz, who argued that the only way to make Americans buy fuel-efficient cars was to tax gasoline until it reached European price levels―$3 to $4 per gallon. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program doesn't work, he said. "What we're doing is analogous to fighting national obesity by forcing clothing manufacturers to make only small sizes," Lutz snapped. Lutz's blunt talk reflects the complex political equation facing the Administration as it tries to move forward with the first increase in fuel-efficiency standards in a generation. The President was strongly backed by the auto industry in 2000, and he's trying to curry favor with auto workers in key states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. White House political strategists, however, would like to use the upcoming CAFE debate to burnish the President's credentials as a nonpartisan steward of the environment.