Organizing for America | Policybusters Blog: Report from Tuesday's Ann Arbor Town Hall Meeting with Rep. Dingell

Report from Tuesday's Ann Arbor Town Hall Meeting with Rep. Dingell

By Policybusters - Aug 9th, 2007 at 3:08 pm EDT

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Tags: Global Warming

I was glad to hear Rep. Dingell clearly indicate on Tuesday that he does now see an increase in CAFE standards as a key part of any strategy to achieve the 60-80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that he agrees we need to achieve by 2050.

However, in order to address the loss of US auto manufacturing jobs by the Big 3, the weak increases in CAFE standards that Dingell is so far proposing will be next to useless. Dingell's proposed CAFE standards of 35 mpg for cars, and 30 for trucks, by 2022, if passed, would be far too little and too late to be of any use to help the Big 3 to close the gap in their production of fuel efficient vehicles with Honda and Toyota, who will probably have a car fleet averaging 35 mpg by 2012 or shortly thereafter.

A weak increase in CAFE standards may be even worse than useless because it will create a lot of debate over CAFE standards without achieving what is most important for the Big 3 US auto producers: pushing the Big 3 to dramatically shift their production to more fuel efficient cars in order to catch up to Toyota and Honda so they stop losing both market share and auto jobs in Michigan and elsewhere.

At their current rate of emphasizing the production of fuel efficient hybrids, and even more fuel efficient plug-ins by 2010 (when Toyota will probably release its plug-in Prius model), Honda and Toyota may quickly reach an average fuel economy of 35 mpg for their fleet of cars by early in the next decade (2011 or 2012).

If Honda and Toyota are already averaging 35 mpg in their fleet of US-selling cars by 2012 (in Japan, the 2002 fleet of new cars had already reached an average of 46 mpg!), and American consumers continue to shift their buying pattern to these more fuel-efficient cars, what good will be Dingell's proposed CAFE standards requiring that the US Big 3 reach 35 mpg by 2022? If the Big 3 take until 2022 to reach an avg 35 mpg on their cars, while Toyota and Honda have reached it by 2012, I imagine the Big 3 will have largely ceased to exist by 2022!

Such a weak CAFE standard would be therefore be disastrous for the US auto industry and Big 3 unionized auto jobs, since it would do nothing to alter the current direction of loss of market share and Big 3 auto jobs (in Michigan and elsewhere) to Honda and Toyota.

Rep. Dingell says he cares about the jobs of Michigan autoworkers, and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity on this issue. But if he truly wants to work for, and take action to protect unionized auto jobs, rather than for the bad decisions and foot-dragging of the Big 3 auto execs, it is time for Dingell to support much stronger CAFE standards that will have teeth in them, and that will push the footdragging Big 3 auto execs to abandon the path that has been causing them to lose both market share and jobs in Michigan and the rest of the country.

If the Big 3 auto execs are serious about protecting their own market share and jobs, they should be in favor of greatly increased CAFE standards, rather than opposing them. Indeed, I suspect Big 3 opposition to the idea that CAFE standards for cars should be raised to 40 mpg by 2018 may have something more to do with their desire to continue putting pressure on the UAW to continue to make concessions to management, under the threat that they will otherwise continue to lose their jobs! Perhaps the auto execs want unionized auto jobs to go away so they can be more like Honda and Toyota. So instead of competing with Honda and Toyota where they should, in the area of technology, to make sure that they catch up and begin to exceed the fuel efficiency of these auto producers, they seem to have chosen to continue to produce inefficient vehicles so they can be sure to continue to shed unionized auto jobs!

So the primary question for Dingell that arises from his Michigan home district 15 town hall meetings is this: WHAT WILL HE DO TO WORK FOR MUCH STRONGER CAFE STANDARDS THAT require at least 40 MPG FOR CARS BY 2018? And if he thinks such a goal for CAFE standards is too high for the Big 3, what does he think will keep the Big 3 from continuing to hemorrhage jobs to Toyota and Honda, since Toyota and Honda will probably reach an average of 40 mpg for their cars long before 2018? (Toyota has indicated that it will probably have its first plug-in hybrid on the market by 2009, which will rate at near 90 mpg!)

The bottom line: If Dingell wishes to work for legislation that will save Michigan autoworker jobs, the best thing he can do is fight for greatly increased auto fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards (of at least 40 mpg for cars by 2018). This will help save unionized US auto jobs, while also benefiting the Big 3 auto execs (by defending the auto execs against their own bad judgments)!

Anything less than this will not stem the tide of Big 3 losses of market share and jobs to Honda and Toyota. Anything less than this will also not be enough to move us toward achieving the major goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Without much higher CAFE standards, Michigan and US unionized auto jobs will continue to be lost, the Big 3 will continue to lose market share to Toyota and Honda, and the US and global environments will continue to be impacted by growing damages and violent changes due to increasing global warming gasses.

We are long past the time for timid and supine action on issues relating to US manufacturing jobs and addressing the challenges of global warming. Barack Obama understands this, and is making the arguments that will push us forward toward the kinds of new policy vision and action needed to address the urgent problems facing us after almost a decade of inaction and worse from the Bush administration. And I only hope that while Obama is calling us to more dramatic and clearer action during this campaign year, Rep. Dingell and other Democratic leaders in Congress will do their part over the next year to move in this direction as well, so we don't lose yet another year to inaction while we're working to get Obama elected as our next President.

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