FC: Raise fuel efficiency standards, kill Americans?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

CATO INSTITUTE NEWS RELEASE
March 12, 2002

CAFE DEFEAT SAVED LIVES, SCHOLAR SAYS

WASHINGTON--Sens. Tom Daschle, D-SD, and John Kerry, D-MA, conceded
today that they lacked the votes in the Senate to pass a major
increase in the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards.
Jerry Taylor, director of natural resour ces studies at the Cato
Institute, called it "a tremendous victory for human health and the
economy."  He had the following comments:

"Environmentalists who supported an expansion of CAFE standards for
cars and light trucks are allowing their hostility to energy use to
override their common sense.  For instance, the National Academy of
Sciences reported last year that the current standards are directly
responsible for the deaths of 1,300 - 2,600 motorists a year.  That's
because automakers find that the cheapest way of incr easing fuel
efficiency is to reduce the size and weight of the cars they sell,
making them more dangerous to motorists in a crash. Dramatically
expanding CAFE standards would accelerate this trend and would
directly result in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of
Americans.

"While the costs of expanding CAFE standards is steep, the benefits
are ephemer al.  Expanded standards certainly wouldn't reduce foreign
oil imports.  For instance, since the CAFE standards were first
introduced, the average fuel economy more than doubled for new cars
and grew by more than 50 percent for new light trucks, but imported
oil has increased from 35 to 52 percent of U.S. consumptio n. Reducing
oil demand would remove the most expensive oil sources from the mar
ket first, and foreign oil is the cheapest oil supply source in the
world. Dome stic producers, not foreign oil producers, would be hit
hardest if gasoline demand were to decline.

"Nor would an expanded CAFE standard do much about global
warming. Gasoline con sumption in the United States is only
responsible for 1.5 percent of all human- related greenhouse gas
emissions. The EPA reports that expanded CAFE standards wont
appreciably change that figure.

"If people want to drive fuel efficient cars, that's their right.  But
forcing people in cars they don't otherwise wish to drive -- or indirectly
taxing them through the regulatory standards for not choosing to
drive cars that environmentalists like is not only wrong, it's
dangerous."

Jerry Taylor is available for comment at 202-789-5240. To schedule an
interview , please contact Joan Kirby at 202-789-5266.

The Cato Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan public policy research
foundation dedicated to broadening policy debate consistent with the
traditional American principles of individual liberty, limited
government, free markets, and peace.




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