New rules weighed for auto efficiency

WASHINGTON -- More than a quarter century after Congress wrote the rules setting automobile fuel economy standards, lawmakers are poised to make substantial increases in them, amid rising oil imports and prices.

The debate on mandating higher fuel standards for cars and trucks is unfolding in the House, which could take up the issue this week as part of a comprehensive energy bill.

The Senate has already passed legislation that would increase standards for cars and light trucks to an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, but the House is divided on two measures.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, is sponsoring a bill that calls for a 35-miles-per-gallon standard by 2019. Another House bill, endorsed by more than 40 Democrats and 60 Republicans and backed by much of the auto industry, calls for a standard of at least 32 miles per gallon for cars and trucks by 2022.

A 32-miles-per-gallon standard would represent an increase of only 6.6 miles per gallon in fuel efficiency standards over the next 15 years, far short of what federal researchers have found can be practically achieved, according to documents dating to 1979 that were reviewed by the Globe.

Last week, Markey said the 35-miles-per-gallon goal in his bill has been scaled down from his earlier proposal so that the bill would be closer to that of the Senate version. He was hopeful the provision would be included in the energy bill to be debated this week, but Democratic leaders were still gauging support for the measure.

Two decades ago, government analysts informed Congress in three reports that technology existed to produce cars that could achieve an average of up to 45 to 50 miles per gallon by 1995, if Congress chose to adopt higher fuel economy standards.

But efforts to increase fuel efficiency failed as gas prices tumbled, resulting in more than two decades of larger, fuel-hungry cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles. The fuel economy requirement for cars has not increased in 22 years, standing at 27.5 miles per gallon; at the same time, US oil imports have soared to 60 percent, from a low of 29 percent in the mid-1980s.

According to the reports written by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, and the Congressional Budget Office in 1979 and 1980, technology was available, even then, to produce cars with much higher fuel efficiency.

Automobile industry officials, in interviews, agree that such technology exists, but said consumers would pay much more for those vehicles and would sacrifice safety features.

"The costs would be so prohibitive in some cases that it would put those vehicles out of the reach of many consumers," said Wade Newton, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents nine automakers.

Nonetheless, for people who participated in the policy discussions during the late 1970s in the Carter administration, the current debate is a reminder of time lost.

Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a Washington-based nonprofit advocacy group, and the head of NHTSA from 1977 to 1981, said she does not believe that making substantial increases in fuel-economy standards would sharply increase prices.

Her agency's reports in the late 1970s found that a switch to more diesel engines and production of lighter vehicles, among other recommendations, would yield major increases in fuel economy.

"If they could do it then, they could do it today," Claybrook said in an interview. "We did the best evaluation we could at the time in 1979. It was accurate and true. Surely, the auto industry could have been at least to 40 miles per gallon" by the mid-1990s.

She said Public Citizen backs a 40-miles-per-gallon corporate average fuel economy, CAFE, standard by 2017, or an increase of 14.6 miles per gallon in a decade.

In 1975, in response to the first Arab oil embargo and fear of foreign manipulation of oil, Congress enacted and President Ford signed into law the first CAFE standards. They called for roughly doubling the average miles per gallon for an automaker's fleet of cars, from nearly 14 to 27.5 by 1985.

In 1979, Claybrook's office sent Congress its third annual review of CAFE standards, indicating that when the requirements ended in 1985 more increases were achievable. "If it were possible to develop the light-weight designs, and the health effects of controlled diesel engine exhausts were found to be acceptable," the report said, "fuel economy values in the range of 50 mpg for the passenger automobile fleet and 30 mpg for the light-truck fleet would be technologically achievable."

In the next year, the CBO concluded that "existing technologies coupled with market shifts to smaller cars could bring the average new fleet fuel economy [for both cars and trucks] to about 37 to 42 mpg by 1995." The CBO estimated that it would cost automakers between $8 billion and $12 billion in investments per year to reach a 40-miles-per-gallon standard by the 1990s.

A second report from Claybrook's office, completed in 1980, forecast high standards as well: "The domestic manufacturers probably can have the technological capability to increase average fuel economy of passenger autos by 1995 to the neighborhood of 45 to 50 mpg."

Markey spoke about setting new energy-saving goals in a speech before the Democratic National Convention in 1980.

"If we launched a crash energy productivity program, we could save millions of barrels of oil every day by 1990, by weatherizing our homes and offices and factories, by tough new appliance and automobile fuel efficiency standards, by industrial innovation and co-generation," he said at the time.

But the conservation movement was beginning to unravel. In late 1979, Carter administration Transportation Secretary Neil E. Goldschmidt visited automakers in Detroit on a peace mission. The automakers opposed any increase in fuel-efficiency standards after 1985. Goldschmidt obliged, declining to call for an increase.

When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, his administration opposed any new increase in CAFE standards and attempted to roll back several other environmental initiatives set during the Carter administration.

Republicans in the White House and in Congress, supported by key Democrats from auto-industry states, successfully stalled efforts to increase the standards for cars, while increasing the standard for light trucks by just 5 miles per gallon over the last 28 years. Most consumers also were not demanding more fuel-efficient vehicles. With fuel prices remaining low for years, automakers marketed and built larger cars, trucks, SUVs, and minivans.

In 1975, light trucks constituted 19.8 percent of new vehicle sales; last year, that figure rose to 53 percent. Advances in new energy-saving technologies often had little impact as makers added weight to vehicles and built amenities such as air-conditioned gloveboxes and lighted cupholders.

Automobile industry officials said Americans have not shown they will buy more fuel-efficient cars in substantial numbers.

Markey, though, said that the country is now paying for its failure more than a quarter-century ago to begin enacting stiffer fuel-economy standards. "That was the real opportunity for the country," he said in an interview. "Today, we are debating the agenda of 1980. It's sad it has taken us this long."

Globe researcher Elizabeth Grillo contributed to this report. John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.