With Friends Like These

Alec Dubro

June 05, 2007

TomPaine contributor Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch just informed us of an attempt by one congressman to undercut the recent move by the states to improve on the EPA emission standards.

“On Friday, O’Donnell wrote, “Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the House subcommittee on energy and air quality, released ‘discussion draft’ legislation that looks as if it could have written in the boardroom of General Motors.” Boucher’s bill would change the law so that, “The Administrator [of EPA] shall not grant states the necessary Clean Air Act waiver to exceed federal motor vehicle pollution standards if ‘such standards are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions’.”

Although Boucher hasn’t received campaign money from G.M, mused O’Donnell, “…perhaps, he is working as an agent for Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee and a well-known auto industry supporter.

The problem is, these guys aren’t supporting the auto industry—they’re helping to destroy it. If blocking efficiency regulations, killing clean air laws and undermining safety rules are supporting the American auto industry, how come you can give away Chrysler for pennies on the dollar? How come the market shares of Ford and G.M. continue to shrink? Why do the world’s consumers—including more and more Americans—choose to buy cleaner, safer, more economical Asian cars?

Without fail, the auto industry, with its suppliers and, I regret to say, its unions, have convinced their congressional allies and administration friends to block every single piece of safety, pollution and gas mileage legislation that has come along since the 1970s. You name it: seat belts, shatterproof glass, smog controls, airbags, rollover prevention, padded dashboards. They have all been opposed or undermined by people like Rick Boucher and John Dingell. At the same time, they watched as one by one American assembly lines were supplanted by imports and then by foreign-owned plants. And still they fight every attempt to protect the atmosphere, the water, car passengers and pedestrians. The companies cut wages, buy out staff, renege on pensions, and come up with one Byzantine financing arrangement after another. All to no avail.

The U.S. auto industry isn’t up against cheap labor: Japanese workers make as much as Americans and Koreans aren’t far behind. We’re not being undercut by weaker environmental laws: virtually every industrial country, including China, has laws stricter than our own. We’re losing because we make the cars of the past, not the future. And for decades, we’ve been behind the curve on most of the important innovations.

It’s not that our engineers and designers are inherently worse than those abroad. It’s that our regulations and our whole industrial approach to design are negative. The idea is that you make money by giving the consumer the most for a dollar, not least. That may work for one year or one quarter, but it’s not sustainable.

If Rick Boucher really wants to help American carmakers, then he should refuse to help them dig their own grave. It’s what a real friend would do.