What will they do?

Opinion: December 12, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang

Los Angeles Times

Launching its biggest environmental accomplishment, the Obama administration has proposed rules that would determine how far 2025 cars go on a gallon of gas and how much global warming pollution they emit.

Surprisingly, the auto companies support the strong rules. Even more surprisingly, though, they can dictate how successful the program will be.

After accepting $80 billion in bailouts and demanding wide flexibility in the new environmental standards, will the carmakers act responsibly and embrace them as an opportunity for bold transformation? Or will they latch onto the loopholes they won, undercutting the rules’ benefits by building even more gas guzzlers and pushing a “bigger is better” line?

Broad goals

President Obama announced the broad goals, which cover new cars and light trucks sold from 2017 to 2025, in July. The administration unveiled the specific rules for reaching those targets recently, as the industry prepared for the L.A. Auto Show.

Based largely on industry information about the size and mix of the vehicles it will produce, the government forecasts a fleet that averages 54.5 mpg in 2025, and that’s been the news sound-bite. But the companies get to decide what models to make — how many trucks, how many cars, what size. If Detroit opts for bigger cars and more SUVs, pickups and vans, the mileage will be nothing near that admirable goal.

The aim also is to cut car emissions by roughly 5 percent a year and those from light trucks by 3.5 percent — on a sliding scale based on size. But the weaker truck standard, which doesn’t require significant emissions reductions until 2021, invites the manufacturers to make more trucks than cars. Similarly, if the companies make larger trucks or larger cars, the bigger vehicles qualify for weaker standards as well — reinforcing the incentive to make and sell larger vehicles and more trucks.

The government projects that the nation would gain between $350 billion and $450 billion in fuel savings — roughly three times the cost of the fuel efficiency technology. Consumers would pocket more than $4,000 in individual savings, even after paying the higher up-front costs for cleaner cars. If gas prices rise — and who thinks they won’t by 2025 — the savings would be even greater.

Global warming

The program would save 1.5 million barrels of oil a day (the amount the United States imports daily from Saudi Arabia and Iraq) and keep more than 280 million metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually by 2030.

Meeting the new goals is not a big challenge.

But Detroit’s track record is not good. Congress passed the first fuel efficiency law in 1975. The standards were weaker for light trucks than for cars. Over the next three decades, industry marketers pushed trucks, as automakers sought to evade the tougher car rules. By 2004, they drove truck sales to 56 percent from 21 percent in 1975.

Gas guzzling and tailpipe pollution grew. Gas prices climbed. Foreign companies made more efficient cars, and the U.S. auto industry’s fortunes plummeted.

The automakers now have the power to make the emissions and mileage program a success.

Dan Becker directs the Safe Climate Campaign. James Gerstenzang, who covered the White House and environment for the Los Angeles Times, is the campaign’s editorial director. Distributed by MCT Information Services