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Guest Commentary March 15, 2002
In Search of Safe Auto Standards
The Honorable Jon Kyl
When President Bush nominated Mary Sheila Gall as head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, many Democrats attacked her for a supposed indifference to regulations governing child safety products. They raised questions, in particular, about her position on a standard meant to decrease the number of deaths as a result of children's bunk beds. And then they voted against her.
Yet the number of children who died in faulty bunk beds pales in comparison to the thousands of people who die every year as a result of federally-mandated fuel efficiency standards (known as "CAFE Standards") for automobiles. How interesting then, that a substantial number of Senators -- many of whom voted against Gall's nomination due to safety concerns -- now propose raising CAFE standards even higher. By this action, they willingly are advancing legislation that they know will cost thousands of lives.
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This is no exaggeration. The primary way for automobile manufacturers to comply with CAFE standards is to make smaller cars with lighter designs. But these lighter cars drastically compromise passenger safety. A 1999 study published in USA Today -- using data collected in part by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - found that since 1975, 46,000 people have died in crashes they otherwise would have survived had they been traveling in bigger, heavier cars. That's almost as many casualties as we had in the Vietnam War! Additionally, a separate report by the National Academy of Sciences, issued last August, concluded that CAFE requirements contribute to as many as 2,600 traffic deaths every year.
Like most Americans, I believe our nation should be as fuel-efficient as possible -- but not at the cost of thousands of lives. We should also be environmental advocates - but environmentalism does not require that we blindly ignore public safety.
In addition to concerns about public safety, an arbitrary increase in CAFE standards will mean fewer large cars - and fewer choices for consumers. Many mothers currently prefer to transport their kids in SUVs or minivans - as do churches and nursing homes. A hike in CAFE standards would deprive many of them of these options. Should it prove necessary, I plan to offer an amendment to the energy bill that would exempt SUVs and minivans from increases in current CAFE standards. Mothers who want to pay for safer, heavier cars to transport their children should have the right to do so.
Additionally, the Senate is preparing to impose these new standards with little regard to the impact on the economy. I have been told by workers that thousands of union jobs could be lost as a result of this arbitrary change because of the added costs to employers and the reduction in the number of large cars that would subsequently be manufactured. At a time of economic uncertainty, we should be very careful not to take steps that would weaken our economy.
For too long, anyone opposing measures championed by certain advocacy groups has been labeled "anti-environment." Those who questioned a federal mandate to lower arsenic levels in water, for example, were blasted for an indifference to public safety -- despite the fact that many scientists were uncertain about the need for such a reduction. Yet the point many were trying to make about the new arsenic requirements was that Washington was imposing new mandates on states and localities without giving them the money to pay for them. The costs of the proposed changes to Arizona, for example, may reach $122 million. Scottsdale is hit particularly hard - the cost of compliance could be as high as $64 million, or approximately $145 per Scottsdale household.
There needs to be some consistency here. We cannot be concerned about public safety when it suits our purposes - such as opposing a particular nomination - and then shrug those concerns off when it is no longer convenient - as when pushing higher fuel-efficiency standards. And we should all recognize that it is not "anti-environment" to express concerns about the real costs - in lives or dollars - of proposals championed by advocates with their own agenda.
Jon Kyl, a Republican, is a U.S. Senator from Arizona. The above commentary has been adapted from a weekly column Sen. Kyl issues, March 15, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
