by Eric Richard

One of the common themes on this blog has been a discussion of the Corporate Average Fleet Efficiency (CAFE) Standards. The first post on this was “20 Years Later, It’s Time for a Change” and was followed by “The Dirty Little Secret about Flex-Fuel Cars“.

The common theme throughout these posts was that the CAFE standards were woefully out-of-date and had loopholes that you could drive a Hummer through allowing companies to produce gas guzzlers without having to bear the costs of this against their fleet averages.

It looks like the Senate just made a huge step in the right direction toward fixing this.

Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation voted to pass Senate bill 357, the Feinstein-Snowe “Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act“.

Reading through this bill, I think there are several key items that make this very compelling.

Raising the CAFE Average by 10 MPG in 10 Years

The most notable change required by the bill is that the CAFE averages be raised from 25 mpg to 35 mpg by 2019.

The bill also specifies an intermediary requirement of 29.5 mpg for passenger cards and 23.5 for light trucks by 2010.

In addition, according to the press releases I have seen, the bill also includes a provision to increase in the CAFE standards 4% / year from 2020 through 2030. I cannot find the actual text of this change in the bill itself, but I may just be looking at an older version.

If this was all the bill did, I think we could have a big debate about whether this was enough or not. Many advocates had been hoping for a 40 mpg standard so 35 mpg is shy of that goal.

My general take though is that it is about time that they are finally making changes here and I think that some of the other changes (discussed below) are important enough to justify this 5 mpg gap.

Elimination of the SUV Loophole

Honestly, I think this maybe even more important than the previous section.

As I understand it, the existing CAFE standards basically exempt “work vehicles”. The idea here is that the CAFE standards were not intended to apply to farming trucks or big rigs.

Specifically, “Light trucks that exceed 8,500 lbs gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) do not have to comply with CAFE standards. These vehicles include pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and large vans.”

However, this loophole has been massively exploited by the auto manufacturers. Specifically, vehicles like the Hummer and other SUVs were large enough that they were not categorized as “passenger cars” and because of this, the didn’t count against the fleet average.

This basically meant that auto manufacturers could sell more and more of these vehicles without having any impact on their fleet average fuel economy.

The proposed bill eliminates all distinctions between light trucks and passenger vehicles and requires them to both be counted toward a manufacturers fleet average.

I believe this will be absolutely huge in terms of its impact on auto manufacturers and is why I am not so worried about the 35 mpg vs. 40 mpg debate above. If I could choose between a 40 mpg average for all passenger cars but no standard for SUVs compared to a 35 mpg combined average, I think I’ll go for the latter any day.

This will create immediate pain for the auto industry every single time they sell another gas guzzler. This will force them to apply the same fuel efficiency standards to all of their vehicles and improve the worst of the vehicles.

No longer will the worst cars get an exemption.

Onboard Fuel Economy Indicators

One very small element of the bill is that it will require all cars manufactured after 2014 to have “an onboard electronic instrument that provides real-time and cumulative fuel economy data”.

I actually think this will be very valuable. I’ve always wondered how much of the benefit that Prius owners get is because they can monitor and manage their driving patterns. They can learn how their driving patterns affect their fuel efficiency and can change their behaviors to increase their fuel efficiency.

I’ve heard similar stories about home owners being able to dramatically reduce their home electricity usage simply by getting real time monitoring of their electricity usage.

In both cases, it creates a very direct causal link between an individuals behavior and their consumption which allows them to change their behavior. There is a saying that “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” and I think that adding these monitors to cars will help educate drivers.

This is a relatively small item, but I like the idea.

Creation of Fuelstar Program

Another small part of the bill would create a “Fuelstar” that is analogous to the EnergyStar program for home appliances.

The idea is that cars would have “Fuelstar” labels on them that would allow a consumer to compare the environmental friendliness of two different vehicles.

One element that I like about this program is that it will not be purely based on fuel efficiency — it will also take into account the greenhouse gas emissions of the vehicle.

I’ve always thought that too much attention is paid to the fuel economy of cars. Honestly, I think it is more important that my Prius is a “Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV)” than the fact that it gets 55 mpg since it is the emissions that ultimately wind up affecting pollution and climate change. So, it is good to see them take this into effect.

In addition, this program will also take into account factors like the recyclability of cars and “any other pollutants or harmful byproducts related to the automobile, which may include those generated during manufacture of the automobile, those issued during use of the automobile, or those generated after the automobile ceases to be operated.”

As a Prius owner, I am particularly happy about this clause. Why? For months, there has been a series of articles running around the Internet talking about the overall environmental impact of a Hummer vs. the environmental impact of a Prius. Every one of these articles harkens back to a single original analysis called “Dust to Dust” and a follow on commentary called “Hidden Cost of Driving a Prius” by CNW Research.

This single report has spawned dozens and dozens of articles talking about which is better: a Hummer or a Prius.

As a Prius owner, I would love to have the government include all of these environmental impacts in their assessment so we can cut to the chase here and have a real analysis of which cars are better for the environment. Let’s get this debate out of the blogosphere and base it on real facts rather than one report by a market-research company.

Prospects for Passage

Ok, so the Commerce Committee sent the bill to the full Senate. So, what? Is it going to actually pass?

That’s obviously the $50,000 question, but I am cautiously optimistic.

What I have read says that the Senate has broad support for this bill. And, because of the filibuster, the Senate tends to be the much more difficult body to get legislation through. If this bill can pass through the Senate, then it just needs a majority in the House. And if the Dems can’t find a simple majority in the House for a bill like this, shame on them.

Of course, the ultimate question is what The Decider will do. Would he bow to the pressure of the auto manufacturers and veto? Who knows.

Anyway, I think this will be a very important bill to watch as it makes its way through Congress.

Related:

• C-SPAN has a recording of the 3-hour session before the Senate Committee discussing this bill. (Note: This requires RealPlayer to view.)
• The U.S. Code governing the existing CAFE standards