Sierra Club, UAW say CAFE changes will cost jobs

WASHINGTON - The UAW and the Sierra Club are not going to develop a joint proposal to overhaul the nation's vehicle fuel economy standard, even though they have formed an unlikely alliance to attack the Bush administration.

The White House's plan to rewrite fuel economy rules threatens the nation's environment and could cost automotive jobs, leaders of both organizations say.

"We agree on what we're against. We haven't yet agreed on what we're for," says Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program. Becker helped draft the joint statement that criticized a White House plan to revamp corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope signed the statement, which was sent to all members of Congress and appeared on the op-ed page of The New York Times.

"It's got politics written all over it," says a Bush administration official who asked not to be named.

Industry observers believe the fuel economy issue will be a political liability in key auto-producing states for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumed Democratic nominee for president.

Kerry was the prime mover behind a 2002 effort in Congress to raise CAFE standards 50 percent over 10 years. The UAW helped kill that proposal.

The Sierra Club and the UAW, which are expected to support the eventual Democratic nominee, suggest that President Bush is vulnerable on the issue. They say the administration's CAFE proposal would speed the loss of manufacturing jobs by encouraging automakers to move production of small vehicles overseas.

The White House wants to divide vehicles into weight classes and assign different CAFE standards to those classes. The Sierra Club and the UAW claim that would increase fuel consumption, pollution and reliance on imported oil. The Bush administration disputes those assertions.

"They don't have any factual basis for the claims they are making," says Rae Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which administers the nation's fuel economy standard. In December the agency published a notice of its intent to rewrite CAFE rules that by general agreement are flawed and outdated.

The concepts NHTSA is studying include adding weight classes and revising CAFE's criteria for defining a light truck.

But environmental groups complain that the agency's concepts include an overly flexible definition of a light truck. That's a tempting loophole for automakers.

Automakers' car fleets must average 27.5 mpg, while their truck fleets must average 20.7 mpg.

Despite the lower fuel economy target for trucks, some automakers still have trouble achieving the standard. To improve the average fuel economy of its truck lineup, DaimlerChrysler AG calls its fuel-efficient PT Cruiser a truck.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has not taken a position on weight classes, says spokesman Eron Shosteck. The Alliance lobbies for the Big 3 and six import-brand automakers.