« Updated: Green Dividend | Main | Liberty Has Reservations on CRC »
August 21, 2007
Lobbying Shapes Fuel Economy Standards?
Monday's O includes this article (originally from the Detroit Free Press) about how much various auto makers spent lobbying Congress on the CAFE standards.
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:00 AM
Comments
August 21, 2007 4:39 AM
Matthew Says:
The U.S. auto industry paid $31.2 million in the first six months of the year
That works out to $115k/year per member of Congress. To put that number into perspective, most of them are paid $165k/year... Am I the only one that sees a problem here?
August 26, 2007 7:43 PM
Greg B Says:
I don't think thats the way it works exactly. Congressmen and the people that work for them are under strict guidelines about what they can accept from lobbyists and none of them get straight money - even meals are under this I believe. On top of that I do some work with the AAM and there are some good points about CAFE standards they are making. The auto industry is behind raising CAFE, but they want to make sure that trucks and cars are treated appropriately because of the differing needs of consumers.
August 27, 2007 7:27 AM
Greg B Says:
I don't think thats the way it works exactly. Congressmen and the people that work for them are under strict guidelines about what they can accept from lobbyists and none of them get straight money - even meals are under this I believe. On top of that I do some work with the AAM and there are some good points about CAFE standards they are making. The auto industry is behind raising CAFE, but they want to make sure that trucks and cars are treated appropriately because of the differing needs of consumers.
August 27, 2007 8:14 AM
Matthew Says:
I don't think they are bribing them, (or at least, if they are, they are probably smart enough to not tell the press about it,) my point is that if someone spent 2/3rd of your salary trying to convince you of something, they'd probably be fairly successful at it... And it isn't that there aren't good points to what AAM is doing, but that that sort of money by itself is just too strong of an influence...
August 28, 2007 8:21 AM
Greg B Says:
Well, don't you think there was a fair amount of lobbying done to get the MAX built? Additionally, a lot of time also goes into informing regular American consumers about the issues and the different parties stance on them as well.
But look, I'm not a lobbyist or anything close, but I can definitely see the point if a single issue is going to cost your industry something big time like unreasonable increases in CAFE standards, I can see how they justified getting their side of the issue heard.
