Political Quotes

“That is 26,000 to 52,000 additional deaths since 1980 and nearly a half a million additional serious injuries due to too-rapid increases in CAFE standards. Why is this? Well, again we have the National Academy of Sciences, and they said it best. Again, I refer to this chart: An increase in fuel economy is affected by a system that encourages either downweighting or the production and sale of more small cars. Some additional traffic fatalities would be expected. EIA's analysis predicts this will happen, even as we fall short of reaching the aggressive 36-mile-per-gallon fleet average. If CAFE standards are increased dramatically over too short a period of time, automakers will have no choice but to downsize and downweight their cars and trucks to meet the standard. Rather than choosing an arbitrary number, or Senators engaging in a bidding war for the endorsement of--well, I say the environmental lobby, because they are the ones behind this primarily--should we not instead rely on the expertise of the engineers at NHTSA to balance the competing concerns of fuel economy, passenger safety costs, and consumer needs? In spite of our efforts to generate consensus at a town hall meeting that is this Senate debate, this type of technology demands engineers who know what they are talking about. The Levin-Bond approach lets the experts, not the politicians, determine the maximum feasible fuel economy increase.”