With New Fuel Economy Standards Obama Makes Us Less Safe --Again!

President Obama has made this country less safe yesterday be announcing that auto-makers must meet stringent new mileage standards that experts believe will result in more highway deaths.

The National Academy of Sciences, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Congressional Budget Office and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have separately concluded in multiple studies dating back about 20 years that fuel-economy standards force automakers to build more small cars, which has led to thousands more deaths in crashes annually.

These four disparate and non-partisan agencies have empirical evidence that increasing fuel-economy demands will result in more Americans dying on the roads. But, apparently, Obama doesn't care.

The government says no tradeoff (between fuel economy and auto safety) exists, because nothing in the new rules would force automakers to sell more small cars, which are more dangerous in crashes than larger ones. But some safety experts think otherwise.

Here again, Obama thinks himself smarter than the industry experts. I will side with the non-partisan experts over the word of a politician. Not that a politician would gloss over the facts to sell a program.

While it is true that nothing literally "forces automakers to sell more small cars," that result is inevitably, report many experts.

The concern is that the auto-makers, already in a tight financial situation, will short-sheet the changes to meet the shortened deadlines.

...(the) automakers' dire financial straits are forcing safety to a back burner. It raises the risk that cash-strapped automakers will take the fastest and cheapest route to building more fuel-efficient vehicles: Make them smaller and lighter.

"The deadlines are so tight that downsizing will be a tempting compliance strategy" for automakers, says John Graham, the former rulemaking chief in the Office of Management and Budget.

Another concern is that the "Big 3" auto-makers in the U.S. will no longer put up an aggressive posture in opposition to these changes by arguing the reduction in safety, because of the bailout money the companies have been receiving.

In comments to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last June, GM vigorously protested higher fuel-economy standards, saying they would be too costly and would force it to adopt technologies that impair performance and reliability. But in December, when it submitted its restructuring plan to Congress, GM said it erred by not moving more quickly on such vehicles.

This plan also doesn't seem to consider the current cars on the road. If the national average of most people having 10-year old cars maintains, then in 2016 the fuel-efficient cars will compete against cars from 2006 to 2015 in emissions.

Further, these changes might not work. CBS Correspondent Bill Plante told CBS Early Show's Harry Smith that "critics say there's no evidence that new standards will clean up the environment. And they charge the White House is pushing the move on struggling automakers who can't afford to fight the plan."

The major automakers are "working as hard as we can to make each dollar count as much as possible — especially with limited resources," says Wade Newton, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "We'll try our best to make $10 billion go as far as $15 billion — not always easy, but a necessity in this economic climate."

Perhaps these costs will not be as arduous as some think. According to Edmunds.com:

(M)ost (automakers) believe they can meet the (2008 fuel-efficiency) goal by applying a lot of existing technologies that have been considered too expensive in the past but will become more affordable as they are applied to greater numbers of vehicles — and as the price of gasoline and diesel fuel continues to rise.

Whatever the cost to automakers, know that those costs will be passed on to you, and the costs will far exceed the $1300 that the administration is pitching.

To me, it is too high a cost to pay for a solution that might not work for a problem that might not exist.