
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991                   TAG: 9103120424
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BETTER MILEAGE/ SQUEEZE OIL, AUTO MAKERS TOLD

HE DIDN'T exactly say he would kick Detroit's rear, but there was a touch of swagger to Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev. He's reintroducing his bill, which almost passed the Senate last year, to increase the fuel economy of the average U.S. car to 34 miles per gallon by 1996 and 40 mpg by 2001. "We're back, and this time we intend to win," he said. "We're going to fast-track it."

American car-makers will lay down a few speed bumps. "Unachievable with any known technology," huffed Tom Hanna, president of the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association (lobbying arm of Detroit's Big Three).

They said it couldn't be done back in the 1970s. Then, U.S.-made autos were getting about 10 miles a gallon, and the industry groaned at Congress' draconian proposal for corporate average fuel economy of 27.5 mpg. Today that's par, and many of Detroit's models do a lot better.

Raising the average to 40 mpg would save a lot of oil: 2.8 million barrels a day, says Bryan. That's about four times the amount the United States bought daily from Iraq and Kuwait before the war. Such an economy would also improve the U.S. trade deficit, which is swelled by imported oil more than any other single factor.

Attaining a 40-mpg average would be harder and more expensive than reaching 27.5, says David Cole, director of the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation. "The easy-to-play cards are already out of the deck." But other cards remain.

Actually, it would be wrong to consider Bryan's bill anti-Detroit. It would require each auto-maker to increase its own fuel economy by a set percentage. So the most economical cars, Japan's, would have to show the biggest improvements; their makers would pay a penalty for their earlier success.

This provision smells of protectionism; it's far from clear that consumers would benefit. American manufacturers now produce less than 20 percent of the world's automobiles - but larger market share should come with better cars at competitive prices, not through back-door regulation.

In any case, the 40-mpg figure might turn out to be a bargaining point. To save a lot of oil, it wouldn't be necessary to make that much an improvement in American fleets' economy. But they can do better, and they should.

by CNB