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For a quarter-century, American automakers and their allies argued that any legislation to increase fuel economy standards would rob them of profits, force them to lay off workers and deprive consumers of the vehicles they wanted to buy.

So begins a very good front-page article in the New York Times today. The article goes on to note:

Even as recently as last weekend, a lobbying group financed by auto companies was still running radio ads in 11 states, raising the prospect that soccer moms might lose the opportunity to buy big sport utility vehicles if they did not urge Congress to reject legislation calling for higher mileage….

But this week, with a vote possible in the Senate on an energy plan, Detroit blinked, and the car companies retreated from their longstanding argument. They are now lobbying for a modest increase in mileage standards, a position already adopted by Toyota, in the hopes of silencing calls for even tougher targets.

So what has changed?

High gasoline prices, a war in the Persian Gulf, and growing sanity among diverse interest groups:

Environmentalists also found new support from surprising quarters, including a coalition of top corporate and former military leaders called SAFE, for Securing America’s Future Energy.

SAFE is a great organization. I was a founding board member, and you can get more information about them at their website.

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This entry was posted by Joe on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.