AP: Automakers Welcome GOP Control

November 14, 2002; Automakers are optimistic that they'll be treated favorably by next year's Republican-controlled Congress, although two key senators may have the most say over Detroit's agenda on Capitol Hill.

Industry representatives say their companies have fared better since the 2000 election of George W. Bush as president. And in last week's midterm congressional elections, Republicans retained control of the House and the GOP won a slim majority in the Senate.

But automakers say they will still need support from both political parties to expand global trade, maintain existing fuel economy standards, ease clean-air rules and provide generous tax breaks for consumers who buy vehicles powered by alternative fuels.

"Overall margins are tight," GM spokesman Mike Morrissey told The Detroit News for a Wednesday report. "You're really going to need bipartisan support to get anything done."

The GOP's capture of the Senate means new leadership of the two committees that control most of the auto industry's legislative agenda on environmental, commerce, science and transportation issues.

But U.S. Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and John McCain, R-Ariz., have differing views toward the industry.

Inhofe, incoming chairman of the environment committee, tried unsuccessfully in 1997 to block tough clean-air rules backed by President Clinton. He has frequently criticized Environmental Protection Agency decisions as too costly and supported by weak scientific findings.

"Inhofe has a history of trying to undermine the Clean Air Act," said Michelle Robinson of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Inhofe succeeds Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent, as chairman of the Senate's environment committee. Jeffords supported tougher fuel economy laws and the Clean Air Act, and as committee chairman worked for a new version of the law first passed in 1990.

"Jeffords was command and control," said Janet Mullins Grissom, vice president of Washington affairs at Ford Motor Co. "He was regulate, regulate, regulate, with no consideration of costs. We know that Inhofe is not going to come out with anything that will put billions of dollars of costs on business."

In McCain, the incoming Senate Commerce Committee chairman, automakers will be dealing with a longtime supporter of higher fuel economy targets.

A year ago, McCain supported a plan by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., that would have required an automakers' fleet of cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks to average 35 miles per gallon by 2013, up from the existing 27.5 mpg for cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks.

But the Kerry-McCain plan was rejected on a 60-39 vote. The House already had rejected tougher fuel economy requirements in July 2001.

"I would presume and hope that, because of all the work that was done on that issue, we would not have to start from scratch," Grissom said.

McCain also led an unsuccessful effort in the aftermath of the Firestone tire recall to impose criminal penalties against executives who knowingly failed to act on any potentially fatal automotive defect. He did win passage of a plan to require a new generation of so-called smart air bags in 1998.

"McCain was a pilot, and he's very big on safety," said Joan Claybrook, president of the Washington consumer group Public Citizen and former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.