Daniel Howes

Daniel Washington pushes Big Three to change

Bipartisan plans for fuel efficiency, energy independence mean Detroit must move fast.

E very day of every week, Detroit's automakers theoretically push to become more competitive, to build the cars and trucks Americans want, to rescue themselves from financial oblivion -- in effect, to chart their own future.

But this week is different, at least in the nation's capital. This week, coastal Democrats led by new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are vying with the Bush Administration for bragging rights on who's pushing Detroit Auto hardest on fuel efficiency and alternative technologies and who's serious about delivering national energy independence.

Reminds me of an old adage: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Meaning bi-partisan political winds in Washington are set to bring change to Detroit, whether Detroit likes it or not and is ready or not.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, President Bush called for reducing gasoline usage by 20 percent over the next 10 years, mostly by mandating increased supplies of renewable and alternative fuels like corn ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen. He also wants to reform federal fuel economy rules for cars but not light trucks, an obvious sop to Detroit.

"What we're not doing," a senior White House official told The Detroit News before the president's speech, "is trying to impose new mandates that will cripple Detroit. If you want a death sentence for American auto companies, get them in a bind where they can't sell their most popular cars."

True enough. By themselves, the administration's proposals aren't a kind of corporate death sentence any more than the competing plans by Pelosi Dems and Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, to hold hearings on climate change and energy independence.

Detroit is better prepared -- to a point -- for this collective shift of conscience than it was just a few years ago. And its chief Japanese rivals -- Toyota, Honda and Nissan -- are more susceptible to the shift because now they sell their own portfolio of gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs here.

Pressing an advantage

Millions of Detroit cars and trucks already run on E85 ethanol. More gas-electric hybrid vehicles will be appearing in showrooms this year. Many of Detroit's largest vehicles deliver better fuel economy than comparable products from Asian rivals, hyped for their gas mileage.

Even big SUVs, like those from General Motors, are set to be offered with hybrid powertrains later this year, something the hallowed Japanese juggernaut of Toyota can't match -- yet.

Not that any of that matters much in this energy-and-environmental one-upsmanship between the new Democratic Congress and the tired Republican White House. Faced with voter anxiety about climate change, gyrating fuel prices and a volatile Middle East, Washington is delivering a stern message to anyone else who sells cars and trucks to Americans:

Get on board or pay the commercial consequences.

Pro-climate? Anti-Detroit?

You can see it in the turf battle between Pelosi and Dingell, Detroit's longtime protector on Capitol Hill. She wants a "select committee" on climate change, basically a hand-picked crew of coastal Democrats whose remedies for change are more Kyoto and less Detroit and whose allies aren't above using the Washington press to cut Dingell down to size.

As chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, epicenter of most legislation affecting the auto industry, he wants to lead climate change hearings and set the legislative agenda -- and he has the votes to get his way, if it comes to that.

But it probably won't. Dingell is expected to spend 30 minutes with Pelosi on the floor of the Washington Auto Show today, visiting only the advanced technology displays of GM, Ford Motor and DaimlerChrysler.

"It's to show she's not anti-Detroit," says a source familiar with the situation, "not anti-Midwest."

That's debatable, but the new political realities for Detroit's automakers and its largest unions aren't. In the pantheon of Washington fears, climate change and energy independence are the new new thing and fears about lost auto jobs -- if there would be any -- are so last century.

Daniel Howes' column runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at (313) 222-2106, dchowes@detnews.com or info.detnews.com/danielhowesblog.