Green Daily

How did Detroit's major industry fall so far so fast? Some say the fault lies solely at the hands of health costs and pensions. Others, like energy and environmental scientist Joe Romm, say U.S. automakers ran to their own demise by shunning the alternative energy market and all other technological advancements. Romm is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

So if and when a federal bail-out package comes for the auto industry Romm says major strings must be attached, because the automakers have a history of bailing on their promises.

First, full-disclosure: I am from Detroit. Both my parents have spent much of their careers in the auto industry and now one of them draws a pension from one of the (not so) Big Three.

Romm says U.S. automakers, and G.M. in particular, have been "suicidally lobbying" against themselves, decreeing the pointlessness of hybrids and spending millions of dollars lobbying against higher fuel standards and tailpipe emissions. He writes that in the 1990s,when Romm worked at the Department of Energy, car companies agreed to design a vehicle with triple-efficiency (80 miles per gallon) by 2004 in exchange for informal research assistance from DOE. After a billion dollars of effort the auto industry walked away from the deal as President George W. Bush entered the scene.

All that said, Romm isn't totally opposed to a bail-out. He says no matter what, many more job cuts will come. But a long-term disaster can be averted if the government attaches a lot of strings, like producing plug-in hybrid cars.

"If we are going to bail out Detroit, the deal has to be based on meeting the new fuel economy standards of 35 mpg by 2020, and meeting them increasingly with hybrids. The deal has to be for multiple plug-in hybrid car models. And most important, the deal has to include a management team that is wholly committed to that inevitable transition, a team that will not waste a penny of the taxpayer-funded bailout lobbying against the even tougher standards and regulations that will be needed to avoid the harsh consequences of global warming and peak oil."

But will that happen? The automakers have walked away from the table after accepting federal dollars before, look at Chrysler. And the airline industry is no different. Nonetheless, Romm sees an opportunity to push a major polluter into his corner.


[via Salon.com]