Lobbying Shapes Fuel Economy Standards?


Monday’s O includes this article (originally from the Detroit Free Press) about how much various auto makers spent lobbying Congress on the CAFE standards.

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4 responses to “Lobbying Shapes Fuel Economy Standards?”

  1. The U.S. auto industry paid $31.2 million in the first six months of the year

    That works out to $115k/year per member of Congress. To put that number into perspective, most of them are paid $165k/year… Am I the only one that sees a problem here?

  2. I don’t think thats the way it works exactly. Congressmen and the people that work for them are under strict guidelines about what they can accept from lobbyists and none of them get straight money – even meals are under this I believe. On top of that I do some work with the AAM and there are some good points about CAFE standards they are making. The auto industry is behind raising CAFE, but they want to make sure that trucks and cars are treated appropriately because of the differing needs of consumers.

  3. I don’t think thats the way it works exactly. Congressmen and the people that work for them are under strict guidelines about what they can accept from lobbyists and none of them get straight money – even meals are under this I believe. On top of that I do some work with the AAM and there are some good points about CAFE standards they are making. The auto industry is behind raising CAFE, but they want to make sure that trucks and cars are treated appropriately because of the differing needs of consumers.

  4. I don’t think they are bribing them, (or at least, if they are, they are probably smart enough to not tell the press about it,) my point is that if someone spent 2/3rd of your salary trying to convince you of something, they’d probably be fairly successful at it… And it isn’t that there aren’t good points to what AAM is doing, but that that sort of money by itself is just too strong of an influence…

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