We’re certainly not, and I don’t think congress should be, in the business of mandating consumer choice. If you do the math on it, the consumer will never pay for it. We obviously don’t think the CAFE standards are very well thought out.
Listen, these are the same people who will be standing in unemployment lines if the Clinton-Gore proposals are put into effect.
The whole CAFE scheme is, in terms of public policy, ridiculous, and has the practical effects of driving U.S. jobs abroad.
If the CAFE standard is too high, it adversely affects workers, manufacturers, and consumers alike.
I want to make very sure that we’re not putting U.S. jobs at risk over the next two years.
[A level of 10 micrograms per 100 milliliters of blood is] absolutely safe…There is no national health crisis with regard to lead.
Unfortunately, the atmosphere we’re now in prohibits objective scientists from coming forward. And why should they, when they would be crucified by the press, the E.P.A. and the environmentalists? . . . Our stance has been that lead from gasoline does not and has not caused health problems, and I have not seen any data that convinces me differently.
Pricing is still a concern with consumers. We continue to see sticker shock. And the potential exists that with some cars in short supply, Detroit will take advantage of the situation with some big price increases this fall. What Detroit will do is drive some people into small or used cars instead. In the last three to four years, price increases outpaced income gains and pushed people into used cars. Pricing is the reason the recovery won’t be robust.
We might have to take drastic action such as limiting production.
Our feeling was and still is that there is no scientific reason for not relaxing regulations. [Easing lead rules would] save billions of dollars in the balance of payments and also of million of barrels of crude oil a year.
