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October 30, 2005
From Freedom Works, the online journal of Citizen for a Sound Economy
Fool’s CAFE
The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program is inefficient and deadly.In the 1970s, disco was groovy and Congress enacted a lot of counterproductive, over-regulatory energy policies. Subsequent years saw both polyester suits and command-and-control energy policy fall out of favor, to the nation’s benefit. The heavy hand of Uncle Sam, however, today still governs automakers with an outdated scheme called the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. In some quarters, disco is making a comeback, and similarly the bad ideas embodied in CAFE are also threatening to make another go-round on Capitol Hill.
Back in 1975, Congress responded to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo by creating the CAFE regulatory program. CAFE works by mandating a “sales-weighted mean” or average of the fuel economies for the fleets of new cars and light trucks that a manufacturer sells each year. As it currently stands, every automaker must meet a total average mileage requirement for their fleet of cars of 27.5 miles per gallon. For heavier trucks and SUVs, the standard is lower, rising from 21 mpg this year to 22.2 mpg in 2007. Got that?
In the face of rising gasoline and oil prices, some in Congress and the Administration are feeling the temptation to tighten the CAFE standards for U.S. automotive fleets.
In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed a major tightening of CAFE for light trucks. And earlier this month, Sen. Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee told The Hill newspaper that "…we must take another look at the CAFE standards” in the wake of Katrina. Tightening CAFE, however, would be a major policy blunder. In fact, CAFE needs to be substantially reformed or even repealed and replaced with market-based incentives to reduce fuel consumption and improve air quality.
First, CAFE has not really worked. America’s national “total fleet fuel economy” peaked in 1987 at 26.2 mpg and has been declining slightly since then, primarily because the nation prefers heavier and more powerful light trucks and SUVs, which have a lower fuel economy. Beyond consumer preference, CAFE also does not work in part because as cars become more fuel-efficient, we drive them further.
More troubling is the tragic unintended consequence of CAFE, which prompts automakers to build cars that are lighter and use less steel. The result is cars that are less safe, and the additional deaths of literally thousands of Americans on our roadways every year. A 1999 USA TODAY analysis of crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that CAFE standards have resulted in about 46,000 people dying in accidents where the victims would have survived if their cars had been bigger and heavier. That is an extraordinary loss of life and a largely untold story.
Many in Congress and the environmentalist movement, and their co-conspirators in the mainstream media, seem to care more about imposing misguided feel-good conservation measures on American motorists than protecting the lives of innocent drivers. It is outrageous that some of the biggest Congressional supporters of CAFE also oppose new drilling for U.S. oil in Alaska (drilling that can be done using modern techniques that minimize the environmental impact) and oppose construction of new oil and gas refineries. These politicians and their environmentalist supporters are making an explicit choice that values the false promise of CAFE over safer cars and trucks for American families.
CAFE was part of a number of ill-considered policy responses to the oil shock that also included lowering the national speed limit to 55 mph and imposing price controls on oil and gasoline. Price controls and the national speed limit were both foolish ideas and have been repealed, but sadly CAFE lives on.
The goals of CAFE are admirable, but there are much better ways to encourage conservative than mandating the design of automotive fleets. We will never be able to regulate our way to fuel economy. It is time to reform or repeal CAFE, and instead pass forward-thinking policy measures that use market mechanisms to advance the goal of conservation while also giving consumers more choice and safety. Let consumers choose and let markets work.
From the National Legal and Policy Center
Competing Events at the Omni Shoreham Hotel Next Week
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), Free Enterprise Education Institute (FEEI), and Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are sponsoring the CSR Reconsidered 2005 Conference, which will be held on Wednesday, November 2 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC from 9AM-12PM.
CSR Reconsidered 2005 is a counter-conference to the Leftist-dominated Business for Social Responsibility conference also being held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel that same day. Information on this conference can be found at www.bsr.org. The event is co-sponsored by the New York Times, Pfizer, General Electric, Chevron, Disney, Ford, Microsoft, Monsanto, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Intel and many other companies.
CSR Reconsidered 2005 will bring together representatives of several organizations to offer a competing vision of “corporate responsibility,” based on free-market principles. The conference represents the first organized effort to challenge the Left’s longstanding campaign to use corporate America to advance its radical social and political agenda.
“Corporations do have a ‘social responsibility’” says NLPC President Peter Flaherty. “It is to faithfully protect the interests of the shareholders who own the company. When corporations cave into the demands of radical activists, they undermine private property and the whole idea of an ‘ownership society.’”
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has been invited to speak at CSR Reconsidered. Mr. Wolfowitz is scheduled to speak at the Business for Social Responsibility conference later that day.
“We invited Mr. Wolfowitz to speak at our conference because we think our pro-free enterprise and pro-free market views are more consistent with Mr. Wolfowitz’s goals of promoting economic and social progress in developing nations,” said CEI President Fred Smith.
“The BSR version of ‘corporate social responsibility’ is intended more to help labor unions, environmental activists and other extreme social activist groups implement their social and political agendas, in our view,” said FEEI President Steven Milloy. “Businesses are society’s wealth generation machine, not an engine for social engineering,” added Milloy.
Speakers and topics at the event include:
· Jim Glassman, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) – “CSR Reconsidered”
· Fred Smith, President, CEI – “The Role of Business in the Modern World”
· Steven Milloy, President, FEEI – “Politicization of Investment”
· Peter Flaherty, President, NLPC – “Paying Off the Diversity Activists”
· Paul Driessen, Senior Fellow, Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise – “CSR and the Developing World”
· Bryan O’Keefe, Research Assistant, AEI – “Unions Flex Their Muscle”
· Nick Nichols, Lecturer, Johns Hopkins University – “Losing The War With Global Socialism”
· Wayne Winegarden, Chief Economist, Sterling International – “Business Profitability”
· David Hogberg, GreenWatch Executive Director, Capital Research Center – “Giving Patterns of the ‘Best’ Corporate Citizens”
· Ed Hudgins, Executive Director, Objectivist Center – “The Moral High-Ground Against Corporate Social Responsibility
Freedom Week: Students Defend ROTC,
Denounce Socialism, and Celebrate Freedom
< Country Tour Hunters>Terrorist Hunters Tour CountryHERNDON, VA –Young America’s Foundation has launched the second annual Freedom Week—an initiative designed to remember Reagan’s victory over communism and to honor those past and present who have fought and are fighting for our freedom. Students at over 70 colleges and universities have joined forces with the Foundation to celebrate Freedom Week on their campuses.
Young America’s Foundation provides students with numerous resources and activist ideas for Freedom Week, including:
- Supporting the ROTC and the rights of students to meet with military recruiters on campus.
- Bringing to campuses veterans from the current fight against despotic regimes, including Lt. Col. Scott Rutter and Major John Krenson who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively. These brave soldiers discuss America’s accomplishments overseas and our success in removing tyrants and spreading freedom.
- Honoring the fall of the Berlin Wall and World Freedom Day. (World Freedom Day was established by President Bush as a time to recognize freedom’s victory over tyranny and the ongoing fight for freedom worldwide.)
- Investigating educational curriculum to compare the number of courses devoted to the teaching of communism, as opposed to free-market economics. Courses in Marxism flourish, yet courses teaching free-market ideas are rare, despite the fact that in recent years five free market scholars have been named Nobel Laureates in economics.
- Commemorating Veterans Day—a holiday all-to-often overlooked by academia—with speakers and other events.
“Leftist groups are infamous for their week-long events on college campuses devoted to advancing socialist and pacifist ideas,” said Young America’s Foundation Director of Campus Programs Patrick Coyle. “To the Left’s chagrin, students now have an effective way to celebrate freedom.”
Young America’s Foundation’s sold-out West Coast Leadership Conference is a major part of Freedom Week. More than 550 college and high school students will meet near the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California to hear from heavy hitters in the Conservative Movement, such as Ronald Reagan’s son and best-selling author Mike Reagan, New York Times bestseller Dinesh D’Souza, Reagan’s advisor Richard Wirthlin, and talk radio host of San Diego’s “The Big One” Mark Larson.
From Citizen, The website of Focus on Family
How a mother of six got a liberal school board to drop its biased sex curriculum and start listening to parents.
by Candi Cushman
Gay marriage is acceptable. Everybody has homosexual feelings—because same-sex attraction is natural. And Jesus never said anything that would suggest otherwise.
These are just a few of the lessons that Maryland's largest school district planned to offer this year, but didn't. That's because one courageous mother of six, Michelle Turner, sounded the alarm—and 4,000 parents responded. Together, they blocked the offending sex-education curriculum and made national news.
Turner was in a position to know what board members were considering because, two years ago, she responded to an ad in her local newspaper asking for volunteers to serve on a citizens advisory committee.
Turner responded primarily out of curiosity, she told Citizen. To her surprise, the Montgomery County Board of Education accepted her application and appointed her to a 27-member committee that was responsible for recommending sex-education curricula to the school board.
Turner, 50, soon discovered that she was outnumbered. "There were representatives from Planned Parenthood," she said. "The chairman of the committee is the father of two homosexuals and very active with [Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network]. … A number of the committee members themselves were homosexuals."
She watched helplessly as the board voted to end her district's ban on discussing homosexuality in the classroom. But she didn't resign, as several others did; instead, she stayed on as a watchdog.
And that's how, when the school board decided to introduce it to six schools in the district, Turner got a sneak preview of the new revisions to the sex-ed curriculum, which mixed gay propaganda with attacks on Christianity. "Fundamentalists are more likely to have negative attitudes about gay people than those with other religious views," the curriculum said. A worksheet questioned the validity of the ex-gay movement, claiming it is often "homophobia that forces people to attempt to change."
The program also included a video illustrating how to put a condom on a cucumber.
But Turner knew she couldn't tackle the problem alone.
The revolt begins
So when the board voted to approve the curriculum in November 2004, she posted a notice on a community Web site, inviting concerned parents to come to her home. A local talk radio show announced the board's decision, and the publicity drew 75 people to her meeting, Turner said.
That night, the group formed Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC), with Turner as president. And they agreed to begin calling for the school district to stop the "sexualization of our young children."
That battle cry appealed to parents of all different religions and ethnicity, said Steve Fisher, a father and retired marine elicopter pilot who volunteers to handle media. "The parents were horrified when they found out the philosophy of some of the groups [pushing the curriculum]. … Even a couple of parents who were atheists joined the group because they were upset by the content."
To get their message out, the CRC parents volunteered to coordinate letters to the editor, calls to radio talk shows and signature-gathering for petitions to the board.
But first, they needed actual copies of the curriculum to prove their points. School officials were reluctant to provide them. But "we were persistent, and we got copies of the curricula and posted them on our Web site," Fisher said. "If you ask for it, by law [school officials] have to give it to you. We got so many hits, we had to upgrade the server."
CRC also made the condom video available, and pointed out health risks associated with condom use that the video didn't mention. In fact, the video caused such an outcry that the board quickly dropped it from its program, Fisher said. But the homosexuality promotion and attacks on conservative religions remained.
So a parent who was a professional event planner helped organize a town hall meeting. "It was attended by over 300 people on a Saturday morning," Fisher said. "I think it was the first time the school system realized these people are serious." Then CRC gathered more than 4,000 signatures door to door and online, asking the school board to withdraw the curriculum.
"You should have seen the look on their faces when we walked in there and handed them those signatures," Fisher said. "They didn't think we could pull it off—not in liberal Montgomery County."
That's when the mainstream media took notice. Stories appeared in The New York Times and Washington Post.
"The media likes this story line," Fisher said. "Whoever would have thought that a group of parents would challenge one of the richest, most liberal school systems in the country?"
The victory
Still, media attention and 4,000 angry parents didn't budge the school board, so the parents filed a lawsuit, along with P-FOX—Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays—claiming the board discriminated against religion and ex-gays.
"We thought our chances were slim," Turner said, when they found out the judge who would hear the case was a Clinton appointee. "But we felt we just couldn't let it go. There was just too much at risk when we are talking about the safety and well-being of 140,000 kids in the Montgomery County school system."
But U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams didn't appreciate the curriculum's treatment of conservative religions. He not only ordered the school to set aside the curriculum, but also mandated that conservative parents be guaranteed seats on future committees.
"This was a big win for parents," Turner said. "We flexed our muscles and it worked."
Regime change
Until parents in Montgomery County replace school board members with conservatives, they can expect more trouble ahead. Not so in Wilson, N.Y., where parents voted in a conservative majority after they learned that the previous board invited a controversial sex educator into classrooms.
Laurie Van Buren's daughter was in fourth grade in February 2001 when she learned that schools invited an outside contractor associate to conduct sex ed for the school's fifth graders.
Van Buren and other parents demanded to see the curriculum, but school officials offered only vague outlines.
The school "even forbade parents to be in the room with the children while this program was being delivered," said Van Buren, a mother of four.
So the parents decided to play hardball.
Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), government officials must release requested documents, including curriculum, to the public. The parents filed a FOIA; it turned up documents showing that school officials "were paying the sex educator associate $3,000 dollars for less than two days' work," Van Buren said—a fact they publicized in letters to the editor and on radio talk shows.
Then the parents rallied together in the 2003 school board elections, and three members who supported Planned Parenthood sex-ed lost. New board members lost no time in voting out Planned Parenthood's program.
"We fought for the kids," Van Buren said, "and the program is gone."
