Reframing Automobile Fuel Economy Policy in North America: The Politics of Punctuating a Policy Equilibrium

Abstract

The USA and Canada generate over one‐third of the transportation‐related emissions of carbon dioxide in the world. Motor vehicles produce a majority of these emissions. This paper examines how the US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulatory standard for light‐duty vehicles has established an underlying fuel economy policy paradigm for the highly integrated North American automotive sector. While these standards pushed North American vehicle fuel efficiency higher in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the standards have not been significantly increased since 1985. The paper details the institutional, economic and political factors that have blocked higher CAFE standards. It describes difficulties with the legal efforts to shift the main venue of fuel economy regulation from the US federal government to the state of California. In light of the Canadian tradition of establishing voluntary agreements between the government and the auto manufacturers in lieu of formal regulation, it assesses the possibility that the voluntary agreement on reducing automotive greenhouse gas emissions signed between Ottawa and Canadian auto manufacturers in April 2005 will be a step toward a new style of negotiated advances in fuel economy and greenhouse gas reduction goals throughout North America.

Acknowledgements

Research funding was provided by Canada’s Auto‐21 Network of Centres of Excellence (http://www.auto21.ca/). The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable research assistance of Ms Sima Joshi, Mr Jonathan Kim and Mr Graham Senft. Paul Posner and Michael Howlett provided valuable feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript, which were presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association and the Simon Fraser University Department of Political Science research seminar. Three anonymous reviewers from the journal also provided important suggestions for improving the manuscript. Andrea Banks carefully proofread several versions of the manuscript.

Notes

1. ‘Light trucks’ were defined, very broadly, by the 1975 law that created CAFE as “automobiles which are not passenger automobiles”. Subsequently, there has been a substantial amount of discussion and reclassification of vehicles into and out of the light truck category, mainly to suit the convenience of auto manufacturers (Bradsher, 2002, pp. 23–30). By definition, therefore, ‘passenger automobiles’ are not light trucks. ‘Light‐duty vehicles’, on the other hand, include all vehicles — both passenger automobiles and light trucks — of fewer than 8500 lb gross vehicle weight rating, i.e. the weight of the vehicle plus its rated cargo capacity (Dieselnet, 2006).