Sic ‘em, boys
The RV Industry Association announced late last week that they had hired professional lobbyists to try and convince Congress not to pass new corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for light trucks and SUVs that could greatly diminish the towing capacity of vehicles.
According to a report filed by the Associated Press, “In June, the Senate passed legislation that would require an increase in average fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2020. There are also at least two House proposals that would boost gas mileage standards.”
Recognizing that at least 75 percent of all recreation vehicles sold in North America are towed by another vehicle, RVIA realizes — as I am sure most of this industry does — that consumers need vehicles large enough to tow a travel trailer, two adults, two kids, one dog and the necessary equipment to ensure a fun weekend in the wilderness.
Congress, on the other hand, is looking for ways to appease the environmentalists heading into next year’s congressional and presidential elections. The yahoos running Capitol Hill are always on the lookout for ways to sock it to big oil, big auto, big business and any other entities that create jobs with benefits and pay well above a “living wage” without the help of the federal government.
As I have said before, the RV industry was devastated by the first fuel economy standards when they were established in the late 1970s. Back then, the RV industry was delivering nearly half a million RVs per year until a gas crunch greatly reduced fuel availability. Rather than thumb their noses at the oil producing countries and plop more wells into American soil, another Democrat-controlled Congress opened their playbook and immediately announced surrender.
They enacted legislation to help us save gasoline by enacting fuel standards that required automakers to achieve minimum miles per gallon standards on all new automobiles. The first victim was station wagons, which were family favorites with enough horsepower under their substantial hoods that they could pass anything on the highway except a gas station. They could also tow pop-ups and travel trailers as easily as a tricycle hauling a kiddie wagon.
With the demise of station wagons, families were left with few options for towing trailers. Some families tried camping in tents and sleeping on the ground. I suspect that worked once, maybe twice. Then they packed the family into their Ford Excuse compact cars with 1.2 liter Briggs and Stratton engines and headed to hotels which truly redefined the concept of family bonding — especially for families with teenagers.
As usually happens when Congress enacts laws, customer-focused entrepreneurs find loopholes around the system. Rather than making ”automobiles” subjected to fuel economy standards, automakers created minivans, sport utility vehicles and light trucks. Demand for these family-friendly vehicles shocked everyone. Moms loved the extra room, dual sliding doors, improved safety and the ability to ride high on the highway. Dads loved the power they offered. Kids loved the gadgets. Everyone was happy, which often sends a clear signal to Congress that something must change.
While environmentalists bayed at the moon and prayed to Gaia, the goddess of the earth, for relief from the popular, but evil gas-sucking polluters, automakers had a hard time pushing these wonder vehicles off the assembly lines fast enough to meet demand.
Higher gas prices over the last two years have caused some grumbling among consumers, but not nearly as much shrieking as you hear from environmentalists. Yet, lawmakers with their fingers on the pulse of the nation and their hands on stacks of cash campaign contributions, see another opportunity to save us from ourselves.
This time, their action needs to be decisively stopped. I applaud RVIA for being proactive and seeking to stop this silliness before it gets serious. While I suspect the RV lobby will be powerful in their attempt to keep Congress from enacting more restrictive CAFE standards, the industry’s lobbyists won’t match the firepower of scorned soccer moms who may be forced to give up their practical family support vehicles in favor of smaller vehicles better suited for French roads.
Now that the lobbyists at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP have been unleashed, all I can say is, “Sic ‘em, boys!”
July 18th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Just read over the comments on this blog. All are on target but Bob Zagami hits the nail on the head. This is truly a Political Issue, not an RVIA, etc. issue.
However, let me throw in one thought. I have worked in the conceptual design, manufacturing, and production of hybrid gas/diesel/electric vehicles for many years. Within this emerging technology may may be the secret that can overcome the need for torque to move today’s RVs and the cost of fuel. I can attest to the fact (in real terms) of the positive benefit of hybrids over their conventional counterparts.
If RVIA has a few extra bucks to spare, they might want to help set aside the nay-sayers with some positive views on what may be the best alternative on the near term horizon.
GO HYBRIDs…..
July 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Let’s not put our heads in the sand and try to deny the crisis we face with respect to petroleum. We don’t need RV industry lobbyists fighting on Capitol Hill for manufacturers’ rights to produce inefficient vehicles. We need more effort towards finding alternative and, hopefully, renewable sources of motor fuels. All the oil projected to be in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge wouldn’t supply the US demand for oil for six months. In the spirit of transparancy, could RV Trade Digest please publish How much the RV trade association is paying for our lobbyist?
July 13th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Howdy, Ya’ll!
I think it’s safe to say that the previous comments (and those to be made after mine) have one thing in common - ‘change’ is never easy. And over the past 6 years, we, as a Nation, have been faced with and forced to deal with A LOT of change, and damned little of it has been for the better.
Now, we have the CAFE issue to contend with. And what does CAFE really portend to? More ‘change.’ But I think the CAFE issue speaks more to awakening a deeper sense in all of us - the matter of more restrictions being foisted upon us and our customers. How much more restrictions are we, as a Nation, going to tolerate before we say “Enough!”
Restriction is THE one word that is totally contrary to THE operational word in the RV industry - FREEDOM! If the lobbyists being hired by RVIA want to hammer ONE thing, let it be that one word - FREEDOM! Because if they go to the Congress and to the Senate with any less of an approach than preserving FREEDOM IN THE RV INDUSTRY and ALL that it stands for, we all can go ahead and make plans for retirement to that fishing camp we’ve dreamed about.
Politicians are not in the business of solving problems (as they create most of them for all of us.) They are in the business of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. If they were in the business of solving problems, then none of them would have [so-called] jobs for very long. They all keep us ‘waiting and wanting.’ I say we need to remind them, in this instance, that if they insist on ‘monkeying’ around with any more of our RV FREEDOMs in this multi-billion dollar industry, it’s going to start costing them votes and backing.
“I’ll give up my RV when they pry the keys from my cold dead hands!”
Ya’ll honk as you go by…..(and remind the politicos who is REALLY in charge.)
July 12th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Scott,
We may be washing sweet potatoes before we solve this issue. Your thesis does nothing to resolve a potential energy crisis if we can’t solve the problems in the Middle East or for alternative energy sources, nor does it take into consideration the very serious concerns of RV manufacturers if the government decides to do the “feel good” thing and raise CAFE Standards without ever addressing the core problems.
More importantly, when did the Monkeys teach the humans to start washing their sweet potatoes?
July 12th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I think before we all learn to wash our sweet potatoes we will have blown the world up first.We can see the change in our political structure now it has become us vs. them in this country when really there is no us vs them we all are in this country and should fine ways to solve our problems instead of just beating each other up all the time. The only change that come about now is the politicians no longer have a problem lying to our faces.
The goverment will mandate new mileage requirements then look the other way when then really do not meet thos requirements. But hey it looks good on the window sticker.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
The Paradigm shift that is now taking place in our world will leave politics and governments in the dust bin of history before we effect any changes using them.
As far as our industry is concerned however, there is a way that does work and can be pulled off by us little guys that just want to have a good time, make an honest buck and enjoy happy customers.
See if you get my drift from the following story.
In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes - the exact number is not known.
Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED!
By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice. A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea
Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind. Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
Namaste,
Mike
July 11th, 2007 at 10:59 am
This is not an RVIA issue, it’s a political issue. There is no reason in the world that with all the intelligence and creativity in this country, that we don’t already have an alternative energy source that removes the dominance of the Middle East in our daily lives. There is no reason for us to not be drilling in Alaska, and elsewhere, to reduce the amount of foreigh oil we must purchase. Nobody is ever going to convince us that the large oil companies, and their lobby, will easily defeat anything RVIA or the RV industry wants to throw at them. They have manipulated our politicians for all of those fifty plus years that Barry talks about and a lot of us clearly remember the examples he so eloquently points out.
We need less government, not more. We need to get rid of these morons in Washington that have never earned a days pay in their entire lives, and we must restore creativity and excitement to the American manufacturing process and all businesses that feed it.
Wake up America.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:27 am
First, CAFE had zero to do with the old station wagon disappearing. It was a combinatiion of style & sex appeal, and the bottom line of sales. Ford only stopped making the station wagon model of the Crown Vic when sales got to the point that Ford couldn’t make enough money on it to make it worth messing with. What killed the station wagon, was the “mini-van”. After Chrysler came out with it in 1984, and then Chevy in ‘85 and then Ford in ‘86, sales of all station wagons were on the decline.
Mini-vans and the SUV ( some times also classed as a multi-purpose vehicle or MPV) are not legally classed as a car, and thus do not come under the same federal legal requirements as a car. Initially this applied to seat belts, CAFE, crash tests, etc. This made it cheaper to make the MPV than a regular car, so guess which the car manufacturer would want to make & sell.
The SUV and mini-van has replaced the station wagon…it’s the same vehicle…carries the same amount of people & stuff, only the SUV is sexier than the station wagon.
I’ve been in the business of “things that roll on wheels” just about all my adult life…cars or RV’s and I think we should be supporting a higher CAFE average. There will always be a vehicle available for our industry’s need. When the CAFE program was made into law, every vehicle manufacturer in the U.S. was screaming that they could not reach it…notice I said in the U.S., as the Japanese didn’t see this as a problem, but some how, they did reach it.
Unfortunately, most of the U.S. auto manufacturers do not actually make something happen, until they have to or are made to. And, just about the same thought applies to our fellow Americans…perfect example, the seat belt.
How many of us can remember growing up and never even seeing a seat belt in our parents car? How many of us actually laid down in the back package tray looking out at the sky while our parents drove down the road? How many of us ever sat in a child’s safety/car seat? If you’re over 50 like me, the answer to all 3 of these questions is no or never. But, today, we never drive off without having our seat belt on…no way in heck would we drive without our kids being tucked safely away in their seat belt…and my car doesn’t move if my grandchild isn’t in his car seat. But, are we all using these because we got smarter, or because a national organization said it’s safer, or is it because it became law and we had to do it?
When and if 35 mpg on autos & other light duty vehicles becomes law, some how our U.S. auto industry will figure out how to achieve it (and would anyone say I’m wrong in guessing that the Japanese car manufacturers are either already close or there) Some one just has to make the U.S. manufacturers realize it’s important…and that they can make money by doing it. To them, it’s all about the money.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am
I think CAFE standards should apply for light trucks and SUV’s. This should force the auto OEM’s to de-content vehicles (for weight purposes) from products best served by the aftermarket.
If the RVIA were truely interested in the welfare of their members, they would lobby FOR and increase in CAFE standards, not against them.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
RVIA would do much better to promote the RV industry rather than the oil companies and their Middle East brethren. Will you please publish in RV Trade Digest the record of expenses for our Capital Hill lobbyist? We would all do much better with more funding for energy researchers and a lot less for political manipulators.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Government regulations and lobbyist on both sides of the fence only make everything cost more than it should. I really get fed up with all of the rules and regulations this country has. However I just spent 3 weeks in Costa Rica which is one of the better countries in Central America and at first you can not believe all of the probelms they have, just traveling down the street you can spot hundreds of lawsuits per mile if it was in the USA.These people operate on the common sense approach if you see a hole in the road do not drive into the hole. you admire their attitude. By the third week you really miss all of the rules and regulations we have here and come to appreciate what we have here. Whay car or truck really ever get the mileage stated on the sticker anyway. Class actions lawsuits are already starting to happen over this problem.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I would hope that by 2020 we will have made a huge leap in the fuels our vehicles run on. America has to wake up and understand that giving billions and billions of dollars to these countries that hate us and everything we stand for use this money to plan and then implement the plans to kill us has to stop. If the government would get themselves loose from the deep pocket oil companies and work towards a real energy solution America would better off. If we can go to the moon and travel through the solar system you would think we could come up with a better idea than oil.