Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Bryan lost, and so did we

Friday, June 1, 2001 | 9:11 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

MORE THAN TEN years have passed since then-Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., took to the Senate floor to push his stricter Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. CAFE, as it is called, very simply is a set of fuel-saving standards for automobiles being built in our country. Bryan's recommendations would have saved our nation several years of oil and gas we have used in our vehicles over the past decade.

In 1991 it was the Michigan congressional delegation, led by Democrat Rep. John Dingell, who challenged Bryan's fuel-saving ideas. Americans, especially Detroit's automakers, liked big vehicles that use large quantities of gas. They didn't take the Nevada senator lightly and did their best to harm his credibility.

It was April 1991 that Jack A. Seamonds, business editor of the Detroit Free Press, tried to set Bryan up for a fall when writing: "Trying to disarm a predictably skeptical audience last Friday at the Detroit Press Club, Sen. Richard Bryan, the Nevada Democrat whose fuel economy bill is driving up Maalox sales in Detroit, told of his first car, a 1946 Dodge that his attorney father received from a client in lieu of a fee. After Bryan's speech, one Ford executive was heard to grumble: 'It kind of makes sense that the guy who is trying to do us in bought a Dodge for his first car.' But this gets ever cooler: GM observers wryly noted that Bryan arrived at the Press Club in a subdued red Infiniti Q45, a Japanese car that is, by definition, a 'gas guzzler' and therefore subject to the federal tax. Your spin control, senator, is slipping."

This article resulted in a letter from Paul Eisenstein of the Detroit Automotive Press Association to Bryan. Eisenstein wrote:

"Several news outlets have reported that you were driven to the meeting in a gas-guzzling automobile. More specifically, an Infiniti Q45 sedan. That is, in itself, quite accurate. The implications, however, were clearly misleading. I want to state for the record that you had nothing to do with the choice of vehicle sent to pick you up at the airport. The only thing you requested was some form of transportation. It was my choice to pick you up personally. And it was again my choice to do so in an Infiniti which, as an auto writer, I was personally test-driving on the day you came to town. I am perturbed by this matter and apologize for any embarrassment this might have caused you. We at the DAPA appreciate you taking your time from your busy schedule to come to Detroit and explain the reasons why automotive fuel economy should once again become part of the national agenda. Clearly, there are other interests who think otherwise."

The Detroit moguls beat Bryan's best efforts and during the following years sold billions of dollars worth of gas-guzzling sports vehicles that cover more miles running around in city traffic than they do in the rural hills and mountains.

Again in 1997 Bryan challenged a Republican House attempt to stop the Department of Transportation from requiring better fuel mileage from gas-guzzling vans and small trucks. He pointed out that tougher rules could save the U.S. $71 billion annually and also protect our domestic oil supplies. Even the weaker CAFE standards that were in effect were saving more than 3 million barrels of oil a day in 1995.

It's a shame that Congress didn't listen to Nevada's Bryan in 1991, 1995 and 1997. If they had we would be feeling a lot less pain at the gas pumps in 2001.