Automakers Seek GOP Help to Halt MPG Hikes

Automakers want House Republicans to help them discourage the White House from imposing sharply higher fuel-efficiency standards on cars and trucks, the Wall Street Journal reports. The required average fuel economy could rise to 62 miles per gallon by 2025 under proposals being considered by President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Industry lobbyists have told GOP Reps. Darrell Issa and Fred Upton that a 62-mpg mandate would push up the price of a typical car by as much as $6,400 and cause a plunge car sales that would eliminate as many as 220,000 automotive jobs.

Manufacturers already have agreed to raise the average to 35.5 mpg by 2016, a $50 billion outlay they signed on to in 2009 after receiving assurances that California would back off its own plans for an even more stringent standard. But it’s a California proposal, for 62 mpg, that is in play among the new options the EPA is considering. U.S. cars and light trucks averaged 22.5 mpg in 2010, the EPA estimates.