Robert F. Kennedy, JR. & Christine Todd Whitman Debate the Environment

Outside Magazine November 2004

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Robert F. Kennedy, JR. & Christine Todd Whitman
The Environment: A Debate (cont.)
Spoiled Nation?


	CTW taking a break from debate on an OARS dory (Andy Anderson)

OUTSIDE: We're here in one of the biggest wilderness areas in the West, the Frank Church–River of No Return. The leading public-lands controversy right now is over ramped-up oil and gas extraction on lands just like this. The administration argues that increased domestic production is of the utmost strategic importance. Meanwhile, environmentalists scream about wilderness being ravaged. What's your feeling about that back-and-forth?
WHITMAN: Energy is a quandary. All the scientists I've talked to tell me that the best we can expect is to meet about 25 percent of our energy needs with renewable resources and conservation. Right now, 53 percent of our energy comes from coal. But coal is a relatively dirty fossil fuel. Nuclear isn't on the table—people don't even want to talk about it. People don't want to drill for oil. Natural gas is much cleaner, but nobody wants a gas pipeline near them for fear of explosions. They're working with wind power off the coast of Maine, but the best wind farms tend to be in major flyways, and birds get turned into chopped liver when they hit a wind farm. Hydropower is great where it can work, but folks in the West know hydro takes water out of the river, which means salmon can't get upriver to spawn.

So where does that leave us? We can't say we're not going to do anything—we need power. But what we need is a mix of sources, and we need to be more creative about balancing that mix. At some point we're going to have to allow some kind of exploration. Should that happen on public lands? Maybe, where it's appropriate. They're public lands; we need to protect them. But if there's a resource buried there that would serve the greater public good, it might be all right to allow energy exploration, if we use the minimum footprint and the most environmentally conservative techniques possible.

KENNEDY: One of the things that frustrates environmentalists is this argument that we've got to go into sacred places like ANWR to fulfill our energy needs. We're not saying you can never go into them. We're saying: Let's try to get the cheapest, most accessible forms of energy first. Let's start making investments in conservation before we exploit areas that impose a huge cost on future generations.

Here's how you do it. If we raise fuel-efficiency standards by just one mile per gallon, we save two ANWRs full of

WHITMAN: We should have much higher gas-mileage requirements. The reality is, the 40-mpg car exists. We have to figure out how fast we can force Detroit to move its whole fleet there in a way that will keep cars affordable. We can do it. We just have to be smart.

oil over the projected 50-year life of the fields. If we raise them 2.7 mpg, that's more than all the oil we import from Iraq and Kuwait combined. If we raise standards by 8 mpg, we don't have to import one drop of Persian Gulf oil into this country. Fuel efficiency is an untapped resource. It's cheap oil.

Christie is right. Our energy portfolio is going to have to include diverse sources. But right now the playing field is not level enough to allow any kind of diversity. The first thing we ought to do is eliminate the lopsided subsidies to the fossil-fuel and nuclear industries. These include hundreds of billions of dollars in direct subsidies and similar sums in indirect subsidies, in which they are allowed to externalize their costs by polluting. If we eliminated those subsidies, it would give solar, wind power, ethanol—those renewable, clean energy sources—a beachhead to compete with the fossil-fuel industries.

WHITMAN: You can't overemphasize the importance of gas mileage. But I don't think it's a question of one presidential administration versus another. Last year the Department of Transportation raised fuel-economy requirements for light trucks and SUVs to 22.2 mpg, the first time that's happened since the mid-1990s. The question is, how do we get further increases past Congress? The Michigan delegation won't stand for it.

KENNEDY: That 1.5-mpg increase is a drop in the bucket, and the only way it got past Congress was by cutting a deal that offered a $100,000 tax break for Hummers and killing the tax break for hybrids, which—

WHITMAN AND KENNEDY: —makes no sense at all.

OUTSIDE: The Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight—these are the greenest and hottest cars on the market. They're both made by Japanese companies. Why isn't America the world's leading environmental innovator?
KENNEDY: In this case, $65 billion in annual subsidies to the petroleum industry has allowed oil companies to lower the price of gas. Were we paying the true cost at the pump—about $5.50 per gallon—consumers would be begging Detroit to build fuel-efficient cars. And guess what? Detroit would be building SUVs with the same size and performance of today's models. Only they'd be getting 40 miles per gallon!

We should be developing the best technology and selling it to Europe, China, Africa, and Latin America. Instead we're falling behind. If that continues, our whole automobile industry is likely to collapse over the next 20 years. You may see the end of Detroit, because they are so shortsighted.

WHITMAN: When industries get subsidies and the market is distorted, that affects behavior. There's no two ways about it. I think we should have much higher gas-mileage requirements, and I think Detroit can meet them.

The reality is, the 40-mpg car exists. What we need to do is figure out how fast we can force Detroit to move its whole fleet there in a way that will keep cars affordable, so people will be able to buy the 40-mpg car. We can do it; we just have to be smart about setting the goal and the time frame.

KENNEDY: The irony is that the SUV, the most fuel-inefficient car, is also the most dangerous vehicle on the road.

WHITMAN: But everybody wants them. They all want their SUVs.

KENNEDY: That's the whole thing. Demand for SUVs is artificially created by an onslaught of advertising that brainwashes people into buying Detroit's most expensive and profitable product. An SUV yields ten times the profit of a sedan.

Industry can create the demand for its products—even those that harm the public—and that's why government must play a role. If Detroit keeps building cars that burn too much fuel, that make us dependent on petty Middle Eastern dictators, that drive up our national debt, government has the responsibility to say, "You are using a public resource; you have to use it responsibly."

People have to understand that these are not esoteric issues. These are issues that go to the heart of everything we consider important in America. If Ronald Reagan had not rolled back gas-mileage standards in 1986, we could have eliminated the need to import Persian Gulf oil by the early 1990s. We might have avoided the current Iraq entanglement.

OUTSIDE: So are we just spoiled?
KENNEDY: I think it's wrong to say the American people are spoiled. The American people trust their government. They trust that dangerous products are not going to be allowed in the marketplace. Detroit, on the other hand, wants to satisfy shareholders, and the way to do that is to sell lots of SUVs. To sell lots of SUVs, they've got to persuade Americans to buy a lot of SUVs, and they have to persuade Congress not to limit their capacity to construct SUVs.

The total ad budgets of all the environmental groups in America, combined, is probably less than $5 million. Detroit spends $15 billion a year in advertising. How do you compete with that?

WHITMAN: But why wouldn't you be able to compete with that message? We're trying to solve problems here—OK, let's solve this one. Why couldn't you put aside the litigation, understanding that it's an important tool, and have the environmental movement work with the automotive unions?

KENNEDY: The unions are already on our side on fuel efficiency.

WHITMAN: They say that, but why don't they pressure their own companies?

KENNEDY: But why doesn't the federal government do its job?

WHITMAN: Well, why don't they do it together?

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