Questions arise about highway-safety nominee’s views on CAFE

April 15, 2009 at 10:34 am

(Source:  Greenwire – New York Times; AutoBlogGreen)

President Obama tapped a longtime crusader against drunken driving to lead the Transportation Department’s highway safety agency, but some environmentalists are concerned about the nominee’s positions on fuel economy standards.  The nomination of a new NHTSA administrator might seem like an event that would elicit little controversy, but when President Obama picked Chuck Hurley to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the rumbles began. In the White House announcement, Hurley’s work with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (he was CEO since 2005) and automobile safetly was highlighted. Sounds good, right? 
If confirmed, Charles Hurley would become the top official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that must draft and enforce a wide range of safety measures and craft corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards.

 

Chuck Hurley - Image Courtesy: Dickinson College

Hurley has served as CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving since 2005 and has spent more than three decades working on a host of driving safety initiatives. He previously held senior leadership posts at both the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit research group funded by auto insurers.

The insurance institute has been critical of past CAFE proposals and has backed an auto industry argument that a disproportionate focus on increasing fuel mileage would lead to smaller and less safe cars (See a related article on TransportGooru that discussed the latest IIHS crash test results correlating vehicle safety during crashes to the size and fuel effieicency factors of small cars). The group helped lead a successful industry push for CAFE standards that use an attribute-based system that requires cars and trucks to achieve different standards depending on each vehicle’s footprint.

Hurley’s work with the institute during the 1990s was enough to worry Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, which has advocated for fuel economy increases. “It would be awkward to have an administrator of NHTSA who’s spent much of his career attacking fuel economy standards that NHTSA administers,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

With exception of the fuel economy concern, Hurley’s nomination drew near-universal praise from highway safety advocates.  In addition to his extensive work on drunk-driving issues, Hurley has also worked with law enforcement agencies on air bag and seat belt issues, child passenger safety and teen driving initiatives.  “Chuck is a passionate safety advocate whose career has been dedicated to reducing motor vehicle deaths and injuries on the highways,” said Vernon Betkey Jr., chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Tags: