Sputtering Without Energy and Industrial Policies

Gee, the Big Three critics say, Detroit screwed up. Detroit made all of those gas-guzzling cars and trucks when Americans were demanding fuel-sippers. They ignored the directives of Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to produce fuel-efficient, clean-burning cars and trucks.

That is a convenient lie.

The truth is that the Big Three catered the long-running, drunken ruckus that was America's celebration of having the cheapest gasoline in the developed world. Blaming the Big Three for that revelry is akin to blaming the maids for changing the sheets in a house of ill repute. It's worse than hypocritical.

BMW came to that party with gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. So did Toyota, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz. Honda sat in the parlor with a few less-than-economical midsize SUVs, contemplating whether it should invest in a V-8 to go upstairs and have fun with the high-rollers.

Put simply: Car companies play to market. If the market demands small, fuel-efficient vehicles, as markets historically have done in Europe and Asia, that is what the companies operating in those places -- including GM and Ford -- make. If the market demands big vehicles and big horsepower, as the U.S. market historically has done, that is what car companies -- including Toyota and Nissan -- make.

Also, if consumers, drunk on cheap gasoline and assisted in that wantonness by a Congress that refuses to make them pay the real price of their profligacy, demand gas-guzzlers, that is what they will get.

All of those things being the case, it is the worst kind of hypocrisy for government officials and media pundits to now wag fingers and say that Detroit deserves death for its sins. Instead, what Detroit needs -- what we all need in this country -- are energy and industrial policies that make sense.

· Do we or don't we want American ownership of vital manufacturing industries, such as automobile and steel? If we wish to maintain ownership of a manufacturing infrastructure, we'd better find a way to do it, including direct loans to the industry if necessary.

· Do we or don't we want a national energy conservation program in which consumers bear a fair share of the responsibility for using fuel more wisely? If that is what we want, let's pass and implement the necessary rules and regulations to bring it about.

· Do we place a value on maintaining international leadership in the development of future technologies, including alternative fuels and propulsion systems? If that is a value, let's do something about it, including drafting the domestic car companies into a viable government-industry partnership, and end this nonproductive, go-nowhere debate over "welfare for Detroit."