GOTTA MAKE THE TRANSITION AN ECONOMIC IMPERATIVE:

Are Conditions Right For Gas Tax Hike? (Shawn Zeller, 7/11/09, CQ)

[W]ith the industry’s reputation in free fall, carmakers are looking to project an image of greater openness to change. And their chief point man on that mission is Dave McCurdy, a Democrat who represented Oklahoma’s 4th District in Congress from 1981 to 1995. He now leads the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the trade group for both U.S. and foreign carmakers, as its president and chief executive.

His job will be easier than it might be, at least: McCurdy’s group takes no position on the controversial auto bailout plans — meaning that he hasn’t even met with the Obama administration’s automobile task force, which oversees the rescue effort.

Instead, the main focus of the industry’s new agenda is to reverse its recent notoriety and rebrand automakers as environmental stewards and cutting-edge innovators. McCurdy, who from 1998 to 2007 headed the Electronic Industries Alliance, a technology trade group, says he wants consumers to start thinking about carmakers the same way they think of Google Inc. or Apple Inc.

“We need to be at the table on climate change and energy independence. We have to be at the table on safety. We need to be at the broader table on innovation,” he says. “It’s incredible, the amount of innovation in this industry, and I’m not sure people understand that.” [...]

But McCurdy also stresses that he’s about to put the group on an unfamiliar lobbying offensive: enlisting support in Congress for an increase in the federal gas tax to expand the market for compact vehicles, which he says would help manufacturers meet the new fuel economy rules.

It’s certainly not every day that an industry petitions lawmakers to increase costs for consumers of its product. But McCurdy says the auto industry recognizes that it has to take its medicine, adding that the aim is to set a floor on the price of gas while permitting supply and demand to set prices above the floor. The optimal base price, McCurdy suggests, could be $4, where automakers say they first saw a big shift in consumer buying habits.

“We want to spur that conversation,” he says. “Any legislation needs to make sure there is a price signal, because regulation is not going to accomplish the objective” of enhancing efficiency standards by itself.

Industry support for a higher gas tax isn’t new. Ford began talking about it four years ago, and the industry has long had an official position supporting it. What’s different, says Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, an environmental advocacy group, is McCurdy’s pledge to lobby for it.