An Auto Insider Takes on Climate Change

His bipartisanship wears none of the lacy finery of a civics-class lecture. It is a strategy perfected in the bygone era of Democratic dominance of Congress. Dingell knows a purist in his own party can slow him down more than a pragmatist across the aisle. So he likes to get started on a big initiative by cutting a deal with a ranking Republican. Only then does he turn to battle his fellow Democrats.

When this works, it can be impressive. The Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 were 13 years in the making (eight of them fairly quiet years as a result of the Reagan Administration's opposition to the bill). When Dingell at last brought the legislation to a vote, however, the amendments passed almost unanimously. But can the strategy work in today's more evenly--and bitterly--divided House?

One advantage Dingell will have in crossing party lines is his record in defending the U.S.'s industrial interests. He stands squarely on the only common ground Congress has found concerning global warming. In 1997 the Senate voted unanimously to condemn Kyoto-treaty provisions that would exempt China and other developing nations from mandatory carbon reductions.

Dingell is bulletproof in this area. "I do not propose that my country be the only country that pays the costs of addressing [global warming]," he said. "China is only an example. You've got India, you've got the former Soviet countries, you've got the Europeans. Everybody is trying to give fine speeches, get a lot of credit--and then stick somebody else with the bill."

Where Dingell's influence is most vulnerable, by contrast--his Achilles' heel--is Detroit. He risks losing credibility if he becomes the last man standing between the auto industry and increased-mileage requirements. Momentum is building in the Senate--encouraged by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech early this year--for a 4%-per-year increase in corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards.

Dingell would prefer to do away with the existing CAFE system for measuring fuel efficiency and replace it with a system that measures tailpipe emissions. After all, a car that runs 25 miles on a gallon of clean biodiesel might be preferable environmentally to a car that runs 35 miles on gasoline or liquid coal.

Maintaining his influence on global warming may mean swallowing the 4% pill--washed down, knowing Dingell, by a fountain of federal subsidies for the retooling of American auto plants. Some friends of the chairman believe that Dingell has chosen the toughest bill of his career to cap his historic tenure. If he survives this Congress and wins one more election, he will pass Mississippi's Jamie Whitten as the nation's longest-serving Congressman.

But Dingell is superstitious about the luck-changing power of grandiose statements, according to a longtime associate. So instead of a grand finale, he quietly but insistently drummed his cane on the floor of his Capitol hideaway office as punctuation for the long list of his legislative achievements.

"Look," he closed understatedly, "this is going to be one of the hardest tasks I've ever addressed." That said, "I intend to try and move this. If the problem is as big as everyone says--and it's an enormous problem--then we have a duty to move it.

"Don't we?"