Green Car Advisor

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the governor's office, easily overlooked while overlooking and overhearing all.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last year told the Big 3 automakers to "Get off your butt" and meet the state's tailpipe emissions regulations, is scheduled to sit down with representatives from Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and Toyota at the state Capitol in Sacramento Thursday.

The meeting, at the automakers' request, comes just two weeks after 12 governors, led by Schwarzenegger, threatened legal action against the Bush administration for trying to prohibit states from setting automotive emissions limits.

The auto industry doesn't like the idea: it spent a record $70.3 million lobbying Congress and the Bush administration in 2007, a sum largely driven by efforts to influence fuel economy standards for the nation's cars and trucks, the Center for Responsive Politics recently reported.

The meeting also comes just two months after General Motors contributed $25,000 to Schwarzenegger's political action committee -- Join Arnold -- according to records filed with the California Secretary of State.

The Gov's office said the timing of the contribution so close to the scheduled meeting was just a coincidence.

The meeting between Schwarzenegger and the big dogs in the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers also comes as at least 16 states have adopted or are considering adopting California's rules for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles -- rules the industry says would force production cuts and threaten the survival of weaker automakers.

The president of the alliance, former Democratic congressman Dave McCurdy, has been lobbying governors in recent months over the standards, contending that the new federal fuel-economy standard of 35 miles per gallon will produce major reductions in the gases that cause global warming. Congress and the Bush administration set the standard last year.

The meeting with Schwarzenegger "is part of our effort to acknowledge concerns about greenhouse-gas emissions and fuel economy, while at the same time, tout the energy bill and its aggressive fuel-economy increases" and carbon dioxide reductions, Alliance spokesman Charles Territo told the Detroit Free Press in an article published Tuesday.

The newspaper report said industry executives don't expect one meeting to change Schwarzenegger's position, but they want the opportunity to talk about how difficult achieving the federal 35 mpg target will be and why they see California's rules -- requiring a 40.5 mpg fuel efficiency average for most cars and some trucks by 2016 – as excessive.

Federal officials estimated last month that Detroit automakers would have to spend $30.5 billion by 2015 to meet an interim federal average fuel economy target of 31.5 mpg.

Schwarzenegger has made the greenhouse-gas rules a centerpiece of his administration.

He intends to talk to the auto-industry representatives Thursday "about what they are doing as far as new auto design and manufacturing technologies to increase fuel efficiencies, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions," spokeswoman Lisa Page told Green Car Advisor.

"He really wants to discuss the need for the U.S. to lead the way when it comes to those areas," she said.

It will be interesting hearing what the industry reps have to say about that.

Scott Doggett, Contributor