Opinion ID: 446520
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Secondary Weight

Text: 65 NHTSA found that each pound of reduced bumper weight would be accompanied by further reductions, ranging from 0.7-1.0 pounds, in the weight of basic automobile structures. Petitioners contend that this conclusion finds no support in the record, because no manufacturer promised in its submission to make secondary reductions. This is an unduly narrow view of the kind of evidence that the agency may properly rely on. NHTSA's prediction of secondary weight reductions was based upon generally recognized and accepted design theory, the incentives facing manufacturers and manufacturer comments. 47 Fed.Reg. 56,647. (As noted earlier, the premise that there are incentives to reduce weight is reasonable.) It would be a novel legal proposition to hold that such commonplace agency prediction of market behavior is arbitrary and capricious unless supported by manufacturer commitments in rulemaking submissions. Since NHTSA's reasoning was made part of the record and has a rational basis, it is sufficient to support the agency's conclusion. See National Tour Brokers Ass'n v. ICC, 671 F.2d 528, 533 (D.C.Cir.1982); Ryder Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 716 F.2d 1369, 1385 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 1707, 80 L.Ed.2d 181 (1984). 66 Petitioners next argue that even if NHTSA properly concluded that reduced bumper weights would lead to some secondary weight reductions, these reductions would be realizable only over a lengthy period of time, as manufacturers gradually redesign their fleets to take advantage of potential weight savings. Thus, NHTSA's cost-benefit analysis should have allocated and discounted the projected secondary savings over several years (or longer). Instead, NHTSA treated them as available in the first year of implementation of the new standard, FRIA VII-35 to -38, XI-19, thus greatly overstating the present value of the benefits of the 2.5 mph bumper standard. 67 In its denial of petitions for reconsideration, NHTSA acknowledged that the anticipated secondary weight savings would not be fully available right away, but noted that the same could be said of primary weight reductions, since the new bumper standard would not result in the immediate disappearance of all 5.0 mph bumpers from the market. Production requirements and market pressure will constrain any move immediately to 2.5 mph bumpers only. 47 [243 U.S.App.D.C. 136] Fed.Reg. 56,647. Though inelegantly stated, the agency's position is understandable if not clear: No objection has been raised to the agency's unreal assumption (for purposes of its cost-benefit analysis) that it is dealing with a universe of vehicles entirely equipped, here and now, with the 2.5 mph bumpers that the new standard would permit--for while this assumption distorts the magnitude of the costs and benefits that the new standard will produce (in the first few years at least), it does not distort what is important here, the relative net benefit of one standard over the other. The same is true of structural design changes accompanying the new bumper, and there is no need to treat them differently. See Small Refiner Lead Phase-Down Task Force v. EPA, 705 F.2d 506, 535 (D.C.Cir.1983) (we must defer to the agency's decision on how to balance the cost and complexity of a more elaborate model against the oversimplification of a simpler model). In calling for discounting, petitioners confuse the physical state of affairs that the new standard will produce (including both the new lighter bumpers and the new lighter supporting structures), which can properly be assumed to exist at once, with the costs and benefits engendered by that state of affairs, some of which (i.e., accident costs, finance costs and fuel savings) will only accrue over time and must be discounted. The agency did discount the latter--for secondary weight reduction as for primary weight reduction--at a rate of 10 percent. FRIA at III-70. 68 Finally, petitioners claim inconsistency between NHTSA's treating secondary weight reductions as presently implemented and its failure to consider the effects of future design improvements that might reduce the weight of 5.0 mph bumpers. The two are not inconsistent. The latter involves technological speculation while the former is a known consequence of the new standard which, like the new bumpers themselves, is immediately achievable as far as technology is concerned. Moreover, NHTSA could reasonably assume that any such technological improvements would also reduce the weight of 2.5 mph bumpers and thus not affect the relative cost-benefit analysis. 47 Fed.Reg. 21,834; 47 Fed.Reg. 56,646.