McCain Says He'll Push Automakers to Meet CAFE Standards

From CBS News' Dante Higgins:

WARREN, MICH. -- John McCain says it’s time to move toward reaching the goals of CAFÉ standards and that he is confident automakers can meet the them while helping to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

He told reporters that the Detroit automotive manufacturing community reluctantly agreed to the increase in CAFÉ standards.

“And now our job is to provide them with the wherewithal to meet those CAFÉ standards. I believe the technology is there. We need to encourage it. Where the government needs to help out is with pure research and development. I’m more than willing to engage in that,” he said.

“The automakers understand that with our dependence on foreign oil that this is a part of that overall effort to reduce that dependency. And I have great faith in the automobile industry that they’ll be able to meet these CAFÉ standards, they’ll move to hybrid cars we’ll move to hydrogen, we’ll move to batteries," said McCain.

"It’s sort of like this idea of bringing back old jobs. You can’t bring back old jobs, the experts agree with me, but we can create new jobs in keeping with technologies. I’m confident it can happen here in the state of Michigan.”