Romney Slams CAFÉ Fuel Requirements
WARREN, MICH. -- In front of a backdrop of automobiles in this Motor City suburb, Mitt Romney said that federal regulations intended to improve automobile efficiency have unfairly hurt jobs in Michigan.
"I wasn't wild about those because even though we all agree we want to see our fuel economy standards go up, when CAFÉ was put in place, it helped the foreign manufacturers and hurt the domestics," Romney said. "It hurt our jobs here."
Returning to Michigan for a four-day stretch of campaigning before Tuesday's primary, Romney told a crowd of about 100 people at Macomb Community College that a new CAFÉ requirement did not adequately address the concerns of the automobile industry.
"I want to make sure that if we're going to have a change in fuel standards that this has been worked out with our domestic manufacturers in a way that helps them rather than hurts them and it's not what I'll call an unfunded mandate, which is the federal government says, 'You've got to do this—now find a way to go pay for it,'" Romney said. "Instead, we're going to have to work together—federal government and state government, manufacturers and labor—to make sure that if there's gonna be a dramatic change in the industry, it works for the benefit of American jobs, not for the benefit of foreign jobs."
The Romney campaign has staked its viability on winning in Michigan, and Romney is playing up his roots here in order to try to connect with voters in a way he wasn't able to do in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"My roots are deep here as you know," Romney said. "Born here. Go blue and go green — got to take care of both sides. My brother is on the board of Michigan State. Met my girlfriend here. We are still going steady and my mom and dad are buried here."
Romney also took a swipe at John McCain, who, along with Mike Huckabee, is also running hard in Michigan.
"And I hear from time to time from Washington politicians that they're aware of the difficulty that Michigan is having, but what have they done?" Romney said. "I hear even Senator McCain the other day said that, speaking with straight talk, he said that some jobs are gone that are never coming back. I'm not willing to accept defeat like that."