NAME:	Senate Vote on Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standard
TYPE:	Census
SIZE:	100 records, each including a record identifier and 4 variables

DESCRIPTIVE ABSTRACT:

Each record includes the name (as an identifier) of a 2002 U.S. Senator
the state that senator represents, political party affiliation, vote on 
the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard, and the total lifetime 
amount of money contributed to the senator by automobile manufacturers. 
The goal is to summarize and quantify the effects of ideology (party) 
and contributions on senators' votes.

DATA SOURCES:

This data was compiled by Public Campaign:

http://www.howdarethey.org/news/cafe/cafetablealpha.htm

Lifetime total contributions were obtained from the Center for 
Responsive Politics.

DATASET LAYOUT:

Columns  Variable         Comment

   1-18  Name             Last, First [MI.]

  20-21  State            Two letter abbreviation

     23  Party            R(epublican), D(emocrat), I(ndependent)

  25-27  Vote             Vote on CAFE standard (YES or NO)

  30-34  Amount           Total lifetime dollar amount contributed to
                          the senator by the auto industry. This amount
                          includes PACs and individual contributions of
                          $200 or more from executives and their
                          families.

SPECIAL NOTES:

James Jeffords, Vermont, is the sole Independent. The vote tallied here was 
on the Levin amendment to the McCain/Kerry proposal. The McCain/Kerry 
proposal, if implemented, would have forced auto manufacturers to 
increase fleetwide fuel economy. A vote of YES on the Levin amendment 
was tantamount to shelving the increase and was consistent with most 
auto manufacturers' wishes.

STORY BEHIND THE DATA:

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standard was 1975 legislation 
requiring automobile manufacturers to achieve particular standards in 
fleetwide fuel economy. The motion voted on here was a bill that 
effectively delays any increase in fleetwide fuel economy while the 
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration researches development 
of new CAFE standards. (A subsequent amendment froze the standard for 
light trucks at the then-current standard of 20.7 mpg.) I came upon the 
data while reading the news. As published by Public Campaign, the data
made an ideal candidate for logistic regression.

PEDAGOGICAL NOTES:

The fundamental idea here is to fit a binary regression model. Doing so 
roughly assesses the effect of both party affiliation and contributions 
supplied by the auto industry on the probability of a vote that the 
industry generally desired. Transformations and careful handling of 
outlying cases are essential to a good analysis.

REFERENCES:

“Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy: The CAFE Standard” (2002), 
Almanac of Policy Issues [Online], September 25, 2002, 
www.policyalmanac.org/environment/archive/crs_cafe_standards.shtml.

SUBMITTED BY:

Scott Preston
Department of Mathematics
SUNY Oswego
Oswego, NY 13126
srp@oswego.edu