Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

I ~ E 00 0') ..c u I-< ~ .. :g By Jim Zoia Ed· Youngblood sat eating at Trader Vic's in the Washington, DC, Capitol Hilton. As the former Milton scholar-turned-director of the AMA's. Government Relations Department threw down his chopsticks in disgust and reached for a fork, a young woman sitting across the table asked, "So exactly what do motorcycle lobbyists do?" She chuckled, knowing by the pained expression on his face that he'd heard that question asked on countless occasions. What in the world, most people might wonder, would motcrrcyclists have to lobby about? The woman was from Portland. Oregon, and worked in the public relations department of a large energy conglomerate that operated a number of coal mines. Bureau of Land Management land closings, wilderness reviews. Environmental Protection Agency emis· sion standards and Energy Department rulings all have an impact on motorcyling. and for that matter, on mining. Youngblood dutifully explained. A seminar on Congress had drawn both these people to Washington earlier that day. They had sat through a review of the factors involved in the sweeping Republican victory last November and received a preview of what to expect from the new 97th Congress. It was at· tended by people who are interested in things of this sort, such as federal agency congressional liaisons. big oil lobbyists, consumer group politicos and a whole bevy of business representatives from L.A. to N.Y.C. And also, it was attended by a lone motorcycle lobbyist from Westerville, Ohio. Westerville? You've got to be kidding. Since when did Westerville. an un· alIIiUII1ing suburb of Columbus, become a hotbed of political activity? It began when the AMA expanded from its traditional role,of sanctioning motorcycle races to contributing to congressional races. While most of the AMA staff is still race and service ori· ented. three men staff its GRD. Their work often leads them down the legislative and Iitigative road. instead of the pit lane. and it is as important to motorcycling as knobby tires, Vetter fairings or a good tuner. So. what exactly do motorcycle lob· byists do? Youngblood, in his thirties. sits in his hotel room waiting for Jimmy Carter to give his farewell speech on national television. Besides going to the seminar on Congress that day, he had visited with the AMA's Washingtonbased attorney and made his rounds on Capitol Hill. Now, as Carter's crestfallen smile flashes on the screen, Youngblood pours himself a glass of J.T.S. Kentuclty Bourbon and snicIters, "That guy hasn't learned a thing in .... 32 L.... '2' t~ four years." Youngblood then launches into a long tirade on Carter administration programs that were detrimental to motorcycling. He draws a parallel be· tween Carter and Hoover, both of whom had a penchant for making the wrong decisions even though their intentions may have been good. "And both their chances of getting re-elected weren't worth a damn," he says. Youngblood then expounds on Aristotle's philosophy that man, through innate intellect, would malte the right decisions. Clearly, Youngblood feels that mankind made the right choke in votingJimmy Carter out of office. The previous day. AMA's Legislative Analyist Gary Winn was in town. He attended a conference on transportation held at the Sheraton Washington Hotel. At the motorcycle safety seminar, Winn sat muttering under his bre.ath at what he felt was a half-cocked study conducted by the state bureaucrat at the spealter's podium. Winn likes nothing better than to ride his Moto Guzzis, tink.er with his Velocette and pore over statistics. Research is his game; making correlations and constructing hypotheses from different sets of data. The object is to fmd "vital" statistics dealing with motorcycle safety issues. At that moment, however. Winn found himself in a room full of state and federal bureaucrats who didn't seem to know the first thing about ac· tually riding a motorcycle. They often giggled over jokes placing bikers in stereotypical roles. One observed that motorcycles "are fair-weather devices." Smart guy. Yet these were the very bureaucrats responsible for many programs dealing with motorcycle rider education and helmet use. They watched a slide presentation on one such program which featured one of their colleagues in a "chase car" who raced after a badly confused person on a motorcycle who had to listen to the bureaucrat's comments via' a one·way radio wired into his helmet. The bureaucrats were impressed with the one·way radio. No back talk from the biker. The third person in the GRD is Rob Rasor. His job is to track the myriad regulatory and legislative measures dealing with public land use. When the government closes off these lands, off· road riders often get shafted. he'll tell you. Rasor must alert the AMA and its membership to the latest de· velo~ments in areas such as the Califorma Desert where the GRD has filed suit to half the implementation of BLM's Desert Plan. The agency had screwed up during the rule malting process by not allowing enough time for public comment and by drafting an inadequate Environmental Impact Statement. If the BLM's plan were implemented, dirt riden would lose a lot of ground. Tm: AMA has also filed suit against the Council on ~nvironmental Q.uality after conducting an IS-month investigation i~to a study the agency commissioned entitled, "Off· Road Vehicles on Public Lands." The study had been prejudiced against dirt riding on public lands. Aided by a report from the General Accounting Office - which had ruled that CEQ. improperly contracted for the study - the AMA flied suit in the federal district court in Washington. D.C. "Given the bias against dirt biltes in the report," Rasor says, "we think. the government owes us some relief. " Winn, Rasor and Youngblood will tell anyone who wi1llisten that: 1) Motorcyclists are a viable political bloc, capable of initiating change in the government; 2) Motorcyclists must become politically active or they'll get regulated out of existence; and, ll) The GRD is alive and well and continuing to exert pressure on the bureaucracy, making friends in Congress and working to increase the awareness of the American motorcyclist. Started in 1971 to address what Youngblood calls the, "staggering government-inspired problem faced by the motorcycle community," the GRD now has a budget of over $1l50,000 a year (about 10% of the AMA's total budget) and has been instrumental in the movement to repeal mandatory helmet laws (although they are prohelmet use. the AMA opposes these laws on philosophical grounds as being an infringement on individual liberty), fighting various "bike bans" around the country, stalling EPA's motorcycle noise regulations which would have added hundreds to the price of biltes and getting the Energy Department to increase the motorcycle's gas allotment from 10 to 25% under its rationing plan. The GRD also convinced the Internal Revenue Service to malte the sales tax on new motorcycles deductible on income taxes. The GRD publishes three bookets such as "A Biker's Political Action Handbook" to educate the masses. It operates AMPAC (American Motor· cyclist Political Action Committee) which had an 86% success rate in the last elections. Over $lll,OOO was con· tributed to the campaigns of 49 con· gressional candidates. Forty-two of these candidates - 15 Democrats and 27 Republicans -were victorious. At every opportunity. the GRD promotes rider education programs and tries to convince the National Higbway Traffic Safety Administration to fund these programs rather than push helmet laws. Through the GRD's "Action" news- letter and its contact list of politicallyactive bikers it is capable of mobilizing grassroot action on local issues in virtuallyevery region of the country. During the GRD's quest for motor· cyclist rights, it has made some friends in Congress, such as Sen. Jesse Heims (R-NC) who along with Sen. Alan Cranston (D·CA) introduced legislation that prevented NHTSA from blackmailing the states into enacting mandatory helmet laws a few years back. Because of its vocal presence in many areas dealing with legislation and regulation, the GRD's Rasor was invited recently to testify before Con: gress. A House committee wanted to know the AMA's views on CEQ.. In the same sense, the GRD has also knoclted heads with some curious characters Iik.e Rep. Robert Walker (RPA), author of the infamous House resolution that may have led to the establishment of a federal strike force in every U.S. district to track down and prosecute anybndy who looks like an "outlaw" biker. Due to AMA pressure, many of Walker's cosponsors withdrew their support. and the bill died. Joan Claybrook. fonner administrator of NHTSA under Carter, also was an object of contention. Claybrook subscribed to a school of thought which placed bikers as being too ignorant to talte evasive action on the nation's high· ways. Rider education would not. work, she said, only mandatory helmet laws. Over the years the AMA has led efforts to convince NHTSA (but not Claybrook) that education is a better method of ensuring motorcycle safety than helmet laws. It would talte pages to document everything the GRD is involved in. But whatever it does, this underlying philo· sophy exists: "Government, local and federal, has turned its eyes toward every aspect of motorcycling and clasped its hands around our freedom. It has meddled with the way a dealer conducts business, influenced the insurance we can buy and regulated the noise we make, the speeds we go and the clothes we wear." Youngblood believes that the GRD forms a "counter· bureaucracy" which serves as a "cutting edge" in the struggle for many constitutional rights motorcyclists have. "We must improve our visibility within Congress," he says, "the body which creates bureaucrats." And to ensure that Congress will listen. Youngblood adds that motorcyclists must vote. "If it were not for the associations in this country we would today be living under a totalitarian. autocratic government, or in an all-out socialistic society," wrote Mortimer Doyle in a trade maga· ine. While he may have been exagger· ating. associations like the AMA provide a valuable service to its membership. The GRD serves as a check on government regulations which have an impact on motorcycling and offers bilters a consolidated bloc from which they can promote their interests.

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