Copyright 1999 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
November 21, 1999, Sunday, SOONER EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL, Pg. A-14
LENGTH: 1180 words
HEADLINE:
WAR ON SUVS FOCUSES ON CUTTING EMISSIONS
BYLINE: JOAN
LOWY, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
BODY:
Environmentalists are hoping that by the end of the year they'll
have one less reason to hate sport utility vehicles.
That's the deadline
by which President Clinton is supposed to finalize proposed Environmental
Protection Agency regulations that would toughen auto emission standards for all
cars and force SUVs, minivans and small pickup trucks to meet the same standards
as cars.
Right now, a loophole in federal regulations allows SUVs and
other so-called "light trucks" to emit up to three times the smog-forming
pollution as cars. It's one of several factors fueling a backlash against SUVs
even as their popularity with drivers increases.
Friends of the Earth,
for example, sponsors an anti-SUV Web site, www.suv.org, where "sports utes" are
derided as "roadhogs." For those not familiar with roadhogs, Friends of the
Earth defines the term as "any of several vehicle types exhibiting excessive
size, creating dangerous highway conditions, and/or emitting increased
pollution."
The Sierra Club has dubbed Ford Motor Co.'s new 3.5 ton,
nine-passenger Excursion the "Ford Valdez."
Environmentalists have two
major beefs with SUVs:
* Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency
(CAFE) standards make an exception for SUVs and other light
trucks, allowing them to burn an average of 33 percent more gasoline than
passenger cars. The more gasoline burned, the more carbon monoxide emitted - the
principal cause of global warming.
* EPA emission standards also make an
exception for SUVs and other light trucks, allowing them to emit 75 percent more
nitrogen oxide than passenger cars, a principal cause of smog.
At the
time both standards were created, SUVs and light trucks were considered to be
primarily work vehicles and were a small share of the auto market. But then
automakers started designing SUVs to feel as comfortable on the inside as
passenger cars, while playing up the vehicles' macho image. Now, SUVs, minivans
and small pickups account for nearly half the new cars sold.
Nationwide,
one in 13 licensed drivers has an SUV, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In
Colorado, which leads the nation in SUVs per driver, it's one in seven. Between
1992 and 1997, the number of SUVs registered in the United States increased 93
percent.
It's ironic that SUVs - which are marketed with names that
conjure up images of the rugged outdoors like Explorer, Durango, Yukon Denali,
Tahoe, Tacoma and Expedition - have become a symbol for excessive pollution.
TVs ads often portray sports utes standing boldly atop red rock buttes
or resting peacefully next to a trout stream, but most don't leave the road. The
typical SUV spends more time ferrying kids and cafe lattes through the wilds of
suburbia than hauling lumber or towing boats. Ford estimates that 87 percent of
Ford Explorer owners never take their Explorer off the road.
But since
SUVs are typically built bigger and heavier than cars - capable in theory of
living up to their rough, tough image - they wind up wasting energy and emitting
excessive pollution for no logical reason, environmentalists complain.
Automakers, who typically reap far more profit from an SUV than an
environmentally correct Honda Civic or Nissan Sentra, defend the vehicles'
design.
"I don't build houses or anything, but I use my SUV all the time
for carting and hauling stuff from Home Depot that would never fit in the trunk
of a car," said Robert Babik, director of environmental programs for the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the owner of a Jeep Cherokee. "Maybe
[SUV owners] don't tow a boat every day, but they need a vehicle that can tow
the boat for when they do."
So far, SUV owners apparently don't care
about or are not aware of the vehicles' environmental impact. A survey for the
Recreation Roundtable, which represents the outdoor recreation and tourism
industries, found that "environmentally conscious Americans" were 50 percent
more likely to drive an SUV than the public at large.
Environmentalists
were bitterly disappointed in September when President Clinton, for the fifth
year in a row, refused to veto legislation blocking the administration from
issuing new fuel economy standards that would have required SUVs to meet the
same standards as passenger cars.
Now they've turned their focus to
emission standards, urging the administration to formally approve regulations
unveiled by EPA in the spring that would cut allowable vehicle emissions in
half. The new standards would be phased in for cars by 2004 and most SUVs and
light trucks by 2007.
"The president's decision on the new car, SUV and
minivan exhaust standards is likely to be his last major choice on clean air,"
said Mark Wenzler, counsel for the National Environmental Trust. "It would be a
shame to tarnish this key part of his environmental legacy by leaving a growing
number of unnecessarily dirty vehicles on the road."
The proposed
regulations have two parts:
The first part would require automakers to
use newer and more expensive technology to make cars burn fuel more cleanly,
adding about $ 100 to the price of a new car and about $ 200 to the price of an
SUV or light truck.
The second part would require oil companies to cut
the sulfur in gasoline which helps create nitrogen oxide - from more than 300
ppm (parts per million) to no more than 30 ppm, a 90 percent decrease. The EPA
estimates that would increase the price of gas a penny or two per gallon, but
the oil industry says it's more like four cents per gallon.
The proposal
has set off a nasty, high-stakes lobbying battle between Big Oil and Big Autos.
The American Petroleum Institute, the major trade association for the oil
industry, says many small oil refiners will find it difficult or impossible to
make the kind of expensive investment in plant and equipment necessary to meet
the new standard and will go under.
The institute wants the EPA to make
automakers responsible for a greater share of emissions reductions while
requiring no more than a 50 percent reduction in the sulfur content of gasoline.
The institute reasons that that would increase the cost of pollution control
equipment on cars, but the total cost paid by consumers would still be less than
the added cost of more expensive gasoline over the lifetime of a car.
"We think automakers should share more of the burden," said the
institute's Paul Argyropoulos. "The question is what is the most cost effective
way to achieve environmental and public health goals and at the same time
minimize the cost to the consumer."
The Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers naturally sees the situation a little differently. The AAM is
asking the EPA to impose a sulfur standard of no more than 0.5 ppm in gas, which
means manufacturers wouldn't have to work as hard designing vehicles and
pollution control equipment to meet the new standards.
The industry
argues that pollution control equipment won't be effective without less sulfur.
The auto industry is also asking for an extra two years to meet emission
standards for heavier SUVs.
GRAPHIC: INFORMATIONAL
GRAPHIC, INFORMATIONAL GRAPHIC: American Council for an Energy Efficient;
Economy, "Green Guide to Cars and Trucks."; SHNS graphic by Kelly Martin: :;
(Environmentally Driven)
LOAD-DATE: May 18, 2000
