Copyright 1999 The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution
June 12, 1999, Saturday, Home Edition
SECTION: Local News; Pg. 2E
LENGTH: 508 words
HEADLINE:
EPA's proposed new fuel standards hailed
BYLINE:
Charles Seabrook, Staff
SOURCE: AJC
BODY:
A parade of private citizens,
environmentalists and scientists told U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
officials Friday they are pleased with a federal proposal to make
gasoline cleaner and to sharply cut the pollution from sports
utility vehicles, minivans and pickup trucks.
Automobile manufacturers
said they will need more time than what the EPA would allow to make their
vehicles cleaner. Officials with the oil and gas industries said the whole
proposal should be put on hold. More than 60 people testified Friday at the
all-day hearing in Atlanta on EPA's proposed new standards, which are designed
to reduce smog levels in metro Atlanta and dozens of other urban areas. Among
other things, the new rules would force gasoline producers to
remove 90 percent of the sulfur currently found in the fuel.
Sulfur damages an automobile's pollution-control equipment.
"Without cleaner fuel, you can't expect car companies to deliver cleaner
cars," said Margo Oge, head of the EPA's Office of Mobile Sources.
The
new regulations also would require car makers to cut tailpipe
emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOX, by 77 percent in new passenger cars. A
fourth of the cars produced by a manufacturer would have to meet the standard by
2004 by installing new pollution-control devices on the vehicles. All new cars
would have to meet it by 2007. NOX is a main ingredient in the formation of
ground-level ozone.
For SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks, which are now
subject to weaker standards than those for passenger cars, the rules would be
even more stringent. Light-duty trucks and SUVs --- those weighing less than
6,000 pounds --- would have to be as much as 95 percent cleaner by 2004, and,
for the first time, they would have the same exhaust system requirements as
passenger cars.
SUVs, minivans and pickups now make up nearly half of
all passenger vehicles sold in metro Atlanta and typically emit three to five
times as much pollution as cars. The EPA would give manufacturers of heavy duty
vehicles weighing 6,000 to 8,500 until 2009 to meet the standards. Those
vehicles include the Ford Expedition, the Dodge Ram and the Lincoln Navigator.
For consumers, EPA estimates that the new standards would add about $
100 to the cost of a new car and up to $ 200 for a light truck. Consumers would
pay less than 2 cents per gallon for the low-sulfur gasoline,
officials projected.
Many speakers at the hearing said it was about time
that SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks be subjected to the same emission
standards as cars and objected to the heavier vehicles being given extra time to
meet the standards. But Josephine Cooper, speaking for the Alliance of
Automobile Manufacturers, said automakers "need enough flexibility . . . to
allow the invention of the technologies necessary to make EPA's standards a
reality. Getting there will take time and require us to clear a number of
technological hurdles."
ON THE WEB:
Comment on proposed rules for
automobile and SUV pollution control: www.epa. gov/oms/tr2home.htm
LOAD-DATE: June 12, 1999 
