Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
May 1, 1999, Saturday ,City Edition
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A3
LENGTH: 699 words
HEADLINE:
Stricter auto emission rules would snare SUVs, minivans;
EPA proposal also
calls for cleaner gasoline;
Scott Allen of the Globe staff
contributed to this report.
BYLINE: By H. Josef
Hebert, Associated Press
BODY:
WASHINGTON - Popular sport utility vehicles would have to meet the same, tough
emission standards as cars under pollution rules to be proposed by the Clinton
administration. Refiners would have to make cleaner gasoline,
too.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposal, which one study found
would add up to $200 to an SUV's pricetag, is aimed at assuring
that progress to improve air quality is not reversed by expected growth in
travel and the fast-selling SUVs, some of which now emit more than twice as much
pollution as cars.
"EPA is taking a very substantial stride to improve
air quality" across the country, said Jason Grumet of the Northeast States for
Coordinated Air Use Management, a Boston group that advises states on air
policy. The proposal, expected to be unveiled by President Clinton today in his
weekly radio broadcast, would give states, including Massachusetts, the choice
of applying EPA's rules for vehicles and gasoline within their
borders, or adopting even-tougher standards recently approved by California.
EPA's Tier II auto emission controls have prompted intense lobbying by
both automakers and oil companies, industries that will be most affected by the
new requirements. A final rule is not expected to be issued until the end of the
year, and many of the requirements would not begin to be phased in until 2004.
The proposed standards, part of the Clean Air Act, essentially set a
minimum standard for vehicle pollution, but California has already adopted even
tougher regulations for sports utility vehicle emissions. Under
federal law, the remaining states can adopt either the EPA or California
standards.
Although environmentalists praised Clinton's Tier II plan,
they called on states with chronic smog problems such as Massachusetts and
Connecticut, to follow California instead.
Michelle Robinson of the
Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge said that the California rules
require quicker pollution reductions for light trucks and require automakers to
produce some vehicles that run on fuel cells and other advanced technologies.
While some details may still change, the proposal's key elements, say
government and private sources, include:
- A requirement for
low-sulfur gasoline nationwide. Refiners would have to cut the
content of sulfur - which interferes with auto pollution
control equipment - from an average of 340 parts per million to 30 parts per
million beginning in 2004.
- An 80 percent reduction in the amount of
smog-causing chemicals emitted from the tailpipe, to be phased in over several
years beginning in 2004. Other pollutants also would be reduced.
- A
requirement for automakers for the first time to include SUVs, pickup trucks,
and minivans in the mix of vehicles to determine fleetwide tailpipe emission
reductions. Some large SUVs may be given longer to comply.
The SUVs and
pickup trucks, which last year accounted for nearly half of all new vehicles
sold, currently are allowed to pollute two and three times as much as
automobiles, although some manufacturers have made them significantly cleaner in
recent years.
The EPA has argued that as people drive more, increasingly
in trucklike vehicles, air quality cannot be improved without addressing
pollution from such vehicles, or without imposing tough new requirements not
only on automakers, but also on gasoline refiners to clean up
the fuel.
While cars are 97 percent cleaner than models sold 30 years
ago, emission from cars and light trucks still account for one-third to one-half
of the smog-causing pollution in urban areas as well as releases of microscopic
soot and toxic chemicals, pollution control specialists say.
Automakers
have become resigned in recent months to having to substantially reduce
emissions from not only their cars but their heavily marketed trucklike vehicles
as well. But they have asked the EPA to give them more time, until 2011, to do
the job. EPA contends it can be done at least two years sooner.
The
agency, however, agrees with automakers that for the tougher tailpipe standard
to work, gasoline must become cleaner, and therefore proposed
the 90 percent reduction in sulfur.
LOAD-DATE: May 04, 1999 
