Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
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April 14, 1999, Wednesday, Late Edition -
Final
Correction Appended
SECTION: Section
A; Page 22; Column 5; National Desk
LENGTH: 1123 words
HEADLINE:
Rules on Vehicles and Gas Are Likely to Be Toughened
BYLINE: By KEITH BRADSHER
DATELINE: DETROIT, April 13
BODY:
The Clinton Administration is preparing to
announce as early as next week that it will require cleaner
gasoline and tougher pollution standards for autos, including
forcing large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks to meet the same emission
standards as cars, people involved in the issue say.
While
environmentalists are pleased, the oil and auto industries are worried because
the move could bring price increases both for gasoline and
sport utility vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency drafted a proposal
two months ago for stricter rules on vehicles and gasoline and
submitted it for an interagency review, which is now in its final stages.
Administration officials said today that some decisions had not yet been
made on the new rules, which could bring cuts of up to 93 percent in pollution
from large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Last-minute lobbying could
still lead to further changes. But environmentalists and industry lobbyists say
they believe the final plan is likely to closely resemble the agency's proposal,
which calls for a crackdown that the oil industry in particular has criticized
as excessive.
Strict rules could provoke a fight between the
Administration and Congress. Some Republican senators have already warned the
Administration against what they perceive as regulatory excess.
Senator
James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who heads the clean air subcommittee of
the Environment and Public Works Committee, has already begun drafting
legislation to cancel the gasoline cleanliness rules. But any
such legislation is likely to face a Presidential veto.
The
Administration is still working on whether to allow a longer timetable for
industries to meet the new rules, but it seems likely to set the eventual levels
of allowable pollution at roughly what the E.P.A. proposed, said lobbyists on
both sides of the issue who have been discussing the details with the
Administration.
"It would be my expectation that they would keep it as
they originally talked about it," said Josephine Cooper, president of the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is based in Washington.
William O'Keefe, executive vice president and chief operating officer of
the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's lobbying arm, said the
Administration was considering whether to add to the E.P.A. proposal a complex
system of credits for oil companies that make early changes in
gasoline. But he dismissed this idea as inadequate, and said
that, "So far, we don't know that we've gotten anything."
Daniel Becker,
senior energy policy analyst at the Sierra Club, said that based on his
understanding of the planned rules, he was satisfied and wanted the
Administration to move as quickly as possible. Once the interagency process is
completed, the rules must be issued for public comment and then issued in legal
form. If that process lasts past the end of the year, the auto industry could
seek an extension for some deadlines in the new rules.
"The
Administration can't let that happen and let us lose a year," Mr. Becker said.
Current Federal regulations allow cars to emit
four-tenths of a gram of smog-causing nitrogen oxides for each mile traveled.
Minivans and the smaller sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are allowed to
emit seven-tenths of a gram per mile, while the larger sport utility vehicles
and pickup trucks are allowed 1.1 grams per mile.
The limits on all but
the larger sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are already scheduled to be
tightened next year. The Clean Air Act of 1990 explicitly allows the issuance of
new rules now for vehicle pollution and the cleanliness of fuel, and the
E.P.A.'s proposal would require much deeper cuts for all family vehicles. Under
a rule that would gradually take effect for vehicles built from 2004 to 2007,
the limit would be seven-hundredths of a gram of nitrogen oxides per mile for
cars, minivans and the smaller sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.
Large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks would also be required to
meet this tough standard starting with the 2009 model year. This would mark the
first time that these vehicles would be regulated like cars, something several
administrations had been reluctant to do until recently because these large
vehicles are mainly sold by domestic auto makers, for which they produce huge
profits and tens of thousands of jobs. But with big sport utility vehicles in
particular being used now as oversized cars rather than work vehicles, and with
sales soaring and environmentalists starting to complain, the E.P.A. changed its
position.
The new rules would not affect large commercial trucks or
vehicles already on the road. Officials of the environmental agency said that
without new rules, air pollution would start worsening again about 2010, as
Americans drive ever more miles in ever bigger vehicles.
The E.P.A. plan
would also require a 91 percent cut, phased in from 2004 to 2006, in the level
of sulfur in gasoline. Sulfur, a naturally
occurring contaminant of crude oil, clogs catalytic converters and dramatically
increases pollution.
The auto industry's criticism of the Administration
plan has been muted by Detroit's delight at the prospect of deep cuts in the
sulfur in gasoline. This will make it much
easier to meet future emissions standards, at least for a while.
But Ms.
Cooper of the auto makers alliance said further cuts in sulfur
would be needed after 2006 to make sure that all of the Administration's
pollution targets could be met. Auto makers maintain that even with the cleaner
gasoline, designing ever cleaner engines and better catalytic
converters could add several hundred dollars to the cost of a car and more to
the cost of a sport utility vehicle. It is unclear how much of this extra cost
could be passed on to the public if competition remains fierce in the auto
market.
Seeking a greener image, the Ford Motor Company has begun
voluntarily building all of its sport utility vehicles to be as clean as current
cars. But even Ford executives have expressed worries about the new standards in
2009 for large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Ford and other auto
makers want a mandatory review in 2004 of the new rules; no decision has been
made.
Unlike the auto industry, the oil industry gains nothing from the
new regulations. Mr. O'Keefe of the petroleum institute said
the rules could add 5 or 6 cents to the price of a gallon of
gasoline.
The auto makers have suggested that the extra
cost might be only 2 or 3 cents a gallon, but Mr. O'Keefe said this assumed that
new refining techniques, so far only proven in the laboratory, could be
introduced on a commercial scale.
http://www.nytimes.com
CORRECTION-DATE: April 15,
1999, Thursday
CORRECTION:
An article yesterday
about a plan to toughen Federal pollution standards for
gasoline and automobiles misstated the reaction of Senator
James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma. He is drafting legislation to modify
the new standards, which have not yet been issued. His bill would not cancel
them.
LOAD-DATE: April 14, 1999
