Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
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May 2, 1999, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 37; Column
1; National Desk
LENGTH: 588 words
HEADLINE: Clinton Says New Rule on Emissions Won't
Impose Undue Costs
BYLINE: By KEITH
BRADSHER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 1
BODY:
Defending his new plans for cleaner air
against criticism from the oil industry, President Clinton said today that
proposed regulations on gasoline and tailpipe
emissions would not impose excessive costs.
In his weekly radio address,
the President said that the new rules were designed to avoid creating hardships
for businesses or consumers. "The proposal would achieve a dramatic reduction in
air pollution for the 21st century, and it would do so in the most
cost-effective and flexible ways," he said. Oil lobbyists and their
Congressional allies began criticizing the proposals on Friday, as the
Administration began a series of briefings. The American Petroleum Institute,
the industry's lobbying arm, held a press conference on Friday afternoon to say
that the plan would unnecessarily raise gasoline prices in
rural areas with no air pollution problems. Senator James M. Inhofe, a
Republican from oil-producing Oklahoma, said that he had begun drafting
legislation to devise a more cost-effective approach.
But Senator
Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate's clean air subcommittee, faces a difficult
task. The Clean Air Act of 1990 gives the Administration the legislative
authority to act, meaning that the new rules will take effect unless Congress
can agree on a way to change them. And the Administration has an unlikely ally
if a battle does develop in Congress: the auto industry, which wants cleaner
gasoline to simplify the task of designing cleaner automobiles,
particularly sport utility vehicles, which emit up to three times as much air
pollution as cars.
Unlike previous Administrations, the Clinton
Administration has pursued an unusual strategy that seems to have weakened oil
and auto industry lobbyists by dividing them. After decades of piecemeal
regulation of the two industries, the Administration is
proposing for the first time a single set of rules to cover both fuel that goes
into auto engines and the waste gases that come out.
Rather than
fighting the Administration for less stringent emissions standards, the auto
industry has allied itself with environmentalists in demanding cleaner
gasoline.
Josephine Cooper, the president of the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, based in Washington, said that the
industry generally supported the new rules because of the
sulfur provisions, even though the rules require big sport
utility vehicles and pickup trucks to start meeting car pollution rules for the
first time by 2009. The auto industry wants the Administration's help in meeting
this tough requirement by forcing the oil industry to eliminate as much
sulfur as possible, Ms. Cooper said.
Oil industry
executives appear to be unhappy with the Administration and furious with the
auto industry. "The interests of the environment and the motoring public are
served if the two industries work together," said William O'Keefe, the executive
vice president of the American Petroleum Institute.
The oil industry had
proposed that only Eastern states and California be subject to strict
sulfur regulations, while Western states with lesser air
pollution problems be allowed less stringent rules. Oil companies will have to
spend several billion dollars to install more sulfur-removing
equipment at refineries, Mr. O'Keefe said.
To accommodate the oil
companies, the Administration will allow two dozen small refineries an extra two
to four years to comply with the sulfur rules, Carol M.
Browner, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on
Friday.
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LOAD-DATE: May 2, 1999 
