Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
December 22, 2000, Friday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A03
LENGTH: 724 words
HEADLINE:
Firms, Groups Balk at EPA's Tougher New Diesel Rule; Industry Looking to Bush
For Less-Strict Standard
BYLINE: Marc Kaufman ,
Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
Business
groups responded angrily yesterday to the Environmental Protection Agency's
announcement that it would require oil companies to produce significantly
cleaner fuel for heavily polluting big trucks and buses and said they would ask
the incoming Bush administration to modify the decision.
Rolling back a
long-debated agency rule is always difficult. But attempts to modify or rescind
the diesel rule may be limited further given the anticipated announcement today
that New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R) will be nominated to be the next
EPA administrator. Her administration has strongly supported the diesel fuel
reductions the EPA mandated. EPA officials said yesterday that New Jersey's
environment commissioner, Robert Shinn, testified at a hearing in New York last
summer in favor of the new EPA rule. The officials said New Jersey, which has
heavy truck traffic, was one of only a few states that sent written support for
the diesel sulfur reductions.
New Jersey's plan for
complying with the federal Clean Air Act also assumes that diesel
sulfur emissions will be reduced along the lines of the new EPA
rule, an administration official said.
Whitman's office said yesterday
that it was "premature" to discuss how she might rule on any specific EPA issue.
Under the new rule, American refiners must reduce
sulfur in diesel fuel to 15 parts per million by 2006, compared
with a current level of 500 parts per million. Vehicle manufacturers will also
have to retool diesel engines for heavy-duty trucks and buses to cut emissions
by more than 90 percent by 2007.
"By the end of the decade, because of
these steps, every new vehicle sold in the United States will be up to 95
percent cleaner than those rolling off the assembly line today," President
Clinton said yesterday in support of the EPA rule.
The new
regulations were widely praised by environmental activists.
Last year, the Clinton administration announced similarly tough
sulfur emission standards for gasoline used by
sport utility vehicles, minivans and small trucks.
Business groups
ranging from trucking firms to the Chamber of Commerce said the rule announced
yesterday goes too far and will trigger large cost increases and possibly
shortages.
"EPA's extreme, costly and technologically unjustified diesel
rule will make it even harder to keep the nation well supplied with the
affordable energy that consumers and the economy require," a coalition of those
groups said.
American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney said
that refiners had already agreed to major reductions in diesel
sulfur that "would have provided virtually the same
environmental benefits as EPA's more severe rule, but at a much lower cost to
consumers and without placing our nation's diesel fuel supply at risk."
Bob Slaughter, general counsel for the National Petrochemical and
Refiners Association, said his group wants Bush, a former Texas oilman, to work
with Congress to raise the allowable diesel sulfur level.
Some legislators clearly agree. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) has said,
for instance, that he would try to modify the new rules early in the next
Congress. Republicans unhappy with a number of other environmental and workplace
rules recently announced by the administration have promised similar attempts.
Edward Murphy, general manager of API, said there was no pressing reason
for the EPA to decide on sulfur levels now. "The timing of the
decision is interesting because the industry only needs four years to gear up,
and they aren't supposed to go into effect until 2006."
Most of the
18-wheel trucks on American highways burn diesel fuel, which gives better
mileage than gasoline. But most trucks and buses can't use
pollution control devices like those required in cars until the
sulfur content of diesel is reduced.
Industry officials
said yesterday that they believe the EPA's long-term goal in demanding that
industry produce diesel with very low sulfur is to make the
fuel usable not only for large rigs and buses, but also for SUVs and small
trucks that don't use diesel. The agency has long pressed the auto industry to
adapt them to use the more efficient fuel, but the smaller vehicles need
especially low-sulfur diesel.
Staff researchers
Lynn Davis and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: December 22, 2000
