Battle of the Bigs

Proponents of new clean-air standards have found an unlikely ally: Detroit. Auto manufacturers are supporting a requirement that gasoline contain less pollution-causing sulfur. Carmakers are backing the measure because sulfur damages catalytic converters, which are critical to efforts to reduce tailpipe pollution. To no one's surprise, the oil companies are fighting the proposal. They say that retooling refineries will be costly, causing the price of gasoline-at its lowest level in decades-to increase up to six cents a gallon.

But Detroit has hardly turned green. It is nowhere near as excited about another clean-air proposal, one that would prohibit sport utility vehicles, minivans, and pickup trucks (collectively known as "light trucks") from polluting more than cars.

Clean-air activists are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to be firm with the Big Three and Big Oil. "If we want our kids to breathe clean air," says Ann Mesnikoff, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Car campaign, "we need both cleaner cars and cleaner gas."

According to the EPA, 107 million Americans breathe dirty air, and autos create a large-and easily targeted-part of the problem. The agency's proposed clean-air regulations would address the light-truck loophole, sulfur levels in gasoline, and particulate pollution created by diesel engines. The most comprehensive attempt to tackle air pollution since passage of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, the rules should be finalized by the end of the year.

The Sierra Club and state pollution-control officials want a nationwide sulfur standard modeled after the one already in effect in California: 30 parts per million, compared to the current national average of 300 parts per million. According to the State and Territorial Air Pollution Administration, an association of government air-pollution-control officials, reducing sulfur levels nationwide would be the equivalent of taking 54 million cars off the road. The oil industry wants to exempt western states from the new rules, because they have low populations and fewer Clean Air Act violations than the rest of the country.

"Their message," says Mesnikoff, "is 'let western states stay dirty.' " She points out a serious problem with inconsistent regulations: if drivers from clean-gas states buy fuel in dirty states, they could damage their emission-control systems and pollute the air when they return home.

Closing the light-truck loophole will contribute to clean air just as dramatically. These vehicles, which don't have to meet the same fuel-efficiency standards as cars, are also allowed to spew more pollutants per mile. Both loopholes are holdovers from the early 1970s, when "light trucks" were treated less stringently than passenger cars because they were a small part of the market, used primarily as farm and work vehicles. Today, these light trucks are more often substitutes for cars, and they now outsell passenger cars in the United States.

California has already done away with the discrepancy in emission standards between cars and light trucks, effective in 2004. And since Ford already produces several sport-utility behemoths whose tailpipe emissions are no worse than their cars', the handwriting is on the wall for other manufacturers. Predictably, the industry is whining about the cost of the proposed regulation. But their bottom lines will hardly be affected, because every large sport utility vehicle sold can generate $10,000 or more in profit. The California Air Resources Board says that light trucks can meet the new standards for under $250. Because so many people drive these vehicles, benefits to the environment will add up quickly.

But the problem won't truly be solved until enough drivers ignore Detroit's ad blitz, take a deep breath, and exercise restraint in the showroom. While the 5,600-pound Lincoln Navigator is one of a few sport utes that meet the EPA's low-emission standard, it still gets only 12 miles per gallon as it lumbers along to the supermarket or soccer practice. Over its lifetime, it will spew more than 70 tons of carbon dioxide, the primary global-warming pollutant. If that doesn't make you choke, Ford is readying its next loophole vehicle: the 19-foot-long Excursion. This "sport" ute is so heavy that fully-loaded versions may be able to ignore the so-called light-truck emissions standards entirely. Finding themselves staring into the tailpipe of this global-warmer while stuck at a stoplight, some drivers may decide it ignores standards of decency, too. —Reed McManus

Take action: Urge Vice President Gore to ensure that new auto-pollution standards will close the loophole that lets sport utility vehicles and other "light trucks" pollute more than cars. Also urge him to support clean-gasoline standards that will dramatically reduce sulfur in gasoline, which damages emissions systems. These rules will determine how clean our cars, light trucks, and gasoline will be well into the next century.

Send a postcard or letter to Vice President Gore at The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20500. The Sierra Club has postcards with the above message ready to send. To order 25 or more postcards, contact Michelle Artz at the Sierra Club, 408 C St. N.E., Washington, DC 20002; (202) 675-2397; michelle.artz@sierraclub.org.