FYI....
Diesel Trucks, Buses Face Emission Curbs - Post
May 17, 2000 7:00 am EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Clinton administration on Wednesday will propose rules to eliminate 90 percent of the pollutants from the diesel smokestacks of 18-wheelers, heavy-duty construction trucks and passenger buses beginning in 2006, the Washington Post reported.
The proposed regulations, long awaited by environmentalists, would require petroleum refiners to cut 97 percent of the amount of sulfur now found in their diesel fuels. Sulfur fouls up catalytic converters and other equipment used to remove pollutants from vehicle exhaust.
The cleaner diesel fuel would begin flowing in the U.S. market in 2006, the Post said in its Wednesday edition, quoting government and private sources, who provided written summaries of the proposal developed by the Environmental Protection Agency and approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The rules would also require new over-the-road trucks, those 18-wheeled haulers of everything from dry goods to steel bars, to begin using catalytic converters and computerized pollution controls that have been used on passenger cars for 25 years.
Truck manufacturers would begin making changes to their vehicles in 2007. By 2010, all new heavy-duty trucks and passenger buses would have to meet the new clean-air standards under the EPA proposal, the Post reported.
U.S. clean air groups and oil industry representatives earlier this month predicted the federal government would soon announce landmark pollution restrictions on heavy-duty diesel engines and diesel fuel.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said it expected EPA's diesel proposal to include: a 97 percent reduction in sulfur in diesel fuel from current levels; a 95 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by 2007; and a 99 percent reduction in particulate emissions by 2007.
Fuel refiners and heavy-truck manufacturers have complained loudly that they are being asked to do too much too quickly at too high a cost.
They will be able to make their pitch to the EPA at scheduled public hearings over the next 45 days in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Los Angeles.
Administration officials told the Post the changes were necessary since soot and smog pollution pouring from heavy-duty diesel engines caused 15,000 deaths annually and 1 million cases of respiratory ailments a year, according to EPA estimates.
Pollution from those engines also are responsible for an estimated 400,000 asthma attacks annually, especially in children, the sources were quoted as saying.
"This action is important and impressive," one administration source told the Post. "It will provide greatly improved air quality for all Americans. It is the clean-air equivalent of removing air pollution generated by 90 percent of all heavy trucks and buses in the United States." |
