FYI -- From WSJ($) site, too bad no one is talking about "alternative" fuels as the answer. Looks good to me. Long on IMCO.
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Auto Makers Lobby Against Plan
To Toughen Truck-Emission Rules
By JOSEPH B. WHITE and JOHN J. FIALKA
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In a major win for environmentalists, California regulators ordered auto makers to significantly reduce pollution from sport-utility vehicles, pickups and light trucks in a move that could encourage federal regulators to do the same.
The California Air Resources Board, which sets standards for vehicle-tailpipe emissions, rejected auto-industry protests and accepted its staff's plan to eliminate starting in 2004 the loophole that has allowed light trucks weighing 6,000 pounds or more to emit significantly more smog-creating chemicals than do passenger cars. By 2007, all cars, pickups and sport-utility vehicles weighing 8,500 pounds or less will have to meet the same tough standards.
Auto makers had lobbied against the plan, which by estimates of the California agency will add about $190 to the cost of an average vehicle. Auto-industry executives testified at Thursday's hearing that the extra costs could run as high as $1,500 for some big trucks, and that for some vehicles technology to meet the standards doesn't exist.
Environmental groups and the California agency's staff had argued that the industry's argument that big sport-utility vehicles, such as the Ford Expedition, couldn't be made to run far cleaner was hollow. The agency's engineers said in their report that they had successfully outfitted an Expedition with an exhaust-scrubbing system that achieved the targets.
"Built into the final proposal was a lot of compromise with the auto makers" negotiated during the past year, Air Resources Board spokesman Richard Varenchik said Thursday night. He said the board's members actually moved to strengthen the staff plan by removing language that offered a less stringent standard for diesel engines.
Auto makers could go to court to block the rules. California accounts for 10% of all U.S. vehicle sales. Moreover, California regulations are influential in shaping what the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and four Northeast states, including New York and Massachusetts, will do to require cleaner-running vehicles elsewhere.
The California agency's plan would force auto makers to cut certain pollutants from the heaviest light trucks to one-twelfth the current allowable levels by 2007. At the same time, the proposal calls for sharp reductions in emissions from passenger cars and smaller trucks, such as compact pickups and sport utilities the size of a Ford Explorer or Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Reflecting their increasingly divergent stances on clean-air issues, Detroit's Big Three struck subtly different postures in comments late Thursday. Chrysler Corp. said: "All auto makers are disappointed with the ... plan adopted today by CARB."
A General Motors Corp. spokeswoman said the No. 1 auto maker was disappointed, and she expressed concern that an amendment to the plan could rule out diesel-powered vehicles in California.
But Ford Motor Co., which had led the effort to sell the California agency on a compromise that achieved 90% of the board staff's goals, didn't declare itself disappointed. However, a Ford spokeswoman said the new rules "will require us to have new inventions" and that prices for some models could go up and "functionality," such as towing power, could decline. |
