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Gold/Mining/Energy : Alternative Fuel Systems ATF:VSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: timester who wrote (4474)	8/2/2000 8:36:05 PM
From: sgc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4605

To all: Interesting post on the GLE Stockhouse forum as follows: EPA Issues Truck Engine Rules, Precursor to Low-Sulfur Diesel By Liz Skinner Washington, Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Environmental regulators issued rules requiring U.S. commercial truck engines to emit less pollution within four years, the precursor to rules oil companies oppose to lower the sulfur content of diesel fuel. The Environmental Protection Agency rules require all diesel truck and bus engines by 2004 to emit 40 percent less smog-forming nitrogen oxides. They require a 78 percent reduction of pollution from truck engines that run on gasoline. ``We are completing the first phase of a strategy that will result in cleaner-running truck and bus engines,'' said Robert Perciasepe, EPA's assistant administrator for air. He said the agency expects to have its second phase, which calls for further emission reductions for truck engines and use of cleaner-burning diesel fuel, completed by the end of the year. Truck engine makers accept the changes and support the second phase of EPA's plan to clean up truck exhaust. Those proposed rules would lower the sulfur content of diesel fuel by 97 percent. Oil companies, which would have to supply the truck fuel, say making the proposed fuel switch would add 4.5 cents to the price of a gallon of diesel, about twice as much as the EPA predicts. Some engine manufacturers, including Cummins Engine Co., Mack Trucks Inc. and Caterpillar Inc., will have to meet the truck engine standards that EPA issued today by 2002 -- two years early -- under a consent decree they signed with the U.S. government in October 1998. Under that agreement, seven diesel truck makers agreed to pay more than $1 billion and make the changes early to settle charges they manipulated engine computers so they would show less pollution in tests than was emitted on the road. The EPA says diesel exhaust is responsible for more than 20 percent of the emissions of nitrogen oxides and 15 percent of soot. Smog and soot cause 15,000 premature deaths, 1 million respiratory problems and 400,000 asthma attacks a year, according to the agency.