April 14, 1999

Rules on Vehicles and Gas Are Likely to Be Toughened

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Related Articles

E.P.A. Planning Tougher Vehicle Emission Rules (Feb. 18)

California to Toughen Its Emissions Standards (Nov. 6, 1998)

Big 3 to Make Cleaner Cars Than Required (Feb. 5, 1998)

Three Eastern States Refuse to Relax Auto-Emission Laws (Jan. 30, 1998)

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By KEITH BRADSHER

ETROIT -- Environmentalists are pleased but oil and auto industry lobbyists are worried by signals that the Clinton administration is likely to require much cleaner gasoline and autos, including cuts of up to 93 percent in allowable air pollution from large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

The Environmental Protection Agency drafted a proposal two months ago for stricter rules on vehicles and gasoline, and submitted it for an interagency review. That review is now in its final stages, with an announcement expected as soon as next week.

Administration officials said Tuesday that some decisions on the new rules had not yet been made. Last-minute lobbying could still lead to further changes. But extensive contacts between the administration and various interest groups active on the issue have persuaded environmentalists and industry lobbyists alike that the final plan probably will closely resemble the agency's proposal, which calls for a crackdown that the oil industry in particular has criticized as excessive.

Strict rules could provoke a fight between the administration and Congress. Some Republican senators have already warned the administration against what they perceive as regulatory excess.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who heads the clean air subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has already begun drafting legislation to cancel the gasoline cleanliness rules. But any such legislation is likely to face a presidential veto.

The administration is still working on whether to allow a longer timetable for industries to meet the new rules, but it seems likely to set the eventual levels of allowable pollution at roughly what the EPA proposed, said lobbyists on both sides of the issue who have been discussing the details with the administration.

"It would be my expectation that they would keep it as they originally talked about it," said Josephine Cooper, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is based in Washington.

William O'Keefe, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's lobbying arm, said the administration was considering whether to add to the EPA proposal a complex system of credits for oil companies that make early changes in gasoline. But he dismissed this idea as inadequate, and said that, "So far, we don't know that we've gotten anything."

Daniel Becker, senior energy policy analyst at the Sierra Club, said that based on his understanding of the planned rules, he was satisfied and wanted the administration to move as quickly as possible. Once the interagency process is completed, the rules must be issued for public comment and then issued in legal form. If that process lasts past the end of the year, the auto industry could seek an extension for some deadlines in the new rules.

"The administration can't let that happen and let us lose a year," Becker said.

Current federal regulations allow cars to emit four-tenths of a gram of smog-causing nitrogen oxides for each mile traveled. Minivans and the smaller sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are allowed to emit seven-tenths of a gram per mile, while the larger sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are allowed 1.1 grams per mile.

The limits on all but the larger sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are already scheduled to be tightened somewhat next year. The Clean Air Act of 1990 explicitly allows the issuance of new rules now for vehicle pollution and the cleanliness of fuel, and the EPA's proposal would require much deeper cuts for all family vehicles. Under a rule that would gradually take effect for vehicles built from 2004 to 2007, the limit would be seven-hundredths of a gram of nitrogen oxides per mile for cars, minivans and the smaller sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

Large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks would also be required to meet this tough standard starting with the 2009 model year. This would mark the first time that these vehicles would be regulated like cars, something several administrations had been reluctant to do until recently because these large vehicles are mainly sold by domestic automakers, for which they produce huge profits and tens of thousands of jobs. But with big sport utility vehicles in particular being used now as oversized cars rather than work vehicles, and with sales soaring and environmentalists starting to complain, the EPA changed its position.

The new rules would not affect large commercial trucks or vehicles already on the road. Officials of the environmental agency said that without new rules, air pollution would start worsening again about 2010, as Americans drive ever more miles in ever bigger vehicles.

The EPA plan would also require a 91 percent cut, phased in from 2004 to 2006, in the level of sulfur in gasoline. Sulfur, a naturally occurring contaminant of crude oil, clogs catalytic converters and dramatically increases pollution.

The auto industry's criticism of the administration plan has been muted by Detroit's delight at the prospect of deep cuts in the sulfur in gasoline. This will make it much easier for Detroit to meet future emissions standards, at least for a while.

But Ms. Cooper of the automakers alliance said further cuts in sulfur would be needed after 2006 to make sure that all of the administration's pollution targets could be met. Automakers maintain that even with the cleaner gasoline, designing ever cleaner engines and better catalytic converters could add several hundred dollars to the cost of a car and more to the cost of a sport utility vehicle. It is unclear how much of this extra cost could be passed on to the public if competition remains fierce in the auto market.

Seeking a greener image, Ford Motor Co. has begun voluntarily building all of its sport utility vehicles to be as clean as current cars. But even Ford executives have expressed worries about the new standards in 2009 for large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Ford and other automakers want a mandatory review in 2004 of the new rules; no decision has been made.

Unlike the auto industry, the oil industry gains nothing from the new regulations, and so is very unhappy. O'Keefe of the petroleum institute said the rules could add 5 or 6 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline. This, he contended, is an unnecessary expense for people living in states with few air quality problems.

The automakers have suggested that the extra cost might be only 2 or 3 cents a gallon, but O'Keefe said this assumed that new refining techniques, so far only demonstrated in the laboratory, could be introduced on a commercial scale.