Vapor-Arrester for Autos Wins Panel’s Approval

Legislation designed to reduce air pollution by requiring auto manufacturers to equip new cars with carbon canisters to trap unburned fuel vapors was approved Wednesday by the Assembly Transportation Committee.

With a last-minute amendment to soften opposition, the bill would also require gasoline station operators throughout the state to install pump vapor recovery nozzles; they are now in use only in areas that have high levels of air pollution.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), author of the hotly contested measure, called it “one of the better environmental bills of the year” and said it would result in cleaner air.

The bill, which would require installation of the canisters as early as the 1991 model year, has the backing of the Sierra Club and the South Coast Air Quality District.

It is opposed by car manufacturers, importers and dealers, who say the canister system is unproven, too costly and potentially unsafe. “The benefits that have been claimed are highly uncertain,” said Michael Schwarz, a spokesman for the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Assn.

The bill is sponsored by the National Assn. of Convenience Stores, which has waged an unsuccessful battle in Washington to win approval of the canister system nationwide.

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed that car manufacturers be required to equip new cars with the canisters, but the Reagan Administration has not made a decision.

The convenience store industry, in an unusual maneuver, is attempting to win a precedent-setting decision in California endorsing the carbon canister system, according to Jeff Leiter, an attorney for the association who went to Sacramento to lobby for the bill.

Under a quirk in federal law, such an action by California would give other states the choice whether to require car makers to install the canister systems or to require gas stations to install pump nozzles.

Although the association is hoping to prevent installation of the vapor recovery nozzles in other states, its spokesmen said, it is not seeking their removal in California, which has one of the most serious air pollution problems in the nation.

Brown’s bill, approved by the committee on an 8-3 vote, would require the state Air Resources Board to set standards for the canister system and determine whether it would be a safe, cost-effective way of controlling air pollution.

Under an amendment adopted by Brown to overcome resistance to the measure, car makers would not be required to install the canister systems if the Air Resources Board determined that the devices would cost more than $35, including a reasonable profit.

Auto manufacturers have estimated that it could cost as much as $120 a car to install the devices. The federal EPA estimates the cost at $14, after projected fuel savings are included.

The canisters, which would replace smaller canisters already installed in new cars, would trap vapors in carbon filters. Each time the car was started, fresh air would force the vapors into the engine, where they would be burned as fuel.

Among the vapors collected by the canisters would be benzene, a component of gasoline known to cause cancer.

When installed on all cars, advocates of the measure say, the device is more effective than vapor recovery gas pump nozzles and would capture 10 to 45 tons of hydrocarbons a day in the South Coast Air Basin alone.

A representative of the Air Resources Board said the measure could be expected to reduce unburned fuel emissions at a rate of about 10% a year after 1991 as new cars replace older ones.

Brown adopted the amendment to expand the use of the vapor recovery gas nozzles statewide after criticism that he was attempting to undermine the state’s existing method of trapping fuel vapors. He told the committee there is “no intent or desire” on his part to eliminate the nozzle.