EPA Proposes 2 Rules to Cut Car, Truck Pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed two controversial new regulations Wednesday designed to reduce the nationwide emission from cars and trucks of gasoline vapors that contribute to ozone pollution, the major component of smog.

The product of two years of study by the EPA, the new regulations are intended to reduce the volatility of gasoline, or its ease of evaporation, and to curb the escape of vapors when a vehicle’s gas tank is filled. If adopted, they would be phased in beginning in 1989 and 1991, respectively.

In announcing the two regulations, EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas told a news conference that they eventually could reduce the nation’s emission of airborne hydrocarbon pollutants by as much as 10%.

Under a federal air pollution standard adopted in 1979, ozone levels are to be held below 0.12 parts per million. According to the EPA, more than 70 metropolitan regions--most of the nation’s urban areas--are likely to miss a Dec. 31 deadline for compliance, after which the EPA is empowered to impose local construction bans and other economic sanctions.

On June 29, the agency named 14 regions in the country deemed to have inadequate ozone control plans that rendered them liable for sanctions. Five were in California--the South Coast basin, including Los Angeles; Sacramento County; Ventura County; Fresno County; and Kern County.

The agency lists Los Angeles as the U.S. metropolitan area furthest out of compliance. To meet the 0.12 ppm ozone standard, the EPA estimates that hydrocarbon emissions in the area would have to be reduced by 70% to 80% from current levels. However, EPA officials said that the two new regulations proposed Wednesday would have only modest benefits for Southern California because the state already enforces some of the nation’s strictest controls on gasoline vapors.

Thomas said that lowering the volatility of gasoline would raise its cost to consumers by half a cent per gallon, while additional vapor control devices would add an estimated $14 to new car prices. Automobile manufacturers have questioned the safety of the vapor recirculation devices that would be required on the fuel tanks of new cars.

“They are both controversial and complex rules,” Thomas acknowledged, noting that they would now be subject to an extensive process of public hearings and comment.

Volatile hydrocarbons such as gasoline vapors react in sunlight with nitrogen oxides from automobile exhausts and industrial gases to produce ozone, a highly active form of oxygen. At high altitude, ozone helps screen the Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. At ground level, however, ozone forms the main ingredient of smog, contributes to respiratory disease and damages some crops and species of trees.

“Ozone has been one of the most difficult pollutants to control,” Thomas noted. “We have made progress over the past 15 years, but not as much as we wanted.”

The core of the ozone problem is that its hydrocarbon precursors come not from a few, large, controllable sources but from a multitude of consumer products. These range from gasoline and dry-cleaning fluids to household cleansers, paints and even, according to the EPA, deodorants.

Federal regulations have required gasoline vapor controls on cars for more than a decade, but these are to be improved and supplemented with a device for trapping vapors during refueling.

EPA officials said that the alternative--currently in force in California and Washington, D.C.--is to equip gasoline-pump nozzles with a bellows device to capture fumes. While states will be allowed to impose such controls on gasoline pumps, the EPA concluded that vapor control devices on cars would be “considerably” more effective than those on pumps, Thomas said.

He noted that the California Legislature is considering a bill that also would require new “on-board” devices for cars in the state.

Less controversial is a second EPA proposal to reduce the volatility of gasoline about 20% on a national average. As environmental regulations have required refiners to remove lead from gasoline, they have maintained octane ratings partly by adding cheap but volatile butane. This has increased the tendency of gasoline to evaporate, adding to the problem of smog.

Under the proposed new rule, to be phased in between 1989 and 1992, refiners would be required to hold gasoline volatility in the hot and smoggy months of May to September to a level of 9 pounds per square inch, a measure of vapor pressure, or 2.5 pounds below the current national average.

In Southern California, however, refiners now voluntarily hold volatility to 9 to 10 psi, while elsewhere in the country it ranges as high as 15. Thomas said that the new regulation would require some additional refining capacity but that more than half the added cost to consumers would be offset by a small improvement in mileage.