Smog Plan Forces Use of Alternative-Fuel Cars

California officials today are expected to approve the world’s most stringent tailpipe emission standards in a move to force automobile makers to build millions of cars within 10 years that run on electricity and other alternative fuels.

Under development for two years, the “low-emission vehicles and clean fuels” program is expected to chart the course of California’s war on smog into the 21st Century.

“This is one of the most innovative proposals ever,” state Air Resources Board Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless said Thursday as she opened a two-day hearing in Los Angeles.

Without stringent new controls, officials said that Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties--which make up the nation’s smoggiest urban area--will fail to meet federal clean air standards by the year 2007, the deadline set by a regional clean air plan approved last year.

Under the ARB proposal, every new car sold in the state 10 years from now would have to cause 70% to 84% less pollution than 1993 models sold in California, which will be the cleanest cars in the world.

The phase-in of progressively cleaner cars would begin as early as 1994. By 1997, they would account for one of every four new cars sold, and by 1998, half of all new car sales.

By the year 2003, every car sold in the state--about 2 million a year--would be required to cause at least 70% less pollution than the conventional 1993 model, and 10% of the cars would have to be electric powered.

With one exception--a requirement to build electric cars--the proposal does not favor a particular fuel.

But industry executives said Thursday that unless there are breakthroughs in gasolines that are far cleaner than even the reformulated “cleaner burning” gasolines on the market today, non-gasoline alternatives will be their only choice.

As a condition of doing business, service station owners would be required to sell cleaner alternative fuels as soon as there were enough alternative-fuel cars on the road to justify it.

Electric and natural gas utility companies strongly supported the proposal Thursday, viewing it as an opportunity to expand their markets.

But oil companies and automobile manufacturers--while endorsing tougher standards to promote clean air--raised objections.

Oil officials charged that the ARB has no legal authority to impose quotas for selling alternative fuels, a claim rejected by the ARB staff. Oil officials also said the only way to meet the quotas would be to artificially cut the price to entice customers to buy the fuels, calling this a “hidden subsidy.”

But ranking federal, state and local officials urged the ARB to approve the plan and reject pleas for delays or revisions.

“Your proposal, which will benefit the many, poses a threat to those few with a vested interest in the status quo,” said James M. Lents, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The hearings resume at 8:30 a.m. today at the State Building at 1st Street and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.