Strict New Anti-Smog Rules OKd for Autos : Pollution: Move is expected to add millions of electric and other alternative-fuel cars to California roads.
The state Air Resources Board on Friday approved revolutionary tailpipe emission standards, a move expected to result in millions of electric and other alternative-fueled cars on California roads beginning in 1997.
The tough standards, approved on an 8-0 vote in Los Angeles, are expected to have dramatic implications for California motorists, automobile manufacturers and oil companies.
As early as 1998, 2% of all new cars sold in California--an estimated 40,000 vehicles--must be electric powered. By the year 2003, 200,000 cars--10% of all new cars sold--would have to be electric powered.
In addition, far greater numbers of other cars powered by cleaner burning methanol, ethanol or compressed natural gas are expected to be on the road because it is believed that those fuels are the only ones that can comply with the stringent new standards, the toughest in the world.
The new standards will slash tailpipe emissions in half beginning in 1994. Over the next five years, the standards would progressively tighten until every new car sold would be from 70% to 100% less polluting than cars produced in 1994. Cars built before 1994 would not have to meet the standards.
Backers of the plan hailed its approval and called it a major step toward finally bringing California’s smoggiest urban areas into compliance with federal clean-air standards.
“I think we took a gigantic step forward today. We will have to wait and see if we put all the right pieces together,” ARB Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless said after the vote.
James M. Lents, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, added: “To me, it’s just a revolutionary change from where we were three years ago to having a proposal on the table today that will get the job done.”
Last-minute changes to meet objections from oil companies and automobile manufacturers appeared to ease their concerns.
“We are on board,” said Samuel A. Leonard, director of automotive emission control for General Motors Corp.
While automobile and oil companies questioned how much public acceptance alternative-fueled cars would have, backers of the plan predicted a strong market because of widespread concern about the environment.
But, they stressed that alternative fuels must be competitively priced and at least equal to gasoline in performance. Executives of electrical and natural gas utilities enthusiastically endorsed the program.
Two years in the making, the unprecedented mandate will set the tone for California’s war on smog into the next century.
Without the stringent new tailpipe standards, many of the state’s smoggiest urban areas, including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, will never be able to comply with federal clean-air standards, officials said.
More than half of the clean-air gains in a sweeping plan approved last year by the South Coast Air Quality Management District depended upon Friday’s action. The regional clean-air plan calls for new controls on everything from power plants to back-yard barbecues.
The four-county South Coast Air Basin has the most polluted air in the United States. The basin exceeded the federal health standard for ozone an average of 137 days in both 1987 and 1989. At times, levels of the pollutant, which reduces lung capacity and causes respiratory illness, are three times higher than the federal standard allows.
The standards are expected to wield considerable influence beyond California.
New York on Thursday informed automobile makers that only cars meeting California’s 1993 tailpipe standard can be sold in that state.
Underscoring California’s influence on the national scene, New York Environmental Conservation Director Thomas C. Jorling endorsed the ARB’s action and said approval of the plan “strengthens New York’s resolve.”
Under the proposal, virtually every new car sold in California 10 years from now must be from 70% to 84% less polluting than 1993 models, which will still be the cleanest cars in the world.
The phase-in of progressively cleaner cars will begin as early as 1994. By 1997, they would account for one out of every four new car sold, and by 1998 would account for 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 be at least 70% less polluting than the conventional 1993 model, and 10% of the cars would have to be electric powered.
Automobile executives said it would be difficult but not impossible to meet the new standards. A number of companies are already said to be on the “fast track” in developing an electric car. For example, General Motors has produced a prototype of an electric vehicle, called the “Impact” that is said to match gasoline-powered automobiles in performance. In addition, major automobile companies are working to turn out vehicles that can run on any combination of methanol and gasoline.
The ARB did not rule out technological breakthroughs in gasolines if they meet the same tailpipe standard.
Faced with government mandates and competition from alternative fuels, major oil companies have embarked on a crash program to develop ultra-clean gasolines to preserve their market share.
As a condition of remaining in business, service stations would be required by the state to sell cleaner alternative fuels.
Market demand would determine when service stations would have to make alternative fuels available for sale. Until 1997, only major oil companies refining at least 55,000 barrels per day and owners of 25 or more service stations would have to meet the requirement.
In the first year, 90 stations in the South Coast Air Basin would make the fuel available, growing to 400 stations by the third year. There are 6,000 gasoline stations in the Basin.
But, after intense pressure from major oil companies--spearheaded by Los Angeles-based Arco--the board struck down a staff recommendation that would have essentially required retail service stations and oil companies to meet an alternative-fuel sales quota.
The move was a potential setback for methanol enthusiasts.
Originally, the ARB staff called for such quotas on grounds that if an alternative fuel such as methanol cost more than gasoline, customers whose new cars could run on either gasoline or methanol would buy the cheaper, more polluting gasoline.
But oil companies argued that they would have to artificially lower methanol’s price to make it competitive and make up the difference by charging higher prices for gasoline. They said this would be a “hidden subsidy” borne by owners of gasoline-powered cars.
Methanol industry officials, however, said that the wholesale price of their fuel was just 73 cents a gallon. They said it would remain competitive provided service stations did not unrealistically mark up the price.
“When the price of crude oil went up, methanol did not,” said Ray Lewis of the American Methanol Institute, a trade organization.
The ARB served notice, however, that if alternative fuel sales did not go well, it reserved the right to impose sales quotas.
ASSESSING THE IMPACT
What the new vehicle tailpipe standards approved by the state Air Resources Board will mean to:
MOTORISTS: A wider choice in the cars they drive. Automobile makers are expected to be forced to turn to alternative fuels like methanol, ethanol, compressed natural gas and electricity. But some of these fuels will not provide the mileage that gasoline offers. It takes 1.7 gallons of methanol to get the same mileage as a gallon of gasoline.
AUTOMOBILE MAKERS: Manufacturers must produce 40,000 electric-powered cars beginning in 1998, rising to 200,000 a year in the year 2003. They are also expected to turn to other alternative fuels and/or a new generation of smog controls like electrically-heated catalytic converters. During the next 10 years, new alternative-fueled cars will be from 70% to 84% cleaner than conventional gasoline cars to be sold in 1994.
OIL COMPANIES: Gasoline’s long dominance of the market is at stake. Unless oil companies develop cleaner-burning gasolines, they will see their market eroded by alternative fuels. Fuel companies in the methanol business as well as natural gas and electrical utilities are pushing hard for vehicles that use their fuels.
