Auto Industry Teams With Clean-Air Groups to Cut Sulfur in Diesel

In an unlikely pairing of usually warring interests, automobile industry executives will be standing shoulder to shoulder with environmentalists in Los Angeles on Tuesday to argue for a federal rule that would slash the sulfur content of diesel fuel.

They will join forces at a public hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed emissions rules for heavy-duty on-road vehicles--the long-haul trucks that move most of the country’s goods and the buses that provide most public transit.

Car makers, however, are entering the fray because they believe low-sulfur diesel is essential to their ability to continue producing low-emissions internal-combustion-engine passenger vehicles that can also achieve greater fuel economy.

“Sulfur reduction is critical to us being able to achieve tighter emission standards in cars” with gasoline or diesel engines, said Greg Dana, vice president for environmental affairs for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington trade group that represents 13 major car makers.

Diesel engines are as much as 20% more fuel-efficient than gasoline engines. They are largely scorned in the U.S. as noisy, smelly and sooty, but they are widely used in passenger vehicles in Europe and Asia, where low-sulfur diesel fuel predominates and where technological advances have made the engines cleaner and quieter.

In this country, the EPA seeks to cut emissions from diesel-burning big rigs and buses by 95%. Like gasoline, diesel produces smog-causing nitrogen oxides; in addition, particulates from diesel engines have been linked to lung disease.

The problem is that the sulfur that occurs naturally in crude oil--and thus in distillates such as gasoline and the fuel oil used in diesel engines--reduces the effectiveness of engine emissions systems.

The proposed federal rules would require fuel refiners to reduce sulfur in diesel to a maximum of 15 parts per million, down from about 500 ppm today. Although some naturally low-sulfur crude oil is available, in most cases the sulfur reduction is accomplished in the refining process.

California already leads the nation in adopting stiff curbs on sulfur in gasoline but has only recently begun acting unilaterally to regulate diesel’s sulfur content.

The EPA estimates that reformulated diesel fuel would cost about 4 cents more a gallon, while fuel refiners have said it would add up to 10 cents a gallon to the retail cost. Additionally, the agency says, the more efficient emissions systems needed to meet its proposed standards would add about $1,500 to the price of a $150,000 diesel truck.

In California, the state Air Resources Board recently adopted rules requiring use of low-sulfur diesel in public transit buses in some areas beginning in 2002, and several refiners, including BP Amoco, Chevron Corp. and Tosco Corp., have told state air-quality regulators that they can provide the fuel by then.

California refiners can more easily make the change to low-sulfur diesel, and can keep the price down, a BP Amoco spokesman said, because the companies have already installed and paid for much of the necessary equipment in order to produce the low-sulfur gasoline the state requires.

Under the EPA proposal, diesel refiners would have to begin providing low-sulfur fuel nationwide in mid-2006, and diesel engine manufacturers would have to provide engines equipped with high-efficiency emissions systems beginning in 2007.

Diesel engine makers support the new rules, while refiners, except those in California, generally oppose them.

Environmental and community health groups and the nation’s auto makers--on opposite sides of the aisle in the continuing debate over California’s zero-emissions vehicle rules--are also pushing for adoption of the diesel regulations.

The auto manufacturers and health groups such as the California Coalition for Clean Air, in fact, say they would like to see diesel’s sulfur content cut even further, to about 5 ppm.

“It absolutely has to be done if we are ever going to correctly address pollution from diesel sources, the dirtiest on the road today,” said Todd Campbell, policy director for the clean-air coalition. “And the means to handle pollution from heavy-duty trucks has to come from a national rule because of interstate trucking. It is impossible to expect the California Air Resources Board to do it all internally.”

About 25% of the diesel truck emissions in California come from trucks that travel in from other states, according to the air board.

But the national refiners group claims that purifying diesel to the extent demanded by the EPA would be prohibitively expensive and would reduce diesel refining output by as much as 30% because some high-sulfur crude oil cannot be cleaned sufficiently to meet the standard.

“We believe that refining diesel’s sulfur content to 50 ppm will meet the EPA’s target for particulate matter reduction by 2007, and we believe we can meet 70% to 80% of the nitrates of oxygen limits that EPA has set,” said Bob Slaughter, general counsel for the National Petrochemical & Refiners Assn.

Increasing demands for better fuel economy are what bring the auto industry into the debate. Without low-sulfur fuel, the auto makers argue, diesel engines for cars and light trucks--pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles--can’t meet the federal and California passenger vehicle emissions standards that would take effect beginning with 2004 model-year vehicles.

The EPA’s diesel rules “are very similar to what California did with gasoline sulfur,” said Dana, the auto alliance environmental specialist.

“And as in the gasoline sulfur issue, we are closely aligned with environmental groups and organizations like the [Washington-based] State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators to push for EPA adoption of the clean diesel rules.”

Campbell, the clean-air coalition’s policy director, called the pairing of environmental and auto industry interests “a pretty powerful coalition.”

The EPA plans to complete the standards by the end of the year after a series of public hearings around the country, including Tuesday’s session in Los Angeles.

The hearing is to be held from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 711 S. Hope St.

Information about the EPA proposal is available on the agency’s Web site at https://www.epa.gov/otaq/diesel.htm.