New California emissions standards nation's toughest

Jan. 1, 2020
On Sept. 24, California's Air Resources Board (CARB) voted unanimously to approve a new regulation creating the nation's strictest auto emissions standards.

State aims for leading role against global warming

On Sept. 24, California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) voted unanimously to approve a new regulation creating the nation’s strictest auto emissions standards.

Aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, the regulation requires automakers doing business in California to begin implementing clean-running technology in new vehicles by 2009 and meet more stringent emission standards by 2016. The standards call for cars and light trucks to reduce exhaust pollutants by 25 percent. Larger trucks and sport utility vehicles must cut emissions by 18 percent.

The new regulation is the product of Assembly Bill (AB) 1493, introduced by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D) and signed into law by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2002. AB 1493 mandated that the board set standards before Jan. 1, 2005, limiting the release of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons), which many scientists believe lead to global warming. The bill further stipulated that CARB formulate these standards based upon the “maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions” possible.

To meet this goal, CARB assessed the expense and availability of clean technologies and fuels and determined the benefits of each. CARB then provided a list of approved technologies as part of the regulation. These include the following: updated air conditioners, more efficient transmissions, smaller engines, turbochargers and cylinder deactivators. CARB says costs for the added technology should average $325 per vehicle in 2012 and $1,050 in 2016 for full compliance. Consumer costs should be offset by reduced operating expenses.

Because automakers often engineer their vehicle fleets to meet standards set in California, which accounts for 10 percent of all new auto sales, the regulation could have a nationwide impact. According to CARB spokesperson Gennet Paauwe, at least seven other states, including New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine, as well as Canada, are expected to consider adopting the new standards. Together, those states and Canada could potentially triple the number of cars affected by the new emission rules.

CARB Chairman Dr. Alan Lloyd noted these factors when he lauded the regulation as being a “landmark decision” that “sets a course for California that is likely to be copied throughout the U.S. and other countries.” Lloyd adds, “CARB has established itself as the world leader in setting motor vehicle pollution control standards. Those standards have led to automotive technologies that dominate the way cars are built today and have significantly cut air pollution’s public health risk. This regulation will have the same impact.”

Auto manufacturers and dealers roundly criticized the regulation, calling it flawed, technologically unworkable and without benefit to Californians.

An Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) press release faulted CARB with ignoring an independent Sierra Research survey that placed the actual cost of implementing new technology at a far more expensive $3,000 per vehicle. The release also questioned the feasibility of meeting the new emissions standards, declaring “even zero-emission hydrogen vehicles could not meet CARB’s proposed standard in 2016.”

The release further declared any environmental benefits from the regulations would be marginal at best: “Californians would see no environmental improvement under this regulation. The CARB proposal does not address smog. The reductions cited by regulators are largely reductions in carbon dioxide, which is what Californians exhale when they breathe. If implemented, this regulation would have no impact on the amount of greenhouse gases released globally, and it would have no effect on California’s climate.”

CARB dismissed all these charges. “Auto manufacturers used these same arguments in the 1960s when we first put limits on emissions, and look at all the progress we made,” says Paauwe, who also defends the state’s decision to address global warming. “If we don’t start somewhere, nothing will ever be done.”

Following a provision in the bill, the California legislature will review the regulation for a year beginning in January of 2005 before it is enacted. Because its emissions standards exceed federal limits, the regulation requires the approval of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This could prove difficult because California currently is challenging a recent EPA ruling, which declared carbon dioxide to be a non-pollutant and, therefore, not subject to government regulation. Still, Paauwe expects the EPA to grant CARB a waiver.

The EPA did not respond to ABRN inquiries regarding the agency’s intentions.

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