Green Energy News | May 5, 1997

May 5, 1997 – Vol.2 No.5

ENERGIES... week of May 5, 1997

CLEAN CAR RULING FOR 49 STATES. The National Low Emission Vehicle (NLEV) rule released recently from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been both hailed and criticized by automakers doing business in the States. The ruling is an attempt to create a nationwide clean car program that allows car builders to voluntarily comply but heed some enforcements where needed.

The EPA opened its eyes to the fact that it is far more efficient for car makers to build clean vehicles for 49 states than to comply with a variety of emission regulations set up by individual states. This notion makes perfect sense and was praised by automakers. (California, not included in the 49 state ruling, has its own vehicle emission standards stronger than those issued by the EPA. Automakers don’t seem to mind making slightly different cars for that state since the market in California is so huge.)

Car makers were also pleased with the ruling that the NLEV guidelines wouldn’t have to be met by 1997, especially since we are already half way through 1997 and most of the cars for the year have been built. NLEV puts 1999 as the start date.

HOWEVER, THERE WAS CONCERN among the ranks. Most notably is what the automakers should do about the renegade states in the Northeast’s Ozone Transport Region. The 13 northeastern states in the EPA’s designated OTR are both heavily populated and, because of prevailing winds, collect much of the nation’s dirty air.

In general, the automakers want all the states to agree with the NLEV standards in unison, but if any one state (especially those in the OTR) falls out of step the automakers want to be able to pull out of the program entirely. That is, if any one of the pesky northeastern states tries to adopt the more stringent California Low Emission Vehicle ruling, CAL LEV, the automakers shouldn’t feel obligated to build any LEV cars.

STATE MANDATES FOR ZERO EMISSION VEHICLES (read electric cars) should also disappear for automakers to agree with the NLEV rulings. New York and Massachusetts have adopted ZEV legislation. Automakers don’t want other states to go electric, and seem to want the EPA to step in and stop any further ZEV mandates.

Electric cars haven’t been a hit (so far) with consumers. General Motors has found homes for only 176 of its EV-1 since its introduction in California and Arizona last fall.