Another Price Rise For Trucks And SUVs??

[zimmthumps]

Auto Makers Threaten to Sue California to Block Bill Restricting Carbon Dioxide

Associated Press

July 23, 2002



LOS ANGELES -- The nation's auto makers say they will sue California to block an antiglobal-warming bill that restricts carbon-dioxide emissions from cars.



Gov. Gray Davis signed the measure Monday after it squeaked by the state Legislature despite a multimillion-dollar opposition campaign by car makers and auto workers.



California already has the nation's most stringent standards for other vehicle pollutants. The new law sets emission standards for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that would apply to new passenger cars and light trucks beginning in 2009.



Before signing the measure on a hot, smoggy day along a park trail, Gov. Davis said the bill is the first in the country designed to combat global warming. He said he believed other states and the federal government eventually would follow.



"We are going to set an example for the country," he said.



More than two million cars were sold in California last year, making it the nation's biggest auto market, so the law's effect on the auto industry was expected to be enormous.



The legislation does not affect large polluters like big rigs or other commercial vehicles.



Opponents said the measure would increase the price of vehicles and reduce greenhouse gases globally by less than 1%.



The bill "will reduce the freedom of choice" by pricing sport-utility vehicles, minivans and other models out of some consumers' range, said a statement from the American Highway Users Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit group.



The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said it would challenge the law in federal court.



Supporters of the bill maintain that passenger cars and light trucks are responsible for 40% of California's carbon-dioxide emissions. The gases form a heat-trapping blanket in the atmosphere that scientists fear could cause disruptions in farming and the snowpack that provides much of Southern California's water.

 

[flynhigh]

sigh...

Once again I get shafted for living in CA.

Anyone need a product engineer? I have Unix and Disk Drive industry experience.

 

[zimmthumps]

Detroit Free Press

July 24, 2002

By Alejandro Bodipo-Memba/ Business Writer



Automakers are dismissing California's new carbon-dioxide emissions law as a backdoor way of imposing fuel-economy standards that the federal government failed to pass.



On Monday, California Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill calling for a new set of emission standards for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It would apply to new passenger cars and light trucks beginning in 2009.



"Federal law and common sense prohibit each state from developing its own fuel economy standards," said Josephine S. Cooper, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, in a statement.



Auto companies say the new law would force them to make the same design changes that would have been required if the federal government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards been increased. Carmakers say that environmentalists are trying to get a de facto requirement in California for higher fuel standards with this new law.



Environmentalists point out that California is only second to Texas in the amount of carbon-dioxide and greenhouse emitted. Proponents of the California initiative say cars and trucks make up 40 percent of the state's carbon dioxide emissions.



"This is a major victory for the environment and it is a triumph for the people of California over an aggressive media blitz by automakers," said Jon Coifman, a spokesman for the National Resources Defense Council, a Washington, D.C., environmental group. The auto industry spent millions of dollars on a campaign blitz in California opposing the state's global warming initiative. A coalition of auto interests that included the United Auto Workers union and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers came together to wage the campaign.



In January, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would not require 2004 model year light trucks to meet higher fuel economy standards, despite the wishes of some politicians such as Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz. Then in March, a U.S. Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., mandated that any consideration of raising CAFE standards be reviewed and decided by the NHTSA.



The current CAFE standard for passenger cars is 27.5 miles per gallon. Light trucks, including pickups, vans and sport-utility vehicles, are required to get an average of 20.7 miles per gallon.



In order to comply with the California statute, automakers say they will be forced to build vehicles that are smaller, lighter and less powerful than the popular sport-utility vehicles that consumers have been buying in droves the last decade. Their argument is that the bill could mean the end of sport-utilities and pickups in California.



"This means that Californians may be in danger of losing access to the same vehicles that are available in Oregon, Arizona and Nevada," said Eron Shosteck, spokesman for the Alliance.



The Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers said it will file a federal lawsuit on behalf of its members to prevent implementation of the California law.



California is the biggest car market in the U.S. Last year, more than 2 million cars and light trucks were sold in the state. It also has the strictest standards for emissions in the country.



Environmentalist claim automakers already have the technology and the know-how to deliver so-called pollution solutions to the public and still build larger vehicles.



"We have the technologies onhand now to get the job done," said Coifman. "This isn't rocket science nor is it inventing the new wheel."



A recent poll of California residents conducted by the San Francisco nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California, found that 81 percent of Californians support a state law that would mandate further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2009.



"Frankly, we're surprised that automakers are saying that Californians won't get the same vehicle choices that others have," said Coifman. "They will still be able to haul their soccer teams around in minivans and still drive whatever type truck or SUV they choose."

 

[ygmn]

Detroit Free Press

July 24, 2002

By Alejandro Bodipo-Memba/ Business Writer

Proponents of the California initiative say cars and trucks make up 40 percent of the state's carbon dioxide emissions.

What makes up the other 60%? How come no one ever talks about the other CO2 producers? Is it Beer and Coca Cola?

 

[Durwin]

Actually, some of it comes from cows and cattle. Greenpeace is advocating emissions control devices for these animals. (Gas CheckII)
Seriously, it has been said that environmental groups would like to see a surcharge or tax on the amount of estimated pollutants those animals produce. I haven't heard anything of it lately.
Durwin

 

[KeninPa]

I always thought that CO2 was plant food. The more CO2, the greener things got.
I guess in California things are different.
PS the number one animal emitting CO2 is MAN.
Maybe everyone in California should just stop breathing

 

[drummer]

For the most part, we Californians can probably look to the non-elected bureaucrats in our capitol when anything relating to the environment is enacted. These are the fine folks that think MTB in our gasoline is great even though it was known from the beginning that this was toxic stuff and would pollute drinking water throughout the state.

Reality is never considered important in these matters. Only the opinion of ecology zealots employed by so many government agencies.

 

[gandolphxx]

Actually, some of it comes from cows and cattle. Greenpeace is advocating emissions control devices for these animals. (Gas CheckII) ?
Seriously, it has been said that environmental groups would like to see a surcharge or tax on the amount of estimated pollutants those animals produce. I haven't heard anything of it lately.
Durwin

If I remember correctly 25% of the methane released in the atmospher comes from grazing animals.

 

[steelheadchaser]

Methane in North America must have been really bad than in the 1700's to 1800's before the slaughter of the American bison. Estimates of herd numbers range from 30 million to 200 million head, 60 million being the most oft quoted number.

 

[zimmthumps]

Might be positive for Californians...

Taking Another Look at Zero Emission Mandate

September 11, 2002

By JOHN O'DELL

Look for the California Air Resources Board to consider a new approach next year to its controversial Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate.

Insiders say the agency's staff, stung by General Motors Corp.'s so-far-successful lawsuit to block the 2003 model year imposition of the mandate, is reworking the plan and will present another approach in the spring to the politically appointed board.

The air board will appeal an injunction that GM obtained this summer, spokesman Jerry Martin said. But while the legal maneuvering goes on, he said, so is a new look at regulating tailpipe emissions.

The plan is not to do away with the ZEV mandate but to make it more responsive to technologies--such as hybrid gasoline-electric systems and ultra-clean internal-combustion engines--that have been developed in recent years.

It is the auto industry's adamant refusal to pursue further development of battery-electric technologies that has led the air board staff to begin rethinking its ZEV approach.

A revision of the ZEV mandate might make the air board's efforts to regulate auto emissions more palatable to the auto industry, which has been spending heavily to fight the present measure in Sacramento as well as in court.

California regulators have been at odds with auto makers in Detroit and Japan over the ZEV program since it was launched more than a decade ago. Because of the state's severe smog, California is the only state allowed by the federal Clean Air Act to regulate tailpipe exhaust.

That authority has led to the nation's most stringent controls on cars and light trucks--including a measure, just signed by Gov. Gray Davis, that directs the air board to come up with new rules by 2005 that would regulate automotive emissions of so-called greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The ZEV mandate that GM blocked in court would have required major auto makers to build and offer for sale in California thousands of zero-emission vehicles starting with the '03 model year. So far, the only vehicles that meet the ZEV standard are the battery-powered electrics the auto industry says are too expensive to build and too functionally limited to interest a broad segment of the buying public.

GM's suit challenges the entire mandate as well as a series of amendments that, ironically, gave auto makers flexibility in choosing which type of cars to build. The amendments favor hybrid vehicles, fuel-cell engines and super-clean gasoline models over battery-powered cars. GM says the air board overstepped its authority in approving revisions to the 12-year-old ZEV program.

On June 14, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Coyle in Fresno issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the mandate until the lawsuit is decided, which could take many months.

Meanwhile, GM and Ford Motor Co., two of only three auto makers to offer so-called full-function electric vehicles for public use, have pulled the plug on their programs.

Toyota Motor Corp. says it will continue to make a few hundred of its electric RAV4-EV compact sport utility vehicles each year for sale or lease to the public, but the numbers are so small they barely register in the state's vast motor pool.

More Clean Air Models

Good news for those who have tried to find one of Nissan's Sentra CA (for "clean air") models: After limiting production of the ultra-clean cars to just a few thousand since 2001, Nissan says the special emissions system will be used on all four 1.8-liter Sentra models sold in California and the CA designation will be dropped.

The system combines a clean gasoline engine that meets the state's super-ultra-low-emission- vehicle standard with equipment that traps fumes that would evaporate from the fuel lines and gas tank on hot days.

The result, Nissan says, are cars that produce fewer total emissions during a 20-mile round-trip commute than today's typical new vehicles do with their engines off.

The state agrees and has awarded the cars P-ZEV status--for "partial zero-emission vehicle"--meaning their sales will earn Nissan credit toward fulfilling the zero-emission mandate when the rules are resurrected.

 

[midlifecrisis]

So now the environmentalists can promote their vegetarian agenda as well. That way, there won't be any cars or cattle to pollute their precious air.

 

[Durwin]

We have a lot of carbon dioxide here in Saccramento due to the hot air the state legislature "The Kids Under the Dome) generates.
Most of the vehicles they drive are SUV's
Durwin