Battle Lines Set as New York Acts to Cut Emissions

[cal04]

New York is adopting California's ambitious new regulations aimed at cutting automotive emissions of global warming gases, touching off a battle over rules that would sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions while forcing the auto industry to make vehicles more energy efficient over the next decade. The rules, passed this month by a unanimous vote of the State Environmental Board, are expected to be adopted across the Northeast and the West Coast. But the auto industry has already moved to block the rules in New York State, and plans to battle them in every other state that follows suit.

Environmentalists say the regulations will not lead to the extinction of any class of vehicle, but simply pressure the industry to sell more of the fuel-saving technologies they have already developed, including hybrid systems that use a combination of electricity and gasoline. And that, they say, will curtail one of the main contributors to global warming. "The two biggest contributors to global warming are power plants and motor vehicles," said David Doniger, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If you deal with them, you deal with more than two-thirds of the problem."

But automakers contend that the regulations will limit the availability of many sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, vans and larger sedans, since they will effectively require huge leaps in gas mileage to rein in emissions. The industry also says the guidelines will force them to curb sales of more-powerful engines in the state, and ultimately harm consumers by increasing the cost of vehicles.

The standards are the most ambitious environmental regulations for automobiles since federal fuel economy regulations were enacted in the 1970's. They will be phased in starting with 2009 models and require a roughly 30 percent reduction in automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by the 2016 models.



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/26/nyregion/26emissions.html?ei=5094&en=d30a7884d51dc00c&hp=&ex=1132981200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1132976246-mH4Mc6/7lBBabxYyjmajPQ

[prescole]

1. CUT emissions? Why? What would NYC be without the haze,

or LA without the smog, or Danielsville, Georgia without the residual pollution coming our way from Atlanta?
Environmentalist whackos.

[buddysmellgood]

2. Kicking and screaming. GM is all but ready to close its doors and we have

to drag these asshats kicking and screaming into the modern world. We ought to break up the American automanufacturers into truly individual companies. Maybe one would see the market potential of saving the world.