Cleaner Cars: Easy To Make, Or A Pipe Dream?
Nov. 6 -- America's battle over auto emissions is currently being fought in California. But even if you don't live on the West Coast, it may soon be coming to a state near you.
California's hotly contested legislative measure AB 1493, which governor Gray Davis signed into law this past summer, will tighten carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles, holding cars and light trucks — including SUVs — registered in California to stricter air-pollution standards than vehicles sold elsewhere in the United States.
And backers of the legislation see the new emissions standards as becoming a benchmark that, due to a quirk in government laws, could be adopted across the nation.
"We are going to set an example for the country," said Gov. Davis, after signing the bill into law in July, noting that carbon dioxide is one of the gases contributing to global warming.
Automakers spent millions in California this year in an unsuccessful campaign against the bill, including one print ad with the headline, "I'm scared to death and you should be too." But since the regulations are not supposed to take effect until the 2009 model year, the industry still has years to wage a legal battle against the measure it sees as a national issue — and promises to win.
"We expect to challenge successfully the implementation of this law in federal court," countered Josephine S. Cooper, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry coalition representing nearly every major car-maker in the country, after the bill-signing.
And experts say the auto industry has already started. Last month, the Justice Department sided with automakers DaimlerChrysler and General Motors against a separate state program that would require automakers to produce at least 10 percent of their automobiles sold in California from 2003 to 2008 to be zero-emissions vehicles.
Going After Global Warming, or Raising Fuel Standards?
Uniquely among the 50 states, California — home to more vehicles than anywhere else in the country — has the legislative power to mandate tougher environmental standards than those dictated by the federal government's Clean Air Act. In turn, the other 49 states are allowed to exceed federal emissions guidelines if California's guidelines do.
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