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Around the Nation
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Around the Nation
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The Environmental Protection Agency, after weeks of discussions with auto makers, is expected to submit a draft of the proposed regulations within days for final review by the White House, government and private sources said.
The new anti-pollution package also would require oil companies to produce cleaner gasoline nationwide by cutting sulfur content by more than 90 percent. Sulfur inhibits the efficiency of vehicle pollution-control equipment.
Tighter pollution rules for both motor vehicles and gasoline, which would begin to be phased in in 2004, would be key in determining how states meet federal air-quality goals and the types of vehicles motorists will drive during the next 20 years. EPA officials refused comment, pending the review of the proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
But industry and environmental sources briefed on the draft proposal called the tougher automobile standards essential to meeting federal air-quality goals, including new health standards for smog and microscopic soot. The EPA proposal specifies nationwide tailpipe emission standards similar to those already adopted for 2004 by California.
It also would require for the first time that sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans meet essentially the same emissions caps as cars, although they would be given two more years of phase-in time.
While Ford has touted its line of SUVs as being as clean as today's cars, many of the larger SUVs emit three to four times as much smog-causing pollution as cars, environmentalists say.
EPA officials have told auto and oil industry executives that future air quality requirements cannot be met in scores of cities across the country unless emissions from cars and light trucks are reduced dramatically.
"This is an incredibly important decision," said William Becker, executive director of the association that represents state air pollution control officials. "In many instances it will define whether or not areas meet their federal health-based standards for smog and other pollutants."
The cleaner gasoline alone is equivalent to taking off the road 54 million cars, a fourth of those in use, Becker said. He said the tougher tailpipe standards will be like removing an additional 50 million cars by the year 2020.
Transportation accounts for about 45 percent of smog-causing nitrogen oxide pollution and a third of hydrocarbon emissions - both precursors of urban smog - with cars and light trucks representing a large portion of that.
"This decision will dictate how clean cars will be in the first decades of the 21st century," said Michelle Robinson of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Most important, she said, is that for the first time the auto makers will have to make SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans, which account for close to half the market, as environment-friendly as cars.
According to sources, the draft proposal, which could be changed in negotiations with OMB, would slash nitrogen oxide emissions from today's 0.4 grams per mile to 0.05 grams for cars with a 2005-2007 phase-in. Light trucks, including SUVs, would begin the phase-in at 0.2 grams per mile in 2004 but be required to achieve the same reductions as cars by 2009.
At the same time, the oil companies will ho begin in 2004 to sell cleaner-burning gasoline with sulfur content averaging 30 parts per million in all parts of the country. Some small refiners may be given longer to phase in production.
Oil executives said the cleaner low-sulfur gasoline would cost 5 cents to 6 cents a gallon more to produce. The more stringent tailpipe emission requirements may add $160 to $200 to the cost of a car, the EPA and the California state agency estimate.
The home has been a source of anxiety, not necessarily because of the danger of starvation or hypothermia during the New Year, but because of the investment homeowners have made in expensive electronic equipment and the disquiet of having familiar and comfortable devices behaving oddly.
"The things that we are most familiar with are the ones we always worry about most," said John O'Brien, the coordinator of a community Year 2000 preparedness group in Chico, Calif.
But as it turns out, the testing of tens of thousands of products by consumer electronics companies - from digital thermostats to automatic coffee makers - has turned up a surprisingly small number that will be affected by the year 2000 problem, also known as Y2K or the Millennium Bug.
The one major exception to this is the personal computer, which has an endless potential for Y2K problems.
While a variety of problems may surface after Jan. 1 due to the oddities of the Millennium Bug - from power outages to broken traffic lights - the home will remain an island of calm largely because the electronic appliances and devices there are too simple and ignorant, in the electronic sense, to fret about the year.
Out of the 7,000 products Sony Electronics Inc. has made since 1972, only one sold in the United States - a video camera made in the late 1980s - has any year 2000-related problems.
Matsushita Electronic Corp., makers of Panasonic products, turned up just three video cameras from the mid-1980s that will have some Y2K problems. They will display the date incorrectly, but otherwise work just fine.
The FBI planned to analyze the materials sent to a Planned Parenthood center in Manchester, N.H., and abortion clinics in Washington, D.C., Milwaukee and Cincinnati. As with other recent threats against clinics, there was no indication the deadly bacterium was actually used.
In Milwaukee, the person who opened the envelope and three firefighters who were the first on the scene had to go to a hospital for decontamination and observation.
Anthrax mostly affects farm animals, but its germs, when inhaled by humans, can cause flu-like symptoms and can lead to death if not treated early enough with antibiotics.
Anthrax threats have been very common in recent months. Last fall, abortion clinics in four states were the subjects of fake threats.
It is a federal felony to send an anthrax threat, even if it is a hoax.
02-19-99
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