Challenge to Emissions Rule Is Set to Start

The fight over cars and carbon dioxide moves today from the Supreme Court to a federal courtroom in Burlington, Vt., in a case that automakers say could reshape vehicles sold on the East and West Coasts.
The industry is suing to block a 2004 California regulation on global warming from taking effect. The rule would require a 30 percent cut in emissions of greenhouse gases from cars and trucks sold in Vermont and New York, which follow California’s air quality rules, to be fully phased in by the 2016 model year.
In court filings, automakers have argued that regulating the emissions will increase pollution, cause more traffic deaths and lead domestic automakers to stop selling most of their passenger models in states that adopt such regulations.
The companies have disputed that global warming is a problem, even though they have acknowledged it in different forums as a serious problem. And they tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to close much of this case to the public.
“This is a huge issue to consumers, because it may well determine what vehicles are available for them to purchase,” said Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes General Motors, Toyota and most other large automakers. “If it’s a big issue for consumers, it’s a big issue to us.”
Environmental groups and the offices of the attorneys general in Vermont and New York, which is a party to the case, say the automakers are overstating the complexity and hardship of such a regulation.
“It’s that sky-is-falling approach, but the sky didn’t fall with catalytic converters,” Attorney General William H. Sorrell of Vermont said, referring to the antipollution technology forced on the industry in the 1970s.
Last week, in a 5-to-4 decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court ruled that the agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobiles. The Bush administration has long opposed that.
Instead, more than 12 states, including California, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont, have already or are in the process of moving to regulate such emissions.
California has the authority to set air-quality rules, and Northeastern states have long chosen to follow those rules instead of Washington’s. The Supreme Court victory was important for the states, because the approval of the environmental agency is needed before California can regulate emissions involving global warming.
Automakers have sued to block the California regulation in federal courts in California, Rhode Island and Vermont, though just the Vermont case has gone forward. That case is scheduled to enter the trial phase today.
The battle has exposed fault lines among automakers. Two trade groups representing the major manufacturers are involved in the suit, one dominated by domestic producers and one by foreign.
They have clashed in their legal strategies, and just G.M. and DaimlerChrysler, two of the more outspoken companies opposing the new regulation, are directly listed as plaintiffs. The trade groups had initially sued separately but are now plaintiffs in a consolidated suit.
The main legal argument uniting the industry is their contention that states cannot regulate carbon dioxide emissions because that would be little different from regulating fuel economy, and Washington has the sole authority to set mileage standards. The recent Supreme Court ruling, however, appeared to undermine that argument.
The industry estimates that the new regulation would impose a 50 percent increase in fuel economy for passenger cars and small sport-utility vehicles but a more modest increase for large trucks, effectively making it harder for a company like G.M. to bring smaller vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu into compliance than its Hummers.
An expert hired by automakers said, according to court filings, that DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor and G.M. “will need largely to exit” from the passenger car and small truck markets.
Environmental groups say the industry is ignoring the potential effects of its move to bolster alternative fuels like ethanol, as well as the advent of hybrid electric technology and other technologies.
Automakers argued in a court filing in January that “defendants make unsubstantiated predictions that global climate change is having a number of alarming adverse effects.”
Michael J. Stanton, the president of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a plaintiff group, said in an interview the position did not represent the views of the mostly Asian automakers who are his constituents, some of whom are trying to create “eco-friendly” reputations.
“We believe that there is enough information out there to address climate change and we know that cars — passenger cars and light trucks — contribute, and we want to be part of the solution,” Mr. Stanton said.
The regulation California adopted in 2004 was to begin taking effect with 2009 models and to be phased in over eight years. President Bush and Congress more recently discussed fuel economy rules that could potentially accomplish similar reductions for gases tied to global warming, though no firm plan is in place.
Among other points, the industry says more fuel efficient cars could be dangerous, because they will be cheaper to drive and lead people to drive more and potentially have more accidents.
“Everybody’s getting a good laugh out of the safety claim,” said David Bookbinder, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, which is a party to the case. “Detroit is saying it’s a bad idea for everybody to drive more.”

EU's emission restriction

Standard and Poor's is warning that the EU's stricter emissions rules will put its carmakers at serious competitive disadvantage, and could adversely affect their credit quality. This is just one of many such challenges that the EU will face as it tries to control emissions; it remains to be seen how much economic pressure the commission is prepared to withstand.

Taming Fossil Fuels

Each day seems to bring news of another prominent convert to the cause of requiring mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Each day also seems to bring news of technological advances that would make it possible to achieve those reductions without serious economic damage.
Last week the chief executives of America’s largest automobile companies — General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota North America — pledged to support mandatory caps on carbon emissions, as long as the caps covered all sectors of the economy. They delivered their promise to a House committee run by John Dingell — the crusty Michigan Democrat who is another convert to the cause and has taken to describing the global warming threat with phrases like “Hannibal is at the gates.”
Meanwhile, dozens of major institutional investors organized by Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists, will gather in Washington on Monday to offer support for mandatory controls. The group will include Calpers, the huge California state pension fund with a history of making environmentally friendly investments, and Merrill Lynch, whose credentials are less impressive.
The news on the technology side is also good — particularly several recent announcements about coal. The first came from TXU, a huge Texas utility where the bidders have agreed to drop plans to build 11 old-fashioned coal-burning power plants. TXU has now announced that it will build two experimental plants intended to capture carbon dioxide before it escapes into the atmosphere. American Electric Power, another large utility, has also announced that it will build a coal-fired plant based on slightly different technology but with the same intended result: capturing carbon.
The importance of these projects cannot be overstated. As a report released Wednesday by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology observed, coal produces more than 30 percent of America’s carbon dioxide emissions. It is also a huge problem in China, where the equivalent of one large coal-fired power plant is being built each week, using antiquated methods. Unless coal can be tamed, the game is essentially lost.
But while technology will play an indispensable role, the lead authors of the M.I.T. report, writing in The Wall Street Journal, argue that the most effective way to reduce emissions is to attach a significant price to carbon emissions, either as a carbon tax or through a cap-and-trade program of the sort now embodied in various legislative proposals in Congress. Forcing people to pay to pollute would do more than any other known incentive to bring new technologies to commercial scale.

Call for Speed Limit Has German Blood at 178 m.p.h. Boil

Ask Marc Bongers about the wisdom of introducing a speed limit on the German autobahn, and he answers by impatiently revving the 435-horsepower engine of a specially modified Porsche. Slowpokes, he said, already spoil half the fun.
“A lady,” Mr. Bongers sniffed, as a Mercedes scuttled out of his way in the passing lane on a busy highway in southern Bavaria. “And she’s talking on her phone,” he said the other day, shooting her a sidelong glance. “Doesn’t she know it’s against the law to do that on the autobahn?”
Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like Michael Schumacher. Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right.
Now, though, Germany’s love of speed is colliding with its fears about global warming, as it becomes clear that its Sunday race-car drivers are spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
“Speed limits are useful for many reasons, and are the order of the day in most of the E.U.’s 27 member states and the United States,” Mr. Dimas said in an interview with the mass-market newspaper Bild. “Strangely enough, it is only in Germany where they are controversial.”
No kidding. His mild words were met with heated indignation from politicians and automotive groups here. Some acted as if Brussels were demanding that Germany outlaw beer and bratwurst.
This is “a trivialization of the climate problem,” declared the German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel. The German Association of the Automotive Industry said Germans needed “no coaching” from other Europeans on how to protect the environment.
She is hardly a car buff. Unlike her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, she is rarely photographed behind the wheel. But she seems to realize that, like Social Security in the United States, the autobahn is the third rail of German politics — potentially deadly to those who dare touch it.
Critics brandish statistics that show a speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour (75 m.p.h.) would reduce Germany’s overall carbon-dioxide emissions by a few million tons a year, less than 0.5 percent. Better, they say, to focus on building more efficient power plants and houses.
Yet, as environmental groups and a few lonely politicians point out, a few million tons of carbon dioxide is still a considerable savings. Unlike other measures — clean coal plants or hybrid cars, for example — a speed limit could be imposed tomorrow and at relatively little cost.
For years, speed limit advocates tried to argue their case on safety grounds. The autobahn, though, is statistically safer than highways in many countries, even if its crashes are singularly horrific. Saving the planet, it turns out, may be more persuasive than saving lives.
Mr. Schneider is realistic. Driving fast, he said, is deeply rooted in the German psyche.
Germany also has a powerful economic incentive to resist a speed limit. It builds some of the world’s fastest cars, and the autobahn is a valuable showcase and marketing tool for the industry. A tour operator even organizes driving tours of the highway for Chinese visitors.
Car connoisseurs from around the world flock to Pfaffenhausen, a one-horse town where the local company, Ruf Automobile, makes cars with many horses. Mr. Bongers, the sales manager, said people who bought these custom-modified Porsches often took them for a spin on the autobahn. For most, it is the only place they can legally test the top speed of their new toys.
In the depths of the oil crisis in late 1973, West Germany imposed a speed limit of 100 kilometers an hour (60 m.p.h.). Four months later, the government rescinded it. Mr. Ruf recalls worrying during those dark days that the family’s sports car business was doomed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/world/europe/16autobahn.html?ex=1331697600&en=87a49017e1dd490c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Green cars

Any colour you like, as long as it's green. The car companies’ most pressing environmental concern relates to European Union proposals to set stringent emissions targets for carbon-dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
The average new Porsche pumps out nearly 300g of carbon dioxide; Mercedes and BMW also rely on luxury cars that are big, fast, profitable and polluting. But, more surprisingly, even smaller carmakers, which are much closer to meeting the new stringent conditions, say they are troubled by the proposed rules.
The problem for makers of those small cars is that any chance of getting decent profits in the saturated markets of Western Europe (emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia are another matter) comes from improving margins on each vehicle sold. But on small cars those margins are already rather thin. Thus the additional cost of developing new technologies to meet the 130g emissions target, let alone meeting tougher EU standards to come, might prove more painful for makers of small cars than for those who make luxury ones.
Car companies argue that new regulations may prove to be unnecessary. The demands of the market, they say, are driving them in the right direction anyway. Christian Streiff, boss of PSA Peugeot Citroën, says that pollution could be cut by two-thirds simply by removing the oldest (and thus dirtiest) 20% of vehicles from the roads. Moreover, the vast additional cost of trying to meet the targets quickly could endanger jobs and damage competitiveness. The industry argues that governments could instead do more to reduce congestion, improve roads and even teach more fuel-efficient driving techniques.