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EPA Urged to Hold More Hearings on Car and Truck Pollution

13 May 1998

EPA Urged to Hold Additional Public Hearings On Air Pollution from Cars and Trucks

    WASHINGTON, May 13 -- A group of nine environmental, health
and public interest organizations urged the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) today to hold additional public hearings on the health impact of
pollution from cars and trucks and the technology available to clean it up.
    The Clean Air Act required EPA to assess the nation's smog problems in the
next 10 to 20 years, and the need for further pollution controls on motor
vehicle emissions.  EPA's "Tier 2" Study was released on April 23.  It
concluded that nearly every major American city will have continuing air
pollution concerns in 2007 and beyond, and many cities will miss their cleanup
deadlines without new pollution controls.
    "The Tier 2 Study is the foundation of the agency's decision making on
additional clean up requirements for cars and trucks sold in the United
States.  The issues ... deserve a public discussion.  The opportunity we now
have for comment makes real dialogue impossible," the organizations wrote in a
letter to EPA Administrator Carol Browner.  The Agency's only public hearing,
held May 12, focused exclusively on fuel sulfur issues.
    "The Tier 2 Study raises a number of issues of public concern, including
but not limited to the agency's evaluation of particulate health issues, the
capabilities of emerging emission controls for cars and trucks, the durability
of modern emission systems, the cost-effectiveness and the potential public
health benefits of advanced technology vehicles," they wrote.
    "We are concerned, for example, that the Tier 2 Study contains virtually
no discussion of the role of clean, next-generation vehicles and alternative
fuels.  The study conducts no evaluation of electric vehicles, hybrids, or
fuel cell vehicles, which the auto industry itself has declared will be the
vehicles of the future.  The study raises the possibility of allowing diesel
vehicles to meet standards for soot that are less stringent than those for
gasoline cars and trucks," they wrote.
    The organizations asked that the EPA schedule additional public hearings
to address these issues raised in the Tier 2 Study before the public comment
period ends in June.

SOURCE  Natural Resources Defense Council; Union of Concerned Scientists;