West Coast Unites For Cleaner Air

Oregon, Washington Join California On Tough Car Emission Standards

(AP) 

While the movement has gained little traction in the Midwest and the South to date, it's gotten a huge boost with the three West Coast states unifying around the tough new California standards.

Sargent said other states, such as Pennsylvania, Illinois and North Carolina, also are starting to look at moving to the new California standards.

"Despite what the Bush folks say, more people are realizing that global warming is a problem that we need to begin to address," he said.

Climatologists have warned that if allowed to continue, rising temperatures caused by driving and other human activities will cause melting glaciers, rising sea levels and weather changes.

California lawmakers in 2002 directed the California Air Resources Board to develop rules to reduce vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases, a task the board completed last September. The regulations will be phased in starting in 2009, with all new cars, sports utility vehicles and light trucks required to be in full compliance by 2016.

The auto industry is suing California over its new standards, saying the state lacks authority to implement such regulations and that the rules would eventually add $3,000 (euro2,460) to the cost of a new car.

"Consumers ought to be able to make the choices of options they want on their vehicle, and not have those choices made for them," says Eron Shosteck of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington, D.C.-based auto industry group.

This year, the auto industry has fought to try to prevent the entire West Coast from becoming what environmentalists call a "clean car corridor."

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, said Oregon and the other states need to act because the Bush administration has failed to take steps to curtail global warming.

"If the federal government doesn't want to move forward on global warming, then the states are going to have to do it," the governor said in an interview.

Besides the three West Coast states that are moving to adopt the new emission standards, six Northeast states are expected to finalize rules by the end of this year — New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine, according to Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, an association of state air quality officials from the region.