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Deadly Emissions: Sports Utility Vehicles Are Driving
Down Air Quality By Richard Kassel, Natural Resources Defense Council At the same time delegates from around the world gathered in Kyoto last year for the environmental summit on global warming, America's 65 million light trucks, minivans, and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) were burning enough fuel to drive them 33 million miles. These seemingly unconnected events may be more closely linked than many people realize. Emissions from cars and light trucks-including minivans and SUVs-make up more than 20 percent of our nation's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the primary greenhouse gas linked to global warming. These numbers are growing, largely due to the huge impact of the shift in family vehicles from cars to light trucks. Sales of light trucks now account for nearly half of the new vehicles bought in this country. Emissions from cars and light trucks-including minivans and SUVs-make up more than 20 percent of our nation's carbon dioxide emissions. The environment is turning out to be the loser. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a 1997 Chevrolet Suburban that gets 12 miles per gallon will emit roughly 800 pounds of CO2 on a 500-mile trip, while a 44-mpg Geo Metro will emit about 220 pounds of CO2 over the same route. From a local air-quality perspective, these heavy gas-guzzlers are allowed to emit two to three times as many smog-forming gases as their more compact competitors, and emissions tests suggest that the gap may be even wider. If our leaders are serious about meeting their greenhouse gas emissions targets, they must fix a terribly flawed series of environmental, energy, and tax policies that actually encourage people to shift from cars to light trucks. Here are just a few examples of how the current system works against the goal of cleaner and more efficient vehicles:
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Freeriders: sports
utility vehicles are exempt from fuel and
What's needed is a new approach to vehicle policy. The Clinton administration should develop a comprehensive vehicle policy that removes anti-environmental loopholes for light trucks. Such a policy would combine stronger fuel economy and tailpipe emissions requirements with market-based incentives designed to move the new generation of cleaner and more efficient vehicles from drawing boards onto the nation's roads. If Americans continue to demand sport-utility vehicles, then manufacturers should be required to provide cleaner and more fuel-efficient versions of the current models, and consumers should have strong incentives to buy them. It's not impossible. Toyota now offers an electric version of its popular RAV4 sport-utility vehicle, and California regulators are moving toward requiring the same environmental performance from all cars, trucks, minivans and SUVs. The federal government and 30 states (including New York) provide tax and other incentives to buyers of non-petroleum vehicles that run on cleaner alternative fuels such as natural gas and electricity. If our nation is going to meet significant greenhouse gas and other air pollution targets, Washington must close the anti-environmental loopholes in its vehicle policies, and implement new policies that move the American car market toward cleaner, more environmentally sustainable vehicles. America simply can't afford to get stuck in neutral in its efforts to move toward sensible vehicle policies and to reduce climatic change. Richard Kassel is a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and coordinator of its New York transportation program. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"The truth is that we are rolling loaded dice in a mob run casino-and betting our grandchildren's inheritance on the outcome. In the world of global warming, marketing strategies adopted by auto companies, cost-effective strategic plans implemented by power companies, and fund-raising imperatives that drive politicians are going to determine where malaria spreads, whether forests die, and how often neighborhoods are destroyed by extreme weather. In the face of this global gamble, we are often tempted to throw up our hands and say it's all too complicated for us to follow. The world's greatest scientists cannot tell us exactly what odds we are facing, but it's clear we have to take responsibility for what our leaders and institutions are doing in our name." Carl PopeExecutive Director, Sierra Club | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The federal government's fuel-economy standards treat
cars and light trucks differently. The auto manufacturers' car fleets must
average 27.5 mpg, but the light truck fleets need average only 20.7 mpg;
the largest suburbans and other trucks get a free ride from these standards
altogether.
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