BEFORE THE ADMINISTRATOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY Washington, D.C. In re: APPLICATIONS FOR SUSPENSION OF 1977 MOTOR VEHICLE EXHAUST EMISSION STANDARDS Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors Corporation, Applicants. DECISION OF THE ADMINISTRATOR March 5, 1975 ------- DECISION OF THE ADMINISTRATOR I. Introduction Section 202 of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 1857f-l, as amended by Section 5 of the Energy Supply and Environ- mental Cpordination Act of 1974, P.L. 93-319, 88 Stat. 258, requires that emissions of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons from automobiles sold in this country during the 1977 model year be reduced by at least ninety percent from their 1970 levels. Under the standard EPA test procedure, the emis- sion levels needed to comply with this requirement are a maximum of .41 grams per mile (g/mi) of hydrocarbons (HC) and 3.4 grams per mile (g/mi) of carbon monoxide (CO). In addition, that section authorizes the Administrator of EPA to suspend the effective date of these reductions for one year only - until the 1978 model year - if he finds after public hearings that the following conditions have been met: "The Administrator shall grant such suspension only if he determines that (i) such suspension is essential to the public interest or the public health and welfare of the United States: (ii) all good faith efforts have been made to meet the standards established by this subsection; (iii) the applicant has established that effective control technology, processes, operating methods, or other alternatives are not available or have not been available for a suf- ficient period of time to achieve compliance prior to the effective date of such standards, and (iv) the study and investigation of the National Academy of Sciences conducted pursuant to subsection (c) and other information available to him has not indicated that technology, processes, or other alter- natives are available to meet such standards." ------- - 2 - Before the 1974 amendments, the Clean Air Act required the 90% HC and CO reductions to be achieved by the 1975 model year, subject to a one-year extension which the Administrator of EPA could grant if he found that the auto companies had satisfied the statutory requirements quoted above. Although the 1974 amendments changed the law to defer the required reductions and related suspension pro- vision for two years, they did not change either the level of the required HC and CO reductions or the terms on.which a suspension of their effect could be granted.* Proceedings under the prior version of the statute are therefore rele- vant to my decision here. The first application for a suspension of what,were then the 1975 standards was filed with EPA on March-. 13, 1972 by A.B. Volvo Ltd,, of Sweden. .Shortly thereafter-,-. applications were also received from Chrysler, Ford,. General Motors,, and International Harvester. Former Administrator Ruckelshaus denied all five applications in a decisipn, issued May 12, 1972. The four American applicants appealed this decision:to the courts, and on February 10, 1973, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of. Columbia. Circuit remanded the applications to EPA for further consideration. International Harvester Co. v. Ruckelshaus, 478 F.2d 615 (D.C. Cir. 1973). In its opinion the court defined a wide range of both technical and public policy issues which EPA had to consider and make findings on before a decision to deny suspension could be sustained under the law. Public hearings were held under the remand order in March of 1973, and on April 11, Mr. Ruckelshaus issued his decision upon remand, 38 Fed. Reg... 10317 (April 26, 1973). He found that although the catalytic converters needed on *Congress did, however, change the oxides of nitrogen (NOX) emission standard that would accompany the statutory HC and CO standards. For 1975, the NOX standard - established administratively by EPA.- was 3.1 g/mi; a level of 2.0 g/mi has been legislatively, established for 1977, with a level of 0.4 g/mi to be achieved in the 1978 and subsequent model years. ------- - 3 - nearly all vehicles in order to achieve the statutory stan- dards had been developed to the point where they were an available and effective means of emission control, there had been so little experience in manufacturing and instal- ling them that it was not prudent from a mass production standpoint to force their use on all cars sold in a single model year. In addition, a rigorous technical analysis had shown that models representing only 66% of domestic auto sales could be predicted with high confidence to meet the statutory standards in the 1975 model year, and this was regarded as too low a number to ensure that the "basic demand" for automobiles would be satisfied if the suspension were denied. Accordingly, the Administrator granted a suspension and established two sets of interim emission standards for the 1975 model year. Cars sold in California, which is the only state permitted by the Clean Air Act to have its own auto emission standards, were required to meet levels of .9 g/mi HC, 9.0 g/mi CO, and 2.0 g/mi NOX. These HC and CO limits were set at levels thought to require the use of catalytic converters on most model lines. Cars sold in the other 49 states were required to meet levels of 1.5 g/mi HC, 15 g/mi CO, and 3.1 g/mi NOX. These HC and CO limits were set at levels thought not to require the use of catalytic converters on most model lines. These stan- dards have since been adopted by Congress for the 1976 model year. A full range of automobiles has been certified and is being produced for 1975 at both emission levels.* About 85% of 49 state cars and almost all California cars will be equipped with catalytic converters in the 1975 model year. *The 1970 revision of the Clean Air Act also authorized a one-year suspension of the 1976 standard for NOX emissions of .40 g/mi on the same terms that governed a suspension of the 197.5 standards. On July 30, 1973 Acting Administrator Fri found that NOX control technology at that time was too undeveloped to support a prediction that the standard could be met by 1976 and granted a suspension. ------- - 4 - Under the 1974 amendments to the statute, a request for suspension of the 1977 emission standards may be filed any time after January 1, 1975. Knowing that the major domestic auto companies intended to file suspension appli- cations, I urged them to file promptly, so that the required hearing could be held early enough, and could be expanded in scope by use of EPA's authority under §202(b) (4),* to provide a useful record in connection with proposals for further legislative revision of the auto emission standards. Both Ford and Chrysler filed thc;ir applications on Monday, January 2, while General Motors filed about a week later. Well over three weeks of public hearings have been held on these three applications, and testimony has been received from a wide range of witnesses, including domestic and foreign auto companies, manufacturers of catalysts, carburetors, and fuel injection systems, elected officials, and repre- sentatives of other Federal agencies and of environmental interest groups. II. Summary of Decision I have decided to grant the request of the applicants for suspension of the effectiveness of the statutory emission standards for HC and CO in the 1977 model year, and am establishing as interim standards for that model year the current Federal interim standards for those pollutants, i.e. 1.5 g/mi HC and 15 g/mi CO, together with the statutory emission standard of 2.0 g/mi NOX for the 1977 model year. Furthermore, it is my view that consideration should be given to (a) extending through the 1979 model year this same set of emission standards, and (b) establishing emis- sion standards of 0.9 g/mi HC and 9.0 g/mi CO for the 1980 *Section 202(b)(4) of the Clean Air Act requires the Administrator of EPA to report annually to the Congress on the state of progress of auto emission control, and authorizes him to hold hearings and subpoena information and witnesses for this purpose. ------- - 5 - and 1981 model years, retaining the 2.0 g/mi NOX standard. For the model years 1982 and beyond, it is my view that the original statutory HC and CO standards of 0.41 g/mi HC and 3.4 g/mi CO should remain our national goal, together with an emission standard of 2.0 g/mi for NOy or such more stringent NOX standard as may be warranted by the conclusions drawn from our ongoing review of the need for a new, short- term ambient standard for oxides of nitrogen. Three major issues have dominated these proceedings. They are: (1) The progress made in developing, and the status of, technology to control auto emissions to the levels called for by the Clean Air Act; (2) The impact on fuel consumption and on the general state of the economy of increasingly tighter levels of auto emission controls; and (3) The impact on the public health of automobile emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and sulfuric acid. These are the first EPA suspension hearings to be held since the widespread introduction of the catalytic converter for emission control began in the fall of 1974. Much of the inquiry has naturally centered on the past and potential performance of that particular device, which many of the auto companies (all of the domestics) have relied upon heavily to achieve the 1975 and to approach the statutory levels of EC/CO control. In many ways, catalysts have performed far better than some predicted when the 1975 interim standards were first established two years ago. Contrary to many predictions, both the production of catalysts and their installation on automobiles is proceeding without difficulty. The President of the National Academy of Sciences has stated that, as of November 1974 "significant advances have made catalytic emissions-control systems much more satisfactory for the control of automotive emissions than we anticipated in 1973". ------- - 6 - NAS Kept. p. V.* *In this Decision, the following abbreviated citations are used: NAS Rept. The Report by the Committee on Motor Vehicle Emissions of the National Academy of Sciences dated November 1974. FE Rept. "Potential for Motor Vehicle Fuel Economy Improvement-Report to the Congress" prepared by EPA and the Department of Transportation and'dated October 24, 1974. Status Rept. "Automobile Emission Control: The Technical Status and Outlook as of December 1974" prepared by EPA's Emission Control Technology . Division and dated January 1975. C. App. The Request for Suspension of Chrysler Corporation (5 Vols., dated January and February 1975). F. App. The Application for Suspension of Ford Motor Company dated January 1975. GM App. The request for Suspension of General Motors Corporation dated January 1975. Tr. The transcript of the hearings held on this matter from January 21, 1975 to February 6, 1975. Sulfate Tr. The transcript of the hearings held from February 18, 1975 to February 12, 1975 to consider sulfate emissions from catalyst-equipped vehicles. Other submissions are cited by the name or initials of the submitting company and the date submitted, e.g., C. 4/18/75 p. 2. ------- - 7 - It now appears from preliminary data that the durability of catalytic emission control installed on production cars is at least as good as for pre-catalyst emission control systems. Both Ford and General Motors have run extensive vehicle fleets equipped with catalysts under normal highway driving conditions in California, and have reported highly satisfactory durability and emissions control results. NAS Kept. 122-127; F. App. IV-A. Indeed, GM testified with some emphasis that their expectation was that catalyst cars in the hands of the consumer would show less of an emissions increase with increasing mileage than their prototypes had evidenced while passing the EPA certification test. Tr. 411-17, 512-14. The function of the catalyst is to accelerate the rate at which the exhaust HC and CO gases coming out of the engine react with oxygen in air to form harmless C02 and water. The catalytic material speeds up these reactions, and allows them to take place at lower temperatures than would otherwise be required. Catalysts in use on today's cars can reduce the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emit- ted from the vehicle tailpipe by 50 to 60% at the end of 50,000 miles of EPA durability testing. By the 1977 model year, this reduction may approach 70%. This high conversion efficiency has two consequences. First, it allows the engine to be retuned for better fuel economy at the expense of emissions coming out of the engine, since much of the task of cleaning them up can be left to the catalyst. This has helped make possible the average 13.5% fuel economy improvement realized by 1975 cars over comparable 1974 models. As the NAS has stated: [SJince exhaust treatment tends to decouple emissions control from the traditional engine-design constraints, there may be an inherent advantage to this approach, especially in the control of emissions from engines whose design has evolved without emissions constraints. NAS Rept. p. 31. Second, it appears that the high-efficiency after- treatment provided by catalytic technology will be needed in the next few years, and may be needed even in the longer term, if the statutory emission standards of .41 g/mi HC and 3.4 g/mi CO are to be attained by a vehicle that is also capable of providing the improved fuel economy the nation is now demanding. ------- - 8 - At less stringent levels, approaching the California interim standards of .9 g/mi HC and 9 g/mi CO, the evidence, though conflicting, indicates that compliance can be achieved by about 1980 without the use of catalysts and with equivalent fuel economy to what catalysts would provide. The rapid advance of emission control technology is more fully described below. To summarize, work on such significant modifications of the present engine as stratified charge or rotary engines has moved during the past two years at a somewhat slower pace than might have been anticipated, though industry interest remains high. This is due both to the failure of some of these systems to completely bear out their first promise upon detailed examination, and to the unwillingness of the industry to commit resources to significant changes in engine con- figuration before long term emission standards (particularly for NOX) are known with greater certainty than at present. By contrast, a whole range of modifications to the present engine in the fields of fuel preparation, exhaust treatment, and electronic control of engine operation are in more or less advanced stages of development. These modifications have the promise of improving both emission control and fuel economy, although in some cases at some additional expense, and their rapid progress has decreased the relative appeal of more drastic engine changes. The report of the National Academy of Sciences, given a fair reading, indicates that the technology to meet the statutory HC and CO emission standards is available. In addition, a detailed Technical Appendix prepared by my own staff reaches the same result in concluding that models representing 90-100% of 1975 production will be able to certify at the statutory standards in 1977. Since the NAS testified that it relied largely on somewhat outdated information that did not take account of recent improve- ments, Tr. 2380-81, and since the predictive methodology used in the Technical Appendix is deliberately conservative, a high degree of confidence can be assigned to these projections. Attainment of the statutory emission standards in the 1977 model year would provide the maximum protection of the public health from HC and CO emissions from those vehicles that is achievable with present technology. I thus find that catalyst technology exists and could be applied to meet the statutory HC and CO emission levels on a very large proportion of automobiles by 1977. I also ------- - 9 - find that this would carry with it a reduction in fuel economy of five to ten percent in 1977 as well as an increase in first cost which is estimated at $100 to $150. Although the fuel economy reduction and price increase would in theory lead to some decrease in sales, the extent of such adverse sales impact is too slight and uncertain to be reliably quantified. Based on the foregoing factors alone -- which together with the issue of "good faith" are the only factors con- sidered in prior suspension decisions -- and considering the matter in the context of the court's opinion in International Harvester v. Ruckelshaus, I would deny the suspension of the statutory emission standards. However, the foregoing factors are not the only factors that must govern my decision in this matter. This year there is an unprecedented concern uniquely important to this Agency that alters the decision I would otherwise make. This concern is that the use of the only technology now available to the auto manufacturers to achieve reduc- tions in HC/CO emissions to the statutory levels in 1977, i.e., the catalytic converter, would increase significantly emissions of another pollutant that can be harmful to health, namely sulfuric acid. Though substantial uncertainty exists as to the exact magnitude of the impact of such an increase in the sulfuric acid emissions on air quality, the weight of scientific opinion indicates a legitimate cause for concern that such emissions represent a risk to public health. My concern with emissions of unregulated pollutants from catalysts, and specifically with sulfuric acid, is not new. In testimony before the Senate in November of 1973, I stated that EPA had intensified its research program to define and quantify what at that time was preliminary data concerning sulfuric acid emissions. I committed the Agency to a number of actions including a) development of a test procedure for "sulfuric acid," b) consideration of means of controlling such emissions and c) estimating the impact of these emissions on air quality and the public health. As discussed below, much work has been successfully done on the first two of these programs and while the public health question remains unquantified, certain conclusions can now be reached. ------- - 10 - More specifically, data accumulated in the past year and a half leave no doubt that catalyst-equipped cars emit greater quantities of sulfates - primarily small drop- lets or particles of sulfuric acid and some other sulfur compounds - than do non-catalyst equipped cars. Wide ranges of uncertainty exist both as to the actual health effects of sulfuric acid emissions and the degree to which catalyst equipped cars do in fact contribute to increased atmospheric sulfate loadings, even on a local basis. There is, however, a reasonable consensus that sulfuric acid emissions from cars pose a risk to public health even though the extent of that risk cannot yet be quantified. An EPA staff paper, reproduced at Tr. 2256-96, suggests that as additional model years of catalyst- equipped cars are introduced into service, there is an increasing risk that adverse health effects from sulfuric acid will be observed, particularly in sensitive popula- tions. At some point, catalysts might begin to do more harm by creating sulfuric acid than good through additional control of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. Though the EPA staff paper may tend to overstate the imminence of the problem, the witnesses at our hearing generally agreed that it provides as good an estimate of the problem as can be made at this time given the tremendous uncertainties which are inevitable in any estimate of this matter. Future studies of this issue are necessary and are being undertaken. However, their results cannot be expected to provide definitive informa- tion on the health questions involved for at least two more years. This suspension decision will not wait for those studies. The concrete dilemma it poses is this: On the one hand, by moving to very stringent emission standards such as the statutory or California interim levels, we can ensure that proven technology will be applied to achieve the maximum degree of public health protection against damage from HC and CO emissions that is currently achievable in the 1977 model year. Howeverr at ------- - 11 - these low levels of HC and CO emissions, catalysts are sure to be used on almost all vehicles, and used together with air pumps; air pumps significally increase sulfuric acid emissions from a catalyst-equipped vehicle, in the range of 50 to 100% over a catalyst operating without an air pump. A vehicle air pump is used to in- ject extra air from the atmosphere directly into the exhaust system ahead of the catalyst. The extra oxygen so provided allows the catalyst to do a more complete job of converting HC and CO to C02 and water. However, the extra oxygen also encourages the conversion of sulfur dioxide (S02) in the exhaust gas to the sulfate compound S03, which then reacts with water available in the exhaust to form sulfuric acid. On the other hand, by staying at the national interim levels of 1.5 g/mi of HC and 15 g/mi CO, we would accept emission reductions for these two pollutants that are well short of the best that technology can achieve, but which are still stringent enough to result in continued reduction in total HC and CO emissions. The potential of a sulfuric acid problem would be substantially lessened by such a step. Many vehicles will be capable of meeting those standards in ]977 without catalysts, and most of those that will use catalysts will be able to do so without the use of an air pump. With reluctance, and with full awareness that I may be erring on the side of caution, I have for these reasons decided to choose the second alternative, and to continue the 1975 national interim standards for the 1977 model year. ------- - 12 - I believe that this decision is fully consistent with the statutory mandate and with the opinion of the Court of Appeals in the International Harvester case. The Clean Air Act requires me to find that "effective technology" to achieve the standards is lacking before I grant a suspension. I do not believe that if the evidence were plain that sulfate emissions were an imminent danger, anyone would argue that I could not consider that fact in making my judgment here. Certainly Congress could not have intended that "effective" would describe a technology that did more harm to public health in one aspect than it prevented in another. Of course, the evidence is not clear. Nevertheless, in giving high weight to an uncertain risk of severe adverse consequences, whether those might take the form of immediate danger to health or of commitment to a regulatory course that might later have to be changed precipitously, I believe I am responsive to the court's concern that any decision on the statutory criteria "take into account the nature and consequences of risk of error", 478 F. 2d 643. Nor do I believe that a contrary decision is compelled by the NAS Report. Though I do not question its conclusion that the technology to meet the current certification standards for HC and CO and to acheive substantial compliance in use is in fact available, the Committee on Motor Vehicle Emissions which produced the report did not consider the question of sulfuric acid in any depth. Tr. 2388-90. The Court of Appeals has made clear that I am not bound by the NAS conclusions "as to matters interlaced with policy and legal aspects", or to the extent that I may rely on "later- acquired research and experience". 478 F. 2d 649. My decision does not rest on a judgment that the problem of sulfates is more severe than the problem of currently regulated pollutants. The data are much too fragmentary to support any such prediction. Rather, this decision rests on a judgment about risks and the weight to be assigned them. Since most persons addressing the point agreed that there is a potential sulfuric acid problem and that its extent is surrounded by uncertainties of all sorts, the possibility that it may prove worse than anticipated cannot be dismissed. It is almost a rule of life that problems are easier to prevent than to cure, and easier to cure the earlier they are detected. The decision I have reached will significantly slow down the growth of the potential sulfuric acid problem and give all involved some needed time to assess its true magnitude and settle on steps to deal with it. All these steps involve substantial lead time before they can become effective. In ------- - 13 - particular, I expect the automobile companies to devote a considerable part of their engineering resources to work on characterizing and coping with sulfuric acid emissio'ns. The same considerations that govern my suspension decision affect my conclusions as to options I believe should be considered for the longer term. Here, I have attempted to reconcile two objectives. They are preventing an increase in automotive sulfuric acid emissions to current- ly projected levels and preserving as much as possible the momentum we have built up toward further reductions of HC and CO emissions from the automobile. Where conflicts between these two objectives have occurred, I have tended to emphasize the former because of the concerns that I have expressed earlier in this document. Accordingly, I would suggest that consideration be given to retaining for the 1978 and 1979 model years the 1975 national interim standards for HC and CO, and to establish- ment of emission standards at the interim California levels for these two pollutants for 1980 and 1981. As an integral part of this approach, I intend to establish an emission standard for sulfuric acid emissions from motor vehicles. Though a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be issued within two months, both the industry lead times involved and the inherent complexity of the matter preclude making such a standard applicable earlier than the 1979 model year. The decision as to the level for such a sulfuric acid standard will be a very difficult one. Unfortunately, data are not now available, and probably will still be unavailable at the time that an emission limit must be established for sulfuric acid for 1979 model year vehicles, to determine what level of sulfuric acid emissions could confidently be considered acceptable from a public health standpoint. However, the catalyst has both proven and potential benefits for control of HC, CO, and NOX together with fuel economy. To a degree, these benefits are unequalled by other technologies now known or foreseen. Clearly it would not be responsible to stifle this technology for insubstantial reasons. But, if catalysts cannot be used safely despite their benefits, this hard decision will have to be made. The level most completely and certainly protective of public health from any sulfuric acid risks, in the absence of health effects data that would permit establishment of an adverse effects threshold for sulfuric acid, would be at or near the level of sulfuric acid emitted from non-catalyst ------- - 14 - equipped cars, which is estimated at about .001 g/mi. Such a level almost certainly could not be met by catalyst-equipped cars operating on gasoline with currently anticipated sulfur levels, even with maximum feasible sulfuric acid controls on the vehicle. Maximum control of sulfuric acid emitted from catalyst- equipped vehicles may permit achievement of sulfuric acid emission levels in the range of -01 g/mi. With the addition of gasoline desulfurization, which could be implemented over a 3-6 year period, sulfuric acid emissions from catalyst- equipped vehicles may be further controllable to levels on the order of .005 g/mi. Unless reductions to the range of such levels are acceptable from a public health standpoint, the most conserva- tive emission standard that could be set would be at a level essentially equivalent to that of non-catalyst cars. This would almost certainly mean the demise of catalyst technolbgy for the forseeable future which, in turn, would cast serious doubt on the ability of the industry to achieve the statutory HC and CO standards together with improved fuel economy or to achieve NOX emission levels much below 2.0 g/mi. On the other hand, a sulfuric acid standard set at the lowest level likely to be achievable with catalysts, probably in the vicinity of .005-.01 g/mi. (depending upon whether gasoline is desulfurized) clearly will permit at least somewhat greater sulfuric acid emissions and, therefore, presumptively a somewhat greater health risk, than the first alternative. By remaining at the national interim standards in trie'1977 and 1978 model year, we can ensure than manufacturers will not have any significant incentive to make changes that would'in- crease sulfuric acid emissions before a sulfuric acid emission standard can be established. Indeed sulfuric acid emissions should decrease as new types of emission controls are phased in. Imposition of a sulfuric acid emission standard in the range being considered may make it difficult for some manufac- turers to simultaneously meet stricter standards for HC and CO. Therefore, I believe that HC and CO emission standards probably should not be tightened in the first year that a sulfuric acid emission standard becomes effective. This will help ensure that the projected sulfuric acid standard can be met on schedule. For this reason, I am recommending that the current national interim standards be extended through the 1979 model year as well. ------- - 15 - By 1980, it should be possible to move to tighter HC and CO emission levels with no compromise of sulfuric acid control. The many new developments in emission control technology dis- cussed below should be coming into general use by then. I believe that they should make it possible to meet the California interim levels without the use of catalysts should that be necessary, or to substantially decrease sulfuric acid emissions from catalyst-equipped cars by reducing the amount of work the catalyst must do or by some other means such as a sulfate trap if a suitable one can be developed in time. I do not recommend that the current statutory HC and CO standards be deferred beyond 1981. Those standards, we now believe, will probably require the use of an oxidizing catalyst if acceptable fuel economy is to be maintained. Though future developments in catalyst technology, study of the sulfuric acid problem, or study of sulfuric acid control may well change our conclusions, we currently believe that desulfurization of gasoline may be required if the statutory HC and CO emission levels are to be achieved concurrently with acceptably low emissions of sulfates. However, as noted earlier in this discussion, even substantial gasoline desulfurization, combined with catalyst modifications, may not produce acceptably low sulfuric acid emission levels. Where emissions of NOx are concerned, I recommend that the current legislatively established level of 2.0 g/mi. be continued through 1981. Preliminary health effects data suggest the need by the early 1980 's for a nitrate standard or a more stringent ambient N02 standard than now exists. Auto emission controls of NOX beyond 2.0 g/mi., together with tighter stationary source controls, may well be needed to help meet such an ambient standard. Recent studies have shown, contrary to what was widely believed in the past, that emission of NOx can be reduced to 2.0 g/mi. from 3.1 g/mi. without significant adverse impact on fuel economy. Accordingly, I believe that since a reduction of greater than one third in emissions of this pollutant can be ------- - 16 - achieved at little cost, and by the use of current technology, national policy should require it.* I do not believe that any NOX emission standard for the period beyond 1981 should be established at this time. The health data is in a state of flux, and in two years or so we should have a clearer picture. However, the possibility that a much stricter standard for NOx than is currently in force may need to be established is a major reason for my desire to avoid steps that might discourage the further development of catalytic technology. There is no currently feasible technology except the catalyst that is capable of permitting an NOX standard much below two grains per mile to be met on a full range of automobiles. I believe that this decision and my associated longer-term conclusions represent a responsible approach to the problems of auto emission control. I believe that it is consistent with con- tinued progress toward cleaner air. Nevertheless, it is critically important that the circum- stances which have led me to conclude that the most prudent choice is to continue the Federal interim standards for the near term not be interpreted as signalling any slackening of our commitment to ongoing efforts to cope with our chronic *I should point out, however, that there is a chance that emissions of sulfuric acid from automobiles may increase if this alternative is chosen over what would have happened were the current national standards of 3.1 g/mi. to be extended. Control of NOX may cause HC emissions to rise slightly. This in turn may tempt a manufacturer to obtain needed additional HC control by feeding it with air from an air pump. Use of an air pump could cause sulfuric acid emissions from the vehicle to increase by as much as 100%. However, technology is available to control NOX to the 2 g/mi. level, and to control any slight increase in HC with- out the use of an air pump. I expect manufacturers to act responsibly and to avoid use of an air pump, even if that should mean that the car gets 2 or 3% less fuel economy than it could get with an air pump; however, we are satisfied that it is possible to achieve adequate control of HC at 2 g/mi. NOX without fuel penalty. ------- - 17 - problems of oxidant and CO.* While some upper bound is set to this risk by the fact that even the national interim standards by themselves will result in improving air quality for several more years, that improvement by itself will not be nearly enough in many areas to attain the standards. In testimony before me, Mayor Goldschmidt of Portland, Oregon said: There is a talent in this country for accommodating ourselves to adversity; and pretty soon, what we [may] forget is that we ever had clean air or that we ever had a goal of getting to it. Tr. 1991. We must see to it that such a possibility does not become a reality, and I will do what I can to minimize the possibility, In particular, although I believe a pause in the tightening of auto emission standards is necessary for the reasons I have outlined, I want to emphasize strongly the need for the auto- mobile industry to continue, and in fact increase, its efforts to develop safe methods of achieving further reductions in auto emissions. In addition, we must redouble our efforts to control other sources of the auto-related pollutants, including both stationary sources, and vehicles other than passenger cars, and to move forward with effective programs that will help to clean up the air, conserve energy, and stimulate mass transit by reducing our overreliance on the private automobile. EPA remains committed to all controls on automotive pollutants needed to meet air quality standards, including transportation control measures. I do not believe that States and local governments should be penalized by the necessity of temporarily altering our auto emission control program. But there should be no doubt that all reasonable and available *Another danger inherent in this approach is that the auto companies will cease to pursue the new technologies that now appear so promising once they are no longer needed for emission control purposes. The past record of the industry does not give cause for optimism in this regard. ------- - 18 - measures that are within their control and needed to meet our clean air goals should be implemented. The actions I plan to take include the following: (1) Emissions from a large number of vehicles — those currently classified as heavy duty — have to date been con- trolled only slightly. These vehicles contribute significantly to urban air pollution, and the proportion of their contribution has increased as passenger cars have been controlled to current levels. I expect very shortly to propose more stringent emission controls for heavy duty vehicles. (2) EPA studies have clearly indicated that hydrocarbon emissions caused by evaporation from the fuel system of an automobile (as distinguished from incomplete combustion in the engine) are far greater than had been previously estimated and may amount to the equivalent of tailpipe emissions of nearly two grams per mile. Both the NAS and my own technical staff have strongly recommended that a new evaporative emission standard be imposed. I shall make every effort to impose such a new standard by the 1979 model year. (3) At current levels of auto emission control, motorcycles emit substantially more pollution than a new car does. An Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to correct that situation has been issued, 39 Fed. Reg. 2108 (Jan. 17, 1974), and the final regulations.should be in effect for the 1978 model year. (4) The escape of vaporized gasoline when vehicles are refueled are another major source of hydrocarbons, in amounts equivalent to about .4 grams per mile. The NAS has stated that "reduction in emission from these sources [evaporation and refueling losses] must be achieved before reduction of exhaust HC emissions below the present standard of 1.5 g/mi. will have a significant effect on total HC emissions from light-duty vehicles". NAS Rept. p. 18. EPA has already issued regulations on this point, requiring a 90% reduction in such emissions. I plan to insure that the standard for vehicle refueling will require the use of the most effective control devices which are available or can be developed. (5) Finally, EPA will re-examine current regulations pro- viding for control of hydrocarbon emission from such things as paints, solvents, dry-cleaning liquids, and refineries with a view to tightening them. Many of these regulations were drafted some time ago and do not reflect the state of the technology which can be achieved with additional effort. ------- - 19 - III. Discussion 1. Technology The record of these suspension proceedings suggests that the technology of automobile emission control has passed its initial stages and entered on the period of rapid growth and development that most new technologies enjoy. More different approaches to problems are being pursued than in the past. Witnesses talked more in theoretical terms, relating what they were doing to the characteristics of the engine, and seemed to be more confident of their ground. There seem to be possibilities of combining the new approaches that are being worked on in many different ways that have not yet been explored. And there was a significantly increased area of agreement between the engineers on the hearing panel and their counterparts in industry. For these reasons, and also because of the continuing high degree of public interest at this time in the technology of emission control and what can be expected for the future, a general survey of the field is appropriate here. a. The Basics of Emission Control The conventional automobile engine, like most other heat engines in use today, works by burning fuel in air to release heat. The energy of combustion causes the burning mixture of fuel and air to expand, and this expansion is used to produce mechanical work. More precisely, in today's automobile engine air is taken from the outside, and fuel is metered into it as the air passes through the carburetor. This creates a mixture of air and fuel. That mixture passes into the intake mani- fold, which serves as a holding and distribution chamber from which the individual cylinders can draw it. This mixture is then drawn into each individual cylinder by a down-stroke of the piston, which creates a vacuum, and is compressed on the next up-stroke. When the point of maximum compression is approached, the spark plug is fired and the mixture ignited. The expanding gases push the piston down again, and are then discharged into the exhaust system by the next up-stroke. Since automobile air pollution is the direct product of combustion in the cylinders, efforts to describe and control it have looked first to the combustion process and how it might be modified. ------- FIGURE I Stoichiometric Conventional Engine — Lean Burn Engine AIR/FUEL RATIO FIGURE III-l The Relationship of Typical Engine Emissions and Performance to Air/Fuel Ratio. The Vertical Scale is Linear and Shows Relative Rather than Absolute Values for Each Param- eter. ------- - 20 - The relationship of primary importance has been the ratio of air to fuel in the mixture fed to the combustion chambers. If this mixture contains just the amount of air that is theoretically needed to completely burn all of the fuel, on the assumption that all chemical reactions proceed as far as the materials present allow, the engine is said to be running "at stoichiometric". Since chemical reactions in the real world are not this perfect, there will be incomplete combustion even in an engine running at stoichiometric. If the air-to-fuel ratio is greater than stoichiometric, the engine is said to be running "lean"; if it is less, the engine is running "rich". In the conventional automobile engine, the relationships between air/fuel ratios, fuel economy, power, and emissions of HC, CO, and NOX are well known. They are set forth in Figure 1, a reproduction from the NAS Report. The first step auto makers generally took to comply with emission control requirements was to "lean out" the air fuel ratio by moving from richer mixtures that optimized driveability to the lean side so as to provide more air than theoretically required for complete burning. This generally improved fuel economy as well as reducing emissions. Tr. 245, F. App. II-B- 7. There is a limit, however, to how far to the lean side conventional engines can be calibrated and still have enough gasoline in the mixture to ignite predictably and burn smoothly. If such performance cannot be achieved, not only does driveability suffer; the incomplete combustion causes emission of hydrocarbons to rise. Accordingly, as emission control requirements became tighter, the manufacturers began to adjust the point in the combustion cycle at which the spark plug fires in order to provide some additional emission control. Ideally, for maximum efficiency the spark should be fired somewhere before the piston reaches the top of the compression stroke. This ensures that as much of the burn as possible will take place while the piston is still high in the chamber, so that the heat energy released by the expanding gases will be available to the maximum extent for driving the piston on its down stroke. However, having the combustion energy released so early in the tightest confines of the piston cylinder also means that combustion will be less complete because of the higher surface to volume ratio that occurs when the piston is near the top of its stroke. The high surface to volume ratio results in a greater fraction of the hydrocarbon compounds ------- - 21 - being in contact with the surfaces of the engine during the combustion process, where they are not burned because of flame quenching. Combustion near top dead center also maximizes expansion of the mixture that occurs thereby lowering exhaust temperatures and reducing the continued oxi- dation reaction that occurs in the exhaust system. To combat this, the spark can be "retarded" or fired at a later point in the cycle. This delay in starting com- bustion means that less expansion will have occurred when the piston reaches the bottom of its stroke and the exhaust gas will be hotter, which in turn allows the reaction by which hydrocarbons are burned to harmless substances to continue in the exhaust system. This results in lower hydrocarbon emissions from the tailpipe.* As far as we know today, spark retard always and unam- biguously results in a reduction in fuel economy. For this reason, the auto companies have begun to eliminate or reduce its use whenever they can. However, to the extent that they are unable or unwilling to apply other methods to meet a given emission standard spark retard will be used, and fuel economy will suffer. This point has been stressed over and over again. G.M. App. I-b-2; F. App. II-B pp. 13-14; C. App. IV-A-15; Tr. 71, 299. b. The State of the Art i. Non-Catalyst Technology The auto companies are pursuing two basic approaches in their attempt to reduce emissions from the engine itself. The first is to control and vary certain engine functions more precisely under different driving conditions; the second is to change some of the basic fixed components of the engine so as to make its baseline emissions lower. *Carbon monoxide is not nearly as sensitive to spark position as hydrocarbons being influenced mainly by the air/fuel ratio. G.M. App., Appendix 7, Attachment 1, Fig. 9. This is because CO burns to harmless substances at a significantly higher temperature than hydrocarbons, which means that the extra heat supplied to the exhaust system by spark retard alone is less effective in controlling it. See Tr. 748, 1250. ------- - 22 - The premise of the first approach is that there is a wide gap between the variety of different speed, acceleration, load, temperature, and altitude conditions which an engine is likely to encounter and the ability of such engine functions as spark timing and fuel metering to adjust to them. In part, this has been the result of ignorance - the auto companies have just not known what exact engine adjust- ments would be optimum under any given circumstances. In recent years, studies of this matter have picked up consid- erably.* G.M. App. Appendix 7, Attachment 1, Ford letter 1/14/75. Second, even where the proper adjustments are known, the technology in use on automobiles today is often just not flexible enough to achieve them. Efforts to control engine functions more closely have yielded one major success so far. It involves the use of modulated exhaust gas recir- culation (EGR) to reduce NOX emissions. The amount of NOX formed in an engine is dependent on high temperature, length of combustion, and the amount of oxygen present, all of which combine to maximize NOX emissions when the air/fuel ratio is slightly lean. Accordingly, the first steps taken to reduce emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide also increased NOX emissions. To control this, the auto companies began to recirculate some exhaust gas back to the engine air intake, where it was inserted and passed through the combustion process once again. The use in the combustion chamber of this exhaust gas rather than air tends to lower the oxygen concentration and the combustion temperature, and hence to lower NOX emis- sions. *A year and a half ago, at our hearings on suspension of what was then the 1976 oxides of nitrogen emission standard, Dr. Hutcheson of the National Academy of Sciences testified that under the pressure of the emission standards in the Clean Air Act Tne automotive industry, in my opinion, has in the last three years or so learned more about the engine in the automobile that they make than they ever knew before. 1976 Suspension Hearings transcript, p. 1299. This knowledge appears to be growing as the pressure is kept up. ------- - 23 - For several years it was thought that the addition of an inert substance to the combustion chamber would inevitably deteriorate the quality of the combustion and harm fuel economy. Work by General Motors has now demonstrated that this is not the case, and that in fact moderate amounts of EGR can improve fuel economy. Gumbleton, Bolton and Lang, "Optimizing Engine Parameters with Exhaust Gas Recirculation", SAE* Paper 740104, reproduced at G.M. App., Appendix 7, Attachment 1. Besides changing the ratio of specific heats of the mixture, EGR tends to improve fuel economy for two other reasons: (i) Because the EGR dilutes the "fresh" mixture, less throttling is required at a given speed and load point. This reduces the pumping losses that make the conventional engine inherently less efficient than the diesel. (ii) EGR provides "mechanical octane" allowing more spark advance without knock than would otherwise be the case. See Tr. 836; G.M. App. Appendix 7, p. 7. The GM work also indicates that a higher percentage of EGR in the air stream can be tolerated without adverse effects at higher engine loadings than at low ones. Since NOX emissions also increase with engine loadings, this increasing EGR tolerance would allow more EGR to be provided just when it was needed. See Tr. 870 (Ford). However, the EGR systems initially in general use did just the opposite — they provided the maximum percent of EGR at low loads, and decreased it as the loads got higher. For some time the defects of this system in causing decreased fuel economy and driveability were attributed to EGR generally. Since then, EGR systems that provide a more constant percentage of EGR with increasing engine load have been developed and are in use on some 1975 models. They are a major reason, along with catalysts, for the increased fuel economy of the 1975 models, though not all 1975 cars use them. To this extent, then, the theoretical studies of engine performance initiated by the need to control emissions have paid off. Tr. 458-59, 461 (GM). *The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) is the established forum of the auto industry for the presentation and exchange of technical papers. ------- - 24 - But the final step to providing an increased proportion of EGR at higher loadings cannot be taken until new hardware is developed. Chrysler and Ford are both developing a system that would accomplish this by controlling EGR metering electronically. Ford hopes to have this system ready for the 1978 model year. C. App. III-A-11. Tr. 168; F. App. VI-J pp. 2-3, Tr. 869-70. Each of the big three auto companies is also working on electronic control of major engine variables. GM App. Appendix 15, pp. 11-12, F. App. VI-E p. 2, Tr. 39-40 (Chrysler). See also Tr. 3138, 3146-48, (Bendix testimony that such a system can be ready by the 1978 model year). The two engine functions aside from exhaust gas recir- culation that would probably be controlled by an electronic system are spark timing and air/fuel ratio. Though ideally all three should be controlled at once so that their total operation can be put together in the most efficient way, control of any single function by itself would also be a significant advance. It appears that electronic control of spark timing could definitely be installed on a large number of 1977 vehicles. GM plans to introduce it by then, while Chrysler is aiming at 1976. Tr. 75-76; 186-87; 576-84; GM App. 3-a-5. The time in the piston cycle at which current spark systems fire is generally governed by simple mechanical or electrical linkages to such other engine functions as engine speed and manifold vacuum. Electronic control would allow a wider range of variable to be sensed, and would allow the timing of the spark response to be more flexibly programmed. Status Report p. 3-15; GM App. Appendix 8; C. App. II-C & D-6; Tr. 576-78 (GM). Electronic control of the air-fuel ratio seems farther off, even though the principle to be used is well understood. Volvo plans to introduce a form of such control on its 1978 models. Tr. 1337-8. To control air/fuel ratio electronically, a sensor would be placed in the exhaust stream to monitor its com- position and feed any necessary adjustment signals back to the fuel metering system. Tr. 3289 (Chrysler), ("ultimate solution" to control problems); Tr. 3518 (Ford), ("we desperately would like to have a control system that would allow us to peg air/fuel ratio"). Bosch has developed a sensor that is capable of "pegging" the air/fuel ratio at stoichiometric and will last for 15,000 miles, NAS Rpt. p. 61; Tr. 2988-90, and it is this sensor that Volvo plans to use. Tr. 1379 (See also Tr. 1054-55 (VW), 1843 (Engelhard). ------- - 25 - The domestic manufacturers, however, want to calibrate at a leaner ratio for better fuel economy, and sensors that will work in that range are still in the early development stages. F. App. VI-M; Tr. 3133-36; 3303, 3307, 3511. No witness would predict when they might be ready for general use. * The industry, in addition to these efforts to control engine functions more closely, is attempting to reduce the baseline emission characteristics of the present engine by changing some of its components. Efforts here are centered in two areas: Reducing emissions during the first minute or so of th'e Federal emissions test, and enabling the engine to run farther in the lean range without adverse consequences. *Air/fuel ratio could probably not be controlled as tightly by such a system in a car equipped with a conven- tional' carburetor as in one using fuel injection, in which the fuel is sprayed directly into each intake port through a nozzle. In a carbureted vehicle the air/fuel mixture must pass through the carburetor and be distributed to the intake ports after the fuel has been metered in. During this period the air/fuel ratio may be disturbed by settling of fuel on the manifold walls and similar phenomena. In addition, the time that the mixture takes to make this journey delays the response of the total system to feed- back signals. Tr. 1504-05; 3014-15. With current control systems, these differences are probably not important, NAS Rpt. p. 48, G.M. App. 3-a-6; Tr. 887, but with more sophisticated approaches such as a "three- way" catalyst, a switch to fuel injection or some other alternative to the conventional carburetor would most likely be necessary. G.M. App. Appendix 15 p. 3. Though fuel injection technology is fully developed, no domestic manufacturer has any plans to make this switch in quantity, and it probably could not be completed until several years into the 1980's. Tr. 882-8; 3024-28, 3031. ------- - 26 - When an engine starts "cold" after having been shut off for some time, the low temperature makes it hard to mix the fuel with the air so as to create a partly vaporized combus- tible mixture. To counteract problems in getting the ignition to catch the choke is used to increase the fuel/air ratio during this period. However, the excess fuel is not burned completely even when ignition is achieved, and so HC and CO emissions during cold starts tend to be very high. On catalyst-equipped cars this problem is magnified, since these emissions go essentially uncontrolled by the catalyst which is still at too low a temperature to have begun working. For these reasons, the auto companies have devoted an increasing proportion of their development efforts to the "cold start" with which the official EPA certification test begins. Tr. 569-71; 777. The aim has been to reduce the need for excess fuel metering, and the time during which it is applied. To this end, devices such as chokes which automati- cally and quickly turn themselves off and pipes to divert exhaust gases past the wall of the intake system to heat it up quickly and thus warm the fuel during cold starts have been developed and installed on many current production vehicles. Two new developments in this area appear to have immediate promise. The first is a small electric resistance heater (like a hot-plate) which would be installed in or near the outlet of the carburetor and, when turned on, would vaporize a small amount of fuel whatever the outside tem- perature was. By use of this device, reported by Chrysler, C. App. IV-A-21, the substantial excess amount of fuel pro- vided by the choke would be replaced by a smaller amount of fuel heated and vaporized so as to be more readily burnable. Chrysler, however, declined to set a target date for intro- ducing this device, though they did indicate that it would not happen in the near future. Tr. 207-10. The second development - the Dresser carburetor - is far more sweeping and promising. It would also require extensive new investment, which may be one reason the auto companies have been markedly reluctant to explore its potential. There is no reason to believe, however, that the final cost would be dramatically increased over present carburetors. Tr. 1459-60; 1558-59; 1509-10. In all carburetors there is a narrow passage between the fuel metering device and the intake manifold through which the air/fuel mixture passes. The speed of the mixture ------- - 27 - at that point is a function of the pressure differential across the passage, which varies due to changes in the throttle position. The Dresser carburetor simply varies the size of that opening and no throttle is used. The size of the open- ing is controlled to a range that ensures that the speed of the mixture at the throat of the passage is almost always the speed of sound. Tr. 1433-36. The shock wave created downstream of the throat by the transition from supersonic to subsonic flow atomizes the fuel droplets and creates a very fine and even mixture of air and fuel. Since the amount of air flowing through the carburetor can be precisely calculated from the fact that the speed of sound is a constant, control of fuel metering should be all that would be necessary to achieve very precise control of the air/fuel ratio. Tr. 788, 1437. The evidence at the hearing was virtually unanimous that the Dresser carburetor represents a significant advance over prior systems, although the auto companies were noticeably less enthusiastic in this regard than other witnesses. NAS Kept. p. 48, Status Kept. pp. 3-11-12, 7-41-45, F. App. VI- C-10 ("test fixture results of an encouraging nature"); C. App. Vol. IV, p. 152 ("considerable promise" but "unproven"); G.M. App. Appendix 19 p. 9 ("no significant improvement in exhaust emission control or fuel economy"); Tr. 214-24 (Chrysler) ("excellent potential"); Tr. 787 (Ford) ("we are encouraged"); Tr. 1496-97 (Carter Carburetor) ("a definite improvement over the present day carburetors"); Tr. 1554- 55 (Holly Carburetor) ("convinced" it "represents a real and significant advantage over the types of carburetors that are employed on cars today"), 2414 (NAS). The principle of the Dresser carburetor has been known since 1970. Tr. 1451-52. Yet even Ford, the company which has worked the most with this device, testified that even on an optimistic view it would not be possible to put it on production vehicles before the 1979 model year. Tr. 786, 795. Other witnesses concurred. Tr. 1502 (Carter Carburetor); 1556 (Holly Carburetor). The very even mixture which the Dresser carburetor pro- duces means that ignition during most cold starts should be achievable without choking and warm-up devices. In addition, the improved combustibility of such a mixture should make it possible to operate further in the lean range without misfires. Operating further in the lean range in this manner would amount to a change in the characteristics of the engine described in Figure 1. With better fuel preparation, operating lean need no longer cause misfires and an increase in emissions. Instead, the leaner mixture can make possible more complete combustion of the fuel, thus reducing HC and CO emissions, while the reduced combustion temperature also lowers the formation of NO . The "lean burn engine" much discussed at the hearings is simply a more or less conventional engine ------- - 28 - with various new components and adjustments that allow it to operate leaner. Many improvements in use or under development to improve operation in the lean range affect the combustion process itself. High-energy ignition which provides a longer and hotter spark and eliminates moving parts in the ignition system is standard equipment on some vehicles today. Minor modifications to the piston chamber and head are also being investigated.* By far the most public interest here, however, has centered on stratified charge engines such as the CVCC now being produced by Honda. These engines all work by dividing the fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber into two portions, one fairly rich, and the other quite lean. The rich charge is ignited first, and it in turn provides enough energy to ignite even a mix- ture too lean to be touched off by an ordinary spark plug. Mixtures which are thus very lean on the average can be ignited this way.** *Yamaha has developed a system of engine modifications that it claims can achieve the statutory emission standards through a "lean burn" approach without the use of a catalyst and at a total cost of fifty dollars. Though the details of the system are still proprietary and will not be discussed, cars equipped with the Yamaha system have been tested at the EPA Ann Arbor facility and represent a significant engineering advance in the opinion of my technical staff. Status Report 7-46-47; Tr. 1401-02; 1426-27. **As discussed below, Ford and Chrysler have cancelled their rotary engine (Wankel engine) development programs, and GM has postponed the introduction of its rotary engine indefinitely, in each case because of inability to achieve emission standards with anything like acceptable fuel economy. Toyo Kogyo ("Mazda") which introduced the rotary, however, seems confident of making the rotary competitive again by adapting the stratified charge concept to it. Since the rotary engine works on the same principle as the piston engine, with the rotor taking the place of the pistons and certain specified areas along the rotor chamber wall taking the place of the cylinders, there is no theoretical reason why this cannot be done. ------- 29 - Finally, the industry is also working on modifications to the exhaust system. The most dramatic of these - the catalytic converter - is discussed in the next section. Other modifications short of this, however, have also made great progress. One other approach is simply to insulate the exhaust system so that heat will be retained in it longer. This will make it possible for HC and CO emissions to burn them- selves to harmless substances for a longer period even after they leave the engine. Ford has achieved substantial results with this approach, but claims that most of the new developments will not be ready for production by the 1977 model year. F. App. VI-A-1-3; VI-F-3-5; VI-0; Tr. 782-84. See also Status Rept. 3-7; C. App. IV-A-22-24; Tr. 212-13. As noted on page 11 above, many cars use an air pump to accelerate the combustion process in the exhaust system either with or without a catalyst. It is generally agreed that in theory maintaining a constant proportion of air in the exhaust system is the best way to promote combustion, a condition that air pumps currently in use do not provide. Both GM and Ford have experimented with "modulated air" to correct this fault, Ford with encouraging results, GM with results it labels indifferent. F. App. VI-L; G.M. App. Appendix 6 pp. 4-6; see also C. App. Vol. IV p. 154. Though the modification to the air pump needed to accomplish this is simple and cheap, Status Report p. 3-11, no auto company has announced plans to install it on their 1977 models. ii. Catalyst Technology The most significant facts about catalyst technology have already been set forth - that it has proved highly effective in controlling emissions, fully capable of mass production, durable in certification testing and field trials, and that it gives promise of being durable in use. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that: What is really needed is a better understanding of the engine characteristics that lead to catalyst deterioration. As these are better understood through experience and this infor- mation is reflected in better engine-control designs, it should be possible to meet much lower standards easily with catalyst-equipped vehicles. NAS Rept. p. 41. ------- - 30 - Despite this, and even though considerable work was reported on tighter control of other engine functions, virtually no work along these lines was reported by the auto companies. Indeed, the only major new development disclosed by auto companies was aimed at the problem of "cold start" emissions discussed in the preceding section. This work involves the addition of a small second catalyst to the exhaust system very close to the engine and ahead of the main catalyst. The small size of the catalyst, combined with its position close to the source of heat in the engine, means that it will reach working temperature and begin converting HC and CO to harmless substances sooner than the main catalyst can. Once the main catalyst begins functioning, the small catalyst can be switched out of the exhaust system to preserve its durability. Status Report 3-9-10; Tr. 1927-29. See also Tr. 170-71; 538-43, 558. Both GM and Chrysler have indicated that use of a "start catalyst" is part of their first choice system for meeting the 1977 standards. C. App. IV-A-1; GM App. 4-a-l- 2-3. Though not much testing has been done, and though the auto companies were very cautious, it appears that this device has the potential for both improved emission control and improved fuel economy at the same time. Tr. 298, 556-57. The catalyst companies appear to be concentrating their efforts on new catalyst formulations that will retain a high efficiency for controlling HC and CO for longer periods. Substantial progress appears to be being made. Tr. 562-66; 767-69; 1829; 1933; 2103-04; 2212; 2219-20; 2239-40; 2304. In at least one area of analysis more general agreement between EPA and the auto companies on how to assess catalyst performance seems to have been reached. Though certain areas can be pointed to where the functioning of the catalyst and the engine to which it is attached may influence each other, Tr. 182, 584-85, 2084-85, the three major auto companies appear now to have adopted EPA's long-standing position that these are minor enough to be overlooked, and that for analytical purposes emissions from any conventional automobile engine operating without a catalyst can be adjusted to account for the addition of a catalyst simply by adjusting for the percentage reduction in emissions which that particular catalyst has been shown to produce. G.M. App. 4-a-2, p. 6, 9 F. App. III-D; Tr. 329-31 (Chrysler); Tr. 808 (Ford). In other words, the catalyst functions as a percentage reduction device by which the emissions from an engine are reduced to a fraction of their former value without otherwise affecting the operation of the engine in any way. ------- - 31 - What is more, oxidation catalysts can also be added to any variety of "alternate engine" as long as it uses unleaded gasoline, and the same emission reductions will result. This takes on importance as it begins to appear (see Section III-1-d below) that some of the most attractive "alternate engines" from a fuel economy standpoint may need a catalyst to meet low emission numbers. c. Ability to Achieve the Standards in 1977 The central question raised by these applications is whether "effective" control technology is available to achieve compliance with the statutory HC and CO emission standards in the 1977 model year. As I indicated above, the question of sulfuric acid emissions to my mind prevents such a determination. If it were not for this issue, the determining factors here would be: (i) Can enough models of vehicles to meet 1977 "basic demand" be certified prior to commencement of 1977 model year production?; (ii) Will these vehicles comply with the other emission control requirements of the Clean Air Act, such as assembly-line testing and in-use compliance?; and (iii) Can these vehicles be mass-produced in quantity? No witness seriously denied that the actual hardware needed for 1977 compliance could be produced and installed on vehicles in the time remaining. Such an argument would be hard to accept in any event, since the industry has already demonstrated its capacity to smoothly make the far greater production shift attendant on widespread introduc- tion of the catalytic converter during the 1975 model year. As for certification, all three applicants admit that they can certify a number of model lines at the statutory standards in 1977. Chrysler and General Motors express some uncertainty as to whether they can certify all their models, and only suggest that they probably could not, Tr. 35, 49, 70, 156 (Chrysler); 300, 394, (GM), while Ford makes a determined effort to demonstrate by quantitative analysis that only a small percentage of its vehicles could qualify. F. App. III-D, Letter of 1/22/75; Tr. 628-29. ------- - 32 - Assessing the validity of these claims is considerably more difficult than it was at the time of our two hearings held in 1973. The level of vehicle testing aimed at achieving the statutory emission levels has dropped off considerably since that period, an interesting fact which argues that either the auto companies are already confident of their ability to achieve the standards, or that they do not believe that the standards will be enforced. Nevertheless, my technical staff has again estimated the ability of the industry to certify by use of a quanti- tative methodoloby. The characteristics of this methodology have been the subject of far-reaching disclosure and comment in the past, and no detailed recapitulation is necessary here. However, two points about it should be made. The first is that every promising test result on a given car is adjusted to take account of the possibility that the same car, tested again, might not perform so well, and only those readings which are so low as to give high confidence that the results of any retest would also be below the standards are used to predict an ability to certify. The second is that although test results obtained from cars that did not use the full range of emission control systems available were adjusted to indicate what the result would be if the missing pieces had been used, this was only done to the extent that the portions omitted will be available for production in 1977. Accordingly, no credit was taken for most of the promising new approaches discussed in the preceding section. The results of this approach are that models represent- ing between ninety and one hundred percent of the sales of each of the applicants, and of their total sales, are predicted with high confidence to certify at the statutory levels in 1977. The auto companies also argued, with varying degrees of specificity, that whatever their ability to achieve certifi- cation might be, their ability to comply with the recently proposed EPA assembly-line test regulation, see 39 Fed. Reg. 45360 (Dec. 31, 1974), would be substantially less/ at least if any more than half the cars were required to meet standards. That argument has been considered, and an analysis of it is set forth in the Technical Appendix. Briefly, it indicates that assembly line testing may have some impact on the ability of the manufacturer to certify, but that tighter quality control in actual production can tend to offset any such effect. ------- - 33 - Predicting the ability of 1977 systems to comply with those sections of the Clean Air Act aimed at ensuring that vehicles meet the emission standards in customer use is more difficult, both because the actual methods of adminis- trative implementation of these provisions have not been settled by EPA and because there has been little experience with catalyst cars in the hands of consumers. However, what information there is suggests as noted above that catalysts are durable in use, and that cars meeting the 1977 emission standards in 1977 could achieve substantial compliance even with fairly stringent approaches to imple- menting these provisions. d. Emissions, Fuel Economy, and Alternative Engines i. Emissions and Fuel Economy - The Effect on the Engine Every automobile engine, when tuned for maximum fuel economy, emits pollutants at a certain rate. For some engines, this rate can be quite low. Some diesel engines meet the 1977 standards without any adjustment for emission control at all, Tr. 755, and Honda testified that its CVCC engine delivers the best fuel economy when tuned to the California standards, not to some higher number. Tr. 1228. The same relationship holds for more conventional engines and their associated after-treatment devices. To every combination of carburetor, intake manifold, combustion chamber design, ignition system, catalyst, and the like, there corresponds a given emission level when the engine is tuned for maximum fuel economy. If that system is now required to reduce emissions below that level, this can be done in two ways. The engine can be recalibrated, probably through the use of spark retard, and fuel economy will suffer. Alternatively, the system design can be changed so that its basic emissions are lower. There is no inherent reason to believe that such adjustments will be bad for fuel economy, and in the past many such adjustments have been good for fuel economy. Status Report 3-3, 6-1-2; Tr. 245. This point was extensively discussed at the hearings, and accepted by the auto companies, albeit at times with some reluctance. Tr. 75, 169-70, 187, 234, 330 (Chrysler); Tr. 464-65 (GM); Tr. 752-57, 783-84, 814, 819-20 (Ford); Tr. 1038 (VW). It is for this reason that the National Academy of Sciences and my technical staff are in agreement that: ------- - 34 - The reduction of emissions insures neither a reduction nor an increase in engine efficiency, with the citing of examples of both cases possible. NAS Kept. 31; Status Report 2-1; 2-3; 3-3; Appendix B. The testimony at the hearings indicated that the engine- catalyst systems being used to meet the current national interim standards could not deliver very much more fuel economy than they do now even if all emission standards were completely removed. Tr. 453 (GM) ("I think we are probably near the flat part of the curve"); Tr. 245 (Chrysler) ("[I]f NOX were not a consideration, we have got 4 or 5 percent in fuel economy we could pick up ... [o]ffhand, I don't think [a relaxation of HC and CO controls from that level] really would help much"). At this point, two questions arise. The first is whether new advances in technology might change this relation- ship, and make it possible to gain dramatic increases in fuel economy through the installation of some new device that would also increase emissions. The answer here is simple. Absolutely no testimony concerning any such device was introduced in these proceedings and in the opinion of my technical staff, there is no reason to believe that any such device exists. The second question is whether technology is being developed that has the potential for reducing emissions and improving fuel economy at the same time. The answer is that virtually every new approach under investigation has this potential. Electronic control of engine functions should have the effect of making greater fuel economy possible at any given level of emission control, and vice versa. It would replace engine adjustments made for no reasons other than the short- comings of the current control system with adjustments that have been made for a purpose. That purpose could be either fuel economy or emission control or any combination of the two. Indeed, though the necessary detailed work on engine relationships has not yet been done, the example of EGR control discussed above makes it reasonable to expect that in other areas potential trade-offs can be minimized, and one factor maximized, at essentially no sacrifice in terms of the other. Efforts to reduce "cold start" emissions are almost all good for fuel economy, since they generally aim at reducing the use of excess fuel at this point in the driving cycle. ------- - 35 - Engines using the Dresser carburetor and other "lean burn" systems also appear to have inherently lower emissions when tuned for maximum fuel economy than do current engines. This tendency is to be expected, since operating leaner (i.e. with less fuel in the air) without misfire should make the same amount of fuel go farther and also reduce pollution as more complete combustion is achieved. Finally, improved catalysts and exhaust treatment devices will reduce emissions at essentially no cost in fuel economy. ------- - 36 - ii. Fuel Economy and "Alternative Engines" Much discussion in recent years has focused on the ability of engines that differ from the current one in some respects to achieve low emission levels, and it has often been said that the ultimate answer to the auto emissions problem lies in the general adoption of one or more of these "alternative engines". With increasing concern about fuel economy, the dis- cussion has broadened to include the fuel economy benefits that might be realized at low emission levels through general use in passenger cars of either the diesel, the Wankel, or the strat- ified charge engine. There can be no doubt that diesel-powered automobiles would have substantially greater fuel economy than any alterna- tive foreseeable in the next ten years, or that their HC and CO emissions are naturally so low that meeting the 1977 emission standards is no problem at all. NAS Kept. p. 70, Tr. 898 (Mercedes-Benz). However, the domestic auto companies have no firm plans to introduce diesel automobiles into this country, even though General Motors, at least, does produce a diesel for sale in Europe. Tr. 590-91. Mercedes-Benz, by contrast, is stepping up its diesel sales in the United States. Tr. 901-02; 937. Though the domestics all give the alleged inability of the diesel engine to meet the ultimate statutory NOX emission standard of .4 g/mi as a major factor in their decision, it appears that such other characteristics of the present diesel engine as low power-to-weight ratio resulting in sluggish per- formance, starting problems at low temperature, noise, odor and particulate* emissions, and the modifications that would have to be made to current engine blocks to enable them to accommodate the increased stresses of diesel operation are at least of equal importance. GM App. 4-a-7, pp. 8-10, F. App. V-c-1-12; C. App. IV-G-14; Tr. 589-91 (GM); 1142-48 (Nissan). Though in all probability many of these problems could be eliminated or *There is some concern that the diesel engine, even though it does not use a catalyst, may have a problem of sulfate emissions due to the high sulfur content of diesel fuel. NAS Kept. 144, Tr. 2386-87. ------- - 37 - reduced with work, very little along these lines was reported. NAS Kept- 74; Tr. 946-47. The Wankel engine is at the opposite extreme. General Motors was planning to introduce it in the 1975 model year, but those plans have been shelved indefinitely due to poor emission control and fuel economy performance. GM App. 4-a-7 pp. 13-14, Attachment 2. The other two major auto companies have dropped their rotary engine programs outright. F. App. V-l, V-O16; C. App. IV-G-9-10. However, Toyo Kogyo, which first introduced the rotary engine into commercial use in the Mazda and which has demonstrated that the statutory emission standards can be achieved with it, plans to improve fuel economy by 50% over 1974 levels and achieve the statutory emission levels at the same time. Tr. 1240-41. As discussed above, Toyo Kogyo plans to do this by adapting to the rotary engine the principle of stratified charge, which probably has received more attention than any other "alternative engine"approach. The bulk of that publicity has focused on the use of stratified charge in what is otherwise essentially a conventional piston engine. One such modified engine - the Honda CVCC - has been in production in Japan for some time and has just gone on sale in this country. The weight of opinion seems at present to agree that the Honda engine may not be the most attractive stratified charge engine from a fuel economy standpoint. An engine of a. somewhat different design, of which the Ford PROCO is one example, seems to surpass it. However, those other engines will require a catalyst to meet the 1977 statutory standards. NAS Kept. p. 9, FE Rept. pp. 47-48, Tr. 685, 3534-37 (Ford), 2357 (NAS), F. App. V. p. 2. Honda believes that its system has good fuel economy potential and based on its past performance may well be proved right in the end. Tr. 1212. See also NAS Rept. p. 68. Whatever alternate engine, if any, might ultimately be chosen, one thing clear from the hearing record is that introduction of such engines in quantity into domestic produc- tion cannot be expected any time soon. The NAS has estimated that if the decision to convert to diesels were taken today, and a high percentage of the domestic machine-tool industry made available to modify the engine lines so that diesel engines rather than gasoline engines could be produced on them, only 12% of American production could be converted to diesels ------- - 38 - by 1980, and only 17% by 1983. HAS Kept. p. 114. There is no reason to believe, however, that the domestic industry is close to making a decision to convert any significant amount of its capacity to diesels. Conversion to the Wankel engine would take even longer, since it has a completely different shape from the current engine and much more extensive retooling would be necessary. As noted, the domestic industry has cut back or eliminated its Wankel programs. As for the stratified charge, the NAS has estimated that up to 27% of domestic production could be converted to the use of CVCC engines by 1980 if the decision to convert were taken today, with the percentage reaching 41% by 1983. NAS Kept. p. 114. See also Tr. 1236 (Honda estimates less than 4 years lead time to begin CVCC production). There is no prospect, however, that anything like that time-table will be met. In the first place, the domestic manufacturers have all stated explicitly that they will not even seriously consider conversion unless the statutory NOX standard of .4 g/mi. is changed. They insist that engines which must operate in the lean range, like the stratified charge, cannot be used with a NOx catalyst, which requires rich or stoichiometric conditions, and that use of a NOX catalyst will be needed to achieve the statutory NOX standard.* But even if the NOx emission standard were relaxed, there is no assurance that the change-over would be made. Since the auto companies can achieve both the statutory emission standards and - eventually - very significant improvements in fuel economy with the conventional engine plus a catalyst, the *There is at least some theoretical doubt about this last point. EGR alone can control NOX emissions to very low levels with more or less constant fuel economy, but after a certain point only at the price of a steep rise in hydrocarbon emissions Improvements in hydrocarbon control techniques could therefore make possible increased control of NOx wj-thout the use of a NOX catalyst. F. App. VI-E-3; Tr. 457-61 (GM); Tr. 3316-21 (Chrysler). At present, however, it appears that the required degree of HC control could only be provided by an oxidizing catalyst. ------- - 39 - relative attractiveness of the stratified charge approach has been diminished. The substantial investment that would be required to make the change-over is another strike against it. Chrysler and General Motors discussed their stratified charge programs only in the most general and conclusory terms, and resisted any implication that they were eager to move away from the present basic engine configuration. GM App. 4-a-7, pp. 1-8; Appendix 21, p. 3; C. App. IV-G-10-13, Tr. 53, 319. Even Ford, which has the most advanced stratified charge program among the applicants, declined to say definitely that it would introduce a stratified charge engine if relief from the NOX standard were obtained, Tr. 682-86, and estimated that complete change-over, even if the decision to go ahead were made, could not be accomplished much before 1990, Tr. 3521- 22. Chrysler has estimated the first domestically produced stratified charge engine could not be on the market until 1980. C. App. IV-E-6. iii. The Impact of Engine Characteristics on Total Fuel Consumption by the Automobile In evaluating all the publicity that has surrounded the alleged "trade-off" between emission control and fuel economy, it is important to recognize that the actual operation of the engine is a relatively small factor in determining the total amount of our fuel supply consumed by automobiles. Historically, growth in the number of automobiles and the amount each automobile is driven has had far greater impact here than any decrease in average miles per gallon. Page 20 of the EPA-DOT 120 day Report on Fuel Economy contains a circle graph showing that of the total increase in automobile fuel consumption between 1950 and 1972, 85% could be traced to growth in the number of automobiles, 8% to in- creased use of each individual automobile, and only 7% to a decrease in miles per gallon achieved by the average car. When we focus on that last 7%, it is clear that the overwhelming influence on miles per gallon is vehicle weight. NAS Kept. p. 20. This was generally conceded to be true at the suspension hearings, Tr. 77 (Chrysler), 424-25 (GM), 2028 (UOP), and is self-evident from EPA certification test results, which show that in 1975 vehicles of 3000 pounds and under had fuel economy far better than vehicles of 5000 pounds and over. It is interesting, then, to examine the extent to which the domestic manufacturers are planning to rely on re- ductions in the average weight of their model line to achieve ------- - 40 - the 40% fuel economy improvement goal to which they have committed. Reduction in the weight of the average car sold by a given manufacturer can be achieved either (i) by selling a greater proportion of smaller models, such as more compacts as opposed to intermediates, or (ii) by redesigning a given model (such as the intermediate) to reduce its weight. No manufacturer anticipated any future shift of its production to smaller models in excess of the trend of two to three percent a year that has been established for some time. C. App. Vol. IV, p. 160, GM 2/4 letter, Attachment 1; Tr. 79- 87, 248-50; 318; 421, 438, 650-51. Indeed Chrysler expected the proportion of cars over 4000 pounds that it would sell to be markedly greater in 1980 than in 1974.* When questioned on this point, all three applicants replied that they only can sell what the market wants, and that they could not enforce a shift to smaller cars. Tr. 260- 61, 270, 273 (Chrysler); 318, 428 (GM); 690-91 (Ford). The economic forecasting models on which these sales predictions were based did not take account of any governmental action that might increase the price of gasoline. Tr. 436 (GM); 723 (Ford). Two of the three applicants, however, are embarked on programs to redesign cars in a given category to reduce their weight.** GM said it will spend three billion dollars fdr this purpose between now and 1980. GM 1/16 submission, esp. Attachment 4; Tr. 318, 421-30. *A lighter car will also have an easier time meeting any given set of emission standards. NAS Rept. p. 105, F. App. Appendix 3-C, Tr. 696-97, 1488. **The 40% improvement goal has been distributed unequally among different manufacturers, with those whose 1974 fuel economy performance was the worst undertaking to make the most significant gains. Under this formula GM has said it will try to achieve a mileage gain by 1980 of 53%, Chrysler of 35%, and Ford of 30%. ------- - 41 - Ford, though not giving investment predictions, did indicate that it, too, would be active in this field. Tr. 647-48. Chrysler, however, gave no similar indication, and in fact strongly suggested it had no such intention. C. App. Vol. IV, pp. 208-10; Tr. 259, 262. Finally, even when weight is ignored, changes in engine efficiency are only one of the modifications that can be made to a vehicle to increase its fuel economy. The EPA-DOT report lists a number of other measures such as radial tires, better transmissions, smaller engines for big cars and better streamlining that could also be employed. The relative impact of these measures (excluding weight changes) for different car sizes is estimated as roughly equal to the gains that could be realized by increases in engine efficiency. FE Rept. pp. 40, 42. Since that report has been criticized for being over-optimistic about engine efficiency improvements, while its estimates of non-engine improvements have been endorsed by General Motors, GM 1/16 Letter p. 2, these percentages probably underestimate the relative importance of non-engine improvements. But see C. App. Vol. IV, pp. 145-51. e. Lead in Gasoline All gasoline stations over a certain size are currently required by EPA regulation to have available at least one grade of unleaded gasoline of at least 91 octane for use by catalyst equipped cars. These regulations have been judicially upheld. Although unleaded gasoline will be increasingly re- quired in future years as the number of catalyst-equipped cars on the road increases, and will be required at at least the present levels as long as the number of catalyst-equipped cars on the road does not decline, several parties to the suspension hearings, including Chrysler, suggested that future emission control systems ought to be made compatible with the use of lead in gasoline.* Tr. 179, 1446, 2833. *Lead has to be removed from the gasoline used by catalyst- equipped cars because otherwise it will poison the catalyst, reducing or eliminating the catalytic activity. Chrysler has suggested that this may not happen if lead alone is used in the gasoline, instead of in combination with certain other chemicals as is presently the case. However, they appeared to have some doubts as to whether this really was the case, and practically every other witness disagreed with the suggestion. C. App. I-B-34, IV C&D-17-18, Tr. 2847- 51 (Du Pont); But see Tr. 172, 191-2, 367-8 (Chrysler); 479 (GM); 862-3 (Ford); 1665-80 (Exxon Research & Engineering); 1943-44 (Matthey-Bishop). ------- - 42 - To understand their argument, some background is neces- sary. The ratio between the volume created in the piston chamber of an engine when the piston is at the end of the power stroke and the volume created when the piston is at the point of maximum compression is called the "compression ratio". Ideally this ratio should be as high as possible, since the more tightly the fuel-air mixture is compressed before the power stroke begins, and the greater the distance through which that given quantity of fuel/air mixture moves the piston during the power stroke, the more work is obtained from the same combustion. However, when an air/fuel mixture is compressed in a cylinder, the compression heats it. At high compression ratios, this can cause premature partial or complete detonation of the mixture, causing "knock". The measure of a given fuel's resistance to "knock" is called its "octane".* Traditionally, refiners have increased the octane of their gasoline by adding lead to it, and the use of lead additives increased greatly with the increase in compression ratios and octane requirements in the 1950*s and 1960's. The lead in- hibits the tendency of the gasoline to spontaneous ignition, and its mere addition changes a low-octane fuel into a higher- octane one. The same octane levels that are reached by the addition of lead can only be reached without it by use of more high octane hydrocarbon components which are produced by additional refining. More intense refining processes in turn are expensive and involve some energy loss. *Some proportion of production cars generally show an increase in the average octane of gasoline required at a given spark setting after they have been in use for some time. If higher octane gasoline is not available, the spark must then be retarded to avoid "knock" with a consequent further loss in fuel economy. Concern has been expressed that 1975 automobiles may be more susceptible to this "octane requirement increase" than cars sold in prior model years. This question has been exten- sively explored, and, though the data is not all in yet, the majority of witnesses felt there was no reason to believe this would be the case. Tr. 282-289 (Chrysler) ,-604-13. (GM) ; 838-44 (Ford); 972-73 (Mercedes-Benz); 1016-17 (AMC); 1096-99 (VW); 1130-31 (Nissan); 1196-97 (Toyota); 1365-69 (Volvo); 1658-63 (Exxon Research and Engineering); 2835, 2852-61 (Du Pont) ------- - 43 - Auto manufacturers anticipated that due to this, high- octane unleaded gasoline would not be available when the catalyst came into general use, and since the 1971 model year they have designed their cars with relatively low compression ratios to enable them to run on low-octane unleaded gasoline. This has entailed a fuel economy penalty estimated by EPA at 5%. Status Bept. p. 3-5. See also NAS Rept. p. 15 (6%). Those who urge putting lead back in gasoline of course admit that it entails removing catalysts from cars (or at least from new cars) and at least a temporary relaxation in emission standards. Their argument is either that the standards are more stringent than necessary, or that new engine developments such as the stratified charge will enable the standards to be met by cars that use leaded fuels. What the first argument misses is that even at more relaxed emission standards, catalysts may allow more fuel economy to be gained by retuning the engine than is lost by lowered compression ratio. This happened in the 1975 model year, when use of catalysts to meet the national interim standards enabled the auto industry to achieve levels of fuel economy even better than pre-controlled cars. Status Rept. p. 3-6. Ford testified that in the 1976 model year it would be adding more catalysts to its cars aimed at the national standards in order to improve fuel economy.* Tr. 837, See also NAS Rept. pp. 15, 135. It is true that many of the emission control developments discussed above have the potential for achieving emission levels down to the level of the California standards without catalysts. But given the sluggish pace at which the industry usually moves, it would be a mistake to believe that these devices will be used across the board before the 1980's. And even then, it is virtually certain that control with good fuel economy at the level of the statutory s tandards will still depend on the use of the catalyst. *In fact, it is not at all certain that the full 5% of lost fuel economy could be regained even if compression ratios on the current engine could be increased. An increase in compression ratio tends to increase HC and NOX emissions, and the adjustments that would have to be made to cope with this might well offset at least partially any fuel economy that might be gained. NAS Rept. pp. 53, 135, Status Rept. p. 3-3; Tr. 559-61 (GM); 847-48 (Ford). ------- - 44 - What is more, there is no certainty that the use of lead in gasoline will be of any benefit after some years have passed. One way to increase the compression ratio possible with a given engine is to raise the fuel octane. But another way to raise compression ratio is to make changes to the engine itself to alter its combustion characteristics so that in- creased compression ratios are possible without a change in octane. The auto companies are focussing now on items like changes in the shape of combustion chambers and the measured use of EGR that can provide such "mechanical octane". Tr. 836, 838 (Ford); Tr. 1485-86 (Dresser carburetor provides same "mechanical octane"), F. App. III-B-22. To the extent that this work succeeds, the potential advantage to adding lead will be reduced, since there is a limit to the increase in compression ratio that will still yield fuel economy benefits. Little benefit is achieved beyond a compression ratio of about 10:1 because of higher rates of heat loss that occur as the compressed mixture be- comes hotter and hotter. The heat loss on compression and during combustion eventually exceeds the benefits of increased expansion. And if in five years or so, the shift is on to an alternate engine such as the stratified charge, there will be no benefit to adding lead to gasoline at all. The Honda CVCC, the Ford PROCO, the rotary engine, and the gas turbine all can give their best performance on fuels of low octane. WAS Rept. pp. 15, 136; Tr. 1235 (Honda recommends "unleaded or low lead" gasoline for use with CVCC). Quite apart from fuel economy considerations, there are other merits to keeping the lead out of gasoline.* Lead in gasoline tends to settle on engine parts such as valves, spark plugs, and cylinder heads, and impede their operation. Though other chemicals are added to the gasoline to counteract this tendency, they are not completely success- ful, and periodic maintenance to remove these deposits is necessary for a car running on leaded gasoline. *Possible public health benefits from reducing lead emissions from automobiles are not touched on here because that matter is before the courts. EPA has applied for a rehearing in the case of Ethyl Corporation v. EPA, D.C. Cir. No. 73-2205, and further comment on the matters at issue there would be inappropriate in this context. ------- - 45 - It is generally accepted that the savings an owner of a car that runs on unleaded gasoline will realize from not having to perform this maintenance are about equal to the extra cost due to reduced gasoline mileage. NAS Rept. pp. 15, 135. There are also emission control benefits from removing the lead from gasoline, since lead deposits when they build up inhibit the functioning of the emission control system. It has been estimated that the reduction in emissions for a given non-catalyst automobile between running on leaded gasoline and on unleaded gasoline amount to .75 g/mi of HC and .75 g/mi of NOX- NAS Rept. p. 128. See also pp. 14, 120, 127-28; GM App. 4-a-2-3-4; Tr. 514 (GM). It is reason- able to expect that this difference will increase as future emission control systems become more sophisticated and are built to tighter tolerances. ------- - 46 - f. The Question of Sulfates i. The Dimensions of the Problem "Sulfates" is the chemical name generally given to a class of sulfur compounds consisting of a sulfur-oxygen group (S04) bonded together with an atom or molecular group of varying composition. Examples are sulfuric acid (H 804), ammonium sulfate (NH3 804), and sodium sulfate, A large portion of the sulfur emitted into the atmosphere as sulfur dioxide (S02) eventually reacts with oxygen to form one of these sulfate compounds. Gasoline contains small quantities of sulfur, which is normally oxidized to sulfur dioxide (802) in the engine and, after expulsion through the exhaust, becomes part of the general pool of atmospheric sulfur being converted to sulfates. It is now generally accepted that catalysts in current use on automobiles speed up this oxidation process (speeding up oxidation of HC and CO is of course the catalyst's intended function) and thus cause the 802 Pr°duced in the engine to be converted to 803. The 803, when mixed with the ample water vapor always present in vehicle exhaust, becomes sulfuric acid (f^SO*) an<^ is emitted from the tail- pipe as fine particles that would readily be inhaled deeply into the lungs. Although this chemical reaction of 802 i-n the catalyst does not appreciably increase the contribution of the automobile to total atmospheric sulfate loadings, it can substantially increase local ambient air sulfuric acid concentrations around roadways. On non-catalyst cars, almost all if not all of the 802 produced in the engine is emitted from the tailpipe as 802» and represents at most one percent of all 802 emi-tted into the atmosphere from all sources. In assessing the extent of any such potential problem, three questions must be addressed. These are (i) What are the sulfate emissions from catalyst- equipped vehicles? (ii) What is the effect on public health of given atmospheric sulfate or sulfuric acid levels? and (iii) If given levels of atmospheric sulfates may have adverse health effects, is it possible that emissions from catalyst cars may result in atmospheric levels above that "threshold"? Virtually every aspect of the sulfates question is replete with uncertainty. There is uncertainty about the health effects of "sulfates" generically, together with a ------- - 47 - distinct possibility that health effects may vary according to the size, chemical composition and acidity of the particu- lar "sulfate" involved, and whether or not other pollutants are present. There is uncertainty as to what total emissions of sulfates will be from a population of catalyst cars, since actual real-world vehicle driving patterns (which can have marked effects on the rates and levels of sulfate emissions) are not known precisely enough. Finally, there is uncertainty about what atmospheric concentrations will actually result from a given level of sulfate emissions, and there seems no way to answer this question short of actual measurements in the field. However, there is little question that sulfuric acid is emitted from catalyst equipped motor vehicles in a particle size range that can be inhaled deeply into the lungs. There is also no question that the amount of such emissions is substantially greater than such emissions from non-catalyst cars. The estimates given below should be read in the con- text of the knowns and unknowns just stated. Emissions of ^SO. from catalyst cars vary widely under different driving conditions. At low speeds, when air pressure and air flows in the catalyst are also low, much of the 803 produced may remain within the catalyst. When the car accelerates, the 803 is released and high sulfuric acid readings may be recorded. Finally at high sustained speeds this storage and release phenomenon ceases to be important, and 20% to 35% of the sulfur in the gasoline will be converted to sulfates. This makes estimating the H2S04 emissions of a catalyst car under any given driving conditions very difficult, since, under the influence of storage and release, those emissions in a great many cases will depend in part on how the car has been driven in the past. A great deal of EPA's work on the sulfuric acid problem in the past year has gone into deter- mining how reliable emission rate estimates can be made in these circumstances. As a result, though the difficulties have by no means been eliminated, EPA has developed a set of emission factors to describe the emissions of various types of catalyst cars in current use, Tr. 2269, which, though concededly subject to some uncertainty, have been generally accepted. Sulfates Tr. 7, 20-25, 172-75, 181, 295-96. Concern about the effects of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere is not new. However, the concern for sulfates in general increased when epidemiological studies conducted by EPA under the acronym CHESS (Community Health and Environmental ------- - 48 - Surveillance System) observed correlations between increased levels of atmospheric sulfates and several forms of irrita- tion of the respiratory system thus suggesting cause and effect relationships. Cause-and-effeet relationships, however, are very hard to "prove" in epidemiological studies, since their subject is the population at large in its normal environment, and there is no possibility of holding other factors constant as would be done in a laboratory. Sulfates Tr. 52, 54, 220. Indeed, where air pollution in particular is concerned the worst effects may be caused by two or more pollutants acting together. Sulfates Tr. 217-18, 230, 241-42. At the time these data were generated, the CHESS pro- gram was new, and the conclusions were accordingly based primarily on only one year's data. Sulfates Tr. 45-48. In addition, some witnesses pointed to laboratory studies and to experience with occupational exposures to sulfuric acid that might be taken as indicating the CHESS results overstate the potential danger. Sulfates Tr. 136- 37, 138-39, 560-61, 565-66, 572-74. These uncertainties preclude a firm quantitative assessment of the extent of the sulfates problem at this time. It will be several years, at a minimum, before more definitive data are avail- able. For purposes of judgment in the meanwhile, however, it is relevant to note that the majority of qualified witnesses believed that even when all the uncertainties were accounted for, the CHESS studies gave substantial cause for concern. Sulfates Tr. 43, 67, 69, 73. In many cases this was buttressed by a conclusion that based on general clinical knowledge and animal experiments* *Animal experiments, though they can be done far more quickly than epidemiologic data on humans can be obtained, and under far more controlled conditions, by their nature can rarely be conclusive as to the health impact on humans. The possibilities for controlled experiments on humans are obviously limited. In these circumstances judgments as to public health may often be difficult to "validate" quantitatively, particularly when the need to take action before a potential problem grows out of control places some con- straints on the ability to obtain new data. ------- - 49 - sulfates and particularly sulfu :ic acid mist in tha particle sizes generated by automobiles *\?ere the kind of particles that :T(ight well be expected to cause lung damage. Sulfates Tru 41, 48-50, 52, 55-57, 60-61, 64, 223-24, 285, 329-30, 515-16. Such witnesses generally did not believe the data were sufficient to support anything more than a qualitative judgment about I^SC^ emissions. In addition, there was a reasonable consensus that exposure to sulfuric acid in the atmosphere should be kept as low as possible. in this regard the problem of potentially high localized sulfuric acid levels near roadways from catalyst equipped motor vehicles is considered to represent a potential health rJL-ko This risk could be accentuated by the background lew:Is of sulfates which are already present from other sources. The final question is when, if ever, sulfuric acid emissions from catalyst cars would cause localized atmospheric sulfuric acid readings high enough to reach a level of concern. Since there are not enough catalyst equipped cars currently on the road to provide direct evidence of how tail- pipe sulfuric acid emissions behave once they have been dis- charged into the atmosphere, several assumptions are neces- sary in making any such prediction. For its model, EPA assumed that the relationship between tailpipe emissions and atmospheric concentration and dispersion would be the same for sulfuric acid as it is for carbon monoxide, a gas. Since emission levels are known for both CO and sulfates, and since the atmospheric behavior of CO is also known, the results in terms of air quality of a given discharge of sulfuric acid under this model can be easily calculated. Criticism was directed at the use of this approach. Some critics suggested that use of lead, rather than CO, as the "tracer" material would have been more appropriate. Sulfates Tr. 6, 253, 272-73. Others questioned whether enough attention had been paid to the observed atmospheric behavior of the "tracer" pollutants. Sulfates Tr. 96-100, 124-27. Many of those who raised these points, however, conceded they were not strong ones. Sulfates Tr. 107, 114-15, 118-122, 190-91, 314-18, 327-28. Some criticism was also leveled at the use in the model of emission factors associated with the EPA fuel economy highway driving cycle, Sulfates Tr. 82-83, 88- 94,. -«uich EPA conceded was a rough assumption, but no alternative prediction method for ambient concentrations of sulfuric acid was suggested. ------- - 50 - Using this emission model, the EPA staff paper calculates that, under adverse meteorological conditions, 24-hour concentrations of ten micrograms per cubic meter might begin to occur solely as a result of catalyst emissions (i.e. in addition to preexisting background concentrations) on and near certain heavily-traveled, multi-lane highways after four years if the current national interim standards were retained and no corrective action were taken. Tr. 2259. The paper also estimates that such effects might occur within two years in California where the emissions standards are more stringent in 1975-76 than in the other 49 states. That calculation, however, assumed that California's unleaded gasoline had significantly higher sulfur content than gasoline elsewhere. Although this is likely to be true in the future, it has not been true up to now. Accordingly, the estimates stated for California are overly pessimistic in this respect. Sulfates Tr. 27-32, 78-79, 253, 298-305, 358-59, 607-08, 614. Although substantially better quantitative estimates than those used in the EPA staff paper probably cannot be developed soon, the wide ranges of uncertainty and the highly speculative calculations inherent in many parts of the analysis (e.g. for dose-response functions) strongly suggest that only qualitative conclusions can meaningfully be drawn. To oversimplify, we cannot define the magnitude of the H2SC>4 risk created by catalyst vehicles, but we must conclude that a risk exists. This risk can be assumed to increase as increasing numbers of catalyst equipped vehicles are introduced into service. ------- — 51 — ii. Control Options If it is not acceptable over the long term from a health standpoint to allow any greater levels of H2S04 emissions than those associated with non-catalyst cars (roughly .001 g/mi), then it seems almost certain that catalyst cars will fail to qualify. On the other hand, with vehicle controls and de- sulfurization of gasoline, catalyst cars may be able to achieve levels on the order of .005 g/mi. The alternative of eventually banning catalysts (presumably by setting an H2S04 emissions standard that they could not meet) was endorsed by Chrysler and some others at the hearing. There is no doubt that this would eliminate the H2S04 problem. However, attainment of the statutory HC and CO emissions standards with good fuel economy, and attainment at all of any NOX emission standard below about one gram per mile will almost certainly depend on extensive use of the oxidizing capacity of the catalyst. Since the auto companies have been using (in 1975), and planning to use (post-1975) the "aftertreatment" capacity of the catalyst to achieve low pollution levels while retuning the engine for maximum fuel economy, the question arises as to how much of a sacrifice in both emission control and fuel economy improvement would have to be accepted. Since intro- duction of any "alternative engine" in any quantity is many years in the future, roughly 1980, this boils down to the question of the capacity of the conventional engine, somewhat modified, to control emissions with high fuel economy and without the use of a catalyst. There was a sharp split of opinion between the three applicants on this point. Though all of them conceded that they could in theory achieve the California interim standards in the future without the use of a catalyst, Ford and General Motors testified that several years of lead time would be needed, and that there would be a substantial sacrifice in fuel economy in any event. Tr. 3387-90, 3394 (GM); Tr. 3523- 26 (Ford) ("We don't want to be committed to catalysts, but by the same token, we don't want to have catalysts ruled out as an option"), Tr. 3541-42 (Ford) ("if we commit to the President on our fuel economy program, we think the catalyst route is the way we want to go"). Chrysler, however, claimed that it could achieve the national interim standards on all its cars without the use of a catalyst and at no fuel economy sacrifice by 1978, and that the California standards could be similarly attained by 1979. Tr. 3286-88, 3311-12. See also Tr. 380. (Chrysler also said, however, that the catalyst was a "very good technology" that might be needed to attain the statutory emission standards with acceptable fuel economy. Sulfates Tr. p. 202.) ------- - 52 - The judgment of my own technical staff is that Chrysler's position is more representative of the capacity of the industry as a whole than that of Ford and General Motors. The new developments discussed in Section III-l- b above seem consistent with this view,, Chrysler has bo®n progressive in "engine modifications" and has devoted much effort to this work. It is reasonable to expect that once Ford and GM were to turn their attention to this field, they would be able to achieve the same results in a shorter time through the application of their far greater engineering resources. (See Tr. 568 (GM) ("borderline" as to whether equivalent fuel economy to a catalyst could be achieved without one at emission levels of .9, 9 and 2). There is no reason to believe, however, that the statutory emission levels of .4 g/mi0 HC and 3.4 g/mi. CO can be achieved any time in the forseeable future with good fuel economy unless a catalyst is used. At present emission levels, catalysts have performed well. And, in all likelihood, they will be needed to meet emission standards more stringent than those in effect today. I am particularly concerned that we not rule out the use of the only technology that can provide stringent control of NOy at a time when new questions are being raised about the health impact of that pollutant. The approach to alleviating the H2S04 problem that was favored by Ford, General Motors, and several other witnesses, is to desulfurize gasoline. All witnesses agreed that the technology for doing this is fully developed and commercially available. GM, Exxon, and the American Petroleum Institute agree that this could be done by increasing the price of gasoline between one and two cents a gallon, and that it would result in increased refinery energy consumption equal to half of one percent of the energy in each barrel of crude purchased. Sulfates Tr. 422-23, 433, 476-77 (2 1/2 cents)? Tr» 1605, 1611- 12, 1644-47, 2129-30, 3384=85. Other witnesses put the economic and energy costs significantly higher, and contended thati dedication of a large fraction of the petroleum industry's investment capability would be required. Sulfates Tr,, 356=7, 429-31, 478-79, 594-98. Estimates of the lead time required to install de- sulfurization capacity and bring it on line generally ranged from three to five years. Status Kept. p. 5-4, Tr. 1611-12, 2097-98, Sulfates p. 356, 600 (8-10 years). Even before that, however, significant reduction in the sulfur content of lead- free gasoline (which is the only kind that catalyst cars can burn) could be achieved by using only low-sulfur feed stocks for its manufacture. ------- - 53 - This stategy defines an approach to the H2SO. problem which would very significantly reduce it.* At this point, however, EPA is not taking administrative action to bring about this result. Before desulfurization is required, we should be more certain than we are now that implementation will, together with vehicle controls, achieve H2S04 emission reductions that are acceptable from a public health standpoint. There are a number of possibilities for adjusting catalyst systems themselves in order to reduce ^$04 emissions. Exxon Research and Engineering has reported that the amount of sulfuric acid emitted by a catalyst-equipped car can be cut in half by reducing the amount of excess oxygen in the exhaust stream, and other witnesses have confirmed this report, though some disagreement exists over the precise re- ductions available. Tr. 1594-95, 1695-96; Sulfates Tr. 159, 297, 349. Air pumps, which can be used to attain low emission standards, such as the current California standards, of coarse supply such excess oxygen in order to enhance the oxidation of HC and CO. My action today in extending the current national interim standards for 1977 will ensure that use of air pumps will be minimized in that model year, since those standards can be achieved without them.** Clearly, I hope by my action to discourage their use. This should hold the line on HoSC^ emissions until a sulfate emission standard can be established. Considera- tions of lead time are such that, as mentioned above, we cannot project the establishment of such a standard earlier than the 1979 model year. *The technology exists to desulfurize gasoline from its current level of .03 grams per gallon average to a maximum of .01 grams per gallon. Even at these levels, a catalyst car would emit six to ten times as much H2S04 as an un- controlled vehicle. **There is some possibility that auto makers might attempt to improve fuel economy even at those levels by "working the catalyst harder" through addition of an air pump to gain the additional freedom for engine recalibrations, Sulfates Tr. 309-10 (Ford) but see Sulfates Tr. 166-67 (Chrysler) (No incentive). ------- - 54 - Sulfuric acid is produced by oxidation in the catalyst and it follows that the less a given car must rely on the catalyst to attain emission standards - the less the catalyst is called upon to oxidize what comes out of the engine - the less will be the sulfate emissions. Sulfates Tr. 77, 309. As discussed in Section III-1-b above, almost every new improve- ment in emission control now being developed will reduce emissions coming out of the engine. Even if these reductions are not sufficient to enable a given emission standard to be met without a catalyst, they will allow reliance on the catalyst to be decreased, and sulfate emissions will be reduced correspondingly. This phenomenon alone, in my judgment, should make it possible to significantly reduce emissions from catalyst- equipped vehicles meeting the current California interim standard by the 1980 model year. The prospects are, however, that much more than the simple effects of engine improvements will be available. Though the limited efforts put forth by the industry here make exact prediction difficult, they give good reason to expect that with a greater effort much more would be accomplished. Three avenues for future work in particular were explored at the hearing. These are use of a "three way" catalyst that operates at or near stoichiometric, use of a different formula for a conventional catalyst, and use of "traps" to remove sulfates from the exhaust. The catalysts in current use today require an "oxidizing" (oxygen-rich) atmosphere in which to burn the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. By contrast, catalysts for the control of NOX require a "reducing" (oxygen-poor) atmosphere in which the oxygen atoms can be disassociated from the nitrogen. For this reason, automobiles targeted at meeting very low levels of all three pollutants have generally used two catalysts • one for NOX and then a second for HC and CO. An air pump to supply excess oxygen into the exhaust system in between the two catalysts is used to change the atmosphere from reducing to oxidizing. Some catalysts, however, called "three-way" catalysts, are capable of reducing all three pollutants to very low levels when operated at or close to stoichiometric. Since the air/ fuel range in which these catalysts can achieve this result is very narrow, they must be operated with a feedback system to control the air/fuel ratio very precisely. Emissions of sulfates tend to depend on the amount of excess oxygen in the exhaust stream of a catalyst-equipped vehicle, and since by definition a vehicle operating at stoichiometric has little excess oxygen in the exhaust, there is reason to believe that a three-way catalyst operating at ------- - 55 - stoichiometric would have very low sulfate emissions. Limited test data appears to bear this out. Tr. 1592-94, 1681-84 (Exxon Research & Engineering); 1826-27, see also Tr. 1362. Accordingly, the capabilities of three-way catalysts were extensively explored at the hearing. The testimony was almost unanimous that no such catalyst has been developed that could last more than eight or ten thousand miles, and that no prediction for improving this performance could be made be- cause of lack of understanding of the basic chemical mechanisms involved. Tr. 2072-75; 2081 (UOP); 2217 (W.R. Grace); 2317 (American Cyanamid); 3399, 3415-16 (GM). But see Tr. 1841-42, 1906-07 (Engelhard); 2425 (NAS). In addition, it appears that at least present versions of the three-way catalyst must con- tain rare elements such as rhodium which are in very short supply but catalysts companies believe supplies are adequate.. Tr. 2306. Finally, the tight control of air/fuel ratio such a catalyst requires would mandate the use of exhaust sensors and fuel injection on any car that used it, since conventional carburetors do not appear to give the kind of quick response to the sensor signals that is required. The testimony was unanimous that these components, though they represent fully developed technology, could not be installed on automobiles in quantity before the 1980 model year. Tr. 3009-12 (Bosch); 3140-42 (Bendix). Some evidence introduced indicated that the durability problems of the three-way catalyst as far as control of HC and CO are concerned might be greatly diminished if the engine were calibrated slightly lean of stoichiometric, a level that would also result in a considerable sacrifice of NOX control. Tr. 3402-11. This evidence is very preliminary at present, however, and there can be no confidence that such an approach will provide a solution to even some of the problems of the three-way catalyst system which are outlined above. Tr. 3332 (Chrysler). It was also suggested that use of a conventional oxidizing catalyst, rather than a three-way catalyst, at air/fuel ratios very close to stoichiometric would also exhibit low sulfate emissions because of the low amount of excess oxygen present. Most witnesses agreed, however, that differences in the ways the two types of catalysts operate chemically suggested that an oxidation catalyst, unlike a three-way catalyst, may not be able to provide adequate control of HC and CO for a long period when operating so close to stoichiometric. Tr. 3335-37 (Chrysler); 3396-400, 3438-44 (GM); 3488-92 (Ford). ------- - 56 - The difference in the way different catalysts operate points up another avenue of investigation that in the opinion of my technical staff holds far greater promise for use on actual production cars in the next few years. It may be possible to formulate a catalyst that would still have high efficiency for converting HC and CO to harmless materials while at the same time considerably reducing sulfuric acid conversion. Tests of a Matthey Biship platimum-rhodium catalyst have shown encouraging results of this type. Thus some results of this nature have already been demonstrated, and most witnesses thought it significant and worth more investigation. Tr. 1595-98 (Exxon Research & Engineering); 2065 (UOP); 3497-98 (Ford) Sulfates Tr. 251, 259. One witness suggested that while the possibility of good results could not be ruled out, this was not an avenue of research that was likely to prove helpful in the end. Tr. 1862-63 (Engelhard). Finally, there seems to be no inherent reason why sulfate traps will not work. Substances that will remove sulfates from exhaust gas are well known, and Exxon Research and Engineering has demonstrated very high control efficiency with a prototype system. Tr. 1598-99. However, much work remains to be done on making such a device compatible with the proper running of the rest of the engine system and the auto companies up to now have hardly touched the problem. Tr. 344, 466-67, 662, 3341-42. Given the state of development and lead times to which the industry generally operates, installa- tion of traps probably cannot be expected before the 1980 model year.* *Use of a trap would not necessarily mean the installation of a new aftertreatment device on the automobile. At present, mufflers employ steel baffles to reduce engine noise. Since the substances now under consideration for sulfate traps are mostly simple chemicals that do not require tight control of their operating atmospheres, it might well be possible to package them in-between the steel baffles in the muffler with likely improvement in acoustical properties. (Indeed, even current catalysts have acoustical properties and have made possible a reduction in muffler size.) ------- - 57 - 2. The Report of the National Academy of Sciences Under Section 202(b)(5) of the Clean Air Act, I may only grant a suspension if a study of auto pollution controls which the statute requires to be made by the National Academy of Sciences "has not indicated that technology, processes, or other alternatives are available to meet such standards." In its most recent report dated November 22, 1974, the Academy said: The 1977 Federal Emissions Standard of 0.41 g/mi HC, 3.4 g/mi CO and 2.0 g/mi. NOX can be achieved in certification with present technology through improved oxidation catalysts and quick warm-up techniques at an average increased lifetime cost of about $400 [citations omitted]. In spite of inadequate maintenance, vehicles on average are expected to meet the NOx standard at 50,000 miles and to meet the HC and CO standards or exceed them by less than 50%. NAS Kept. p. 1. The report also said: Cars can be manufactured which, if properly maintained,.will meet the 1977 emissions standard in actual use for 50,000 miles. . . . It is not yet clear whether the performance of specified maintenance will be necessary for the fleet average emissions to remain below the standards; however, we would not expect HC and CO emissions to exceed the standards by more than 50% at 50,000 miles [even if the maintenance is not performed]. NAS Kept. p. 13. When representatives of the Academy appeared at the hearing, they explained that the Report had concluded that a very high percentage of the domestic industry's model lines would be able to certify at the statutory standards in 1977, enough to satisfy their conception of "basic demand." Tr. 2354; 2394-2404. As noted above, however, the Committee did not directly address the question of sulfates. Accordingly, though I do not question its conclusion that the technology to achieve ------- - 58 - the 1977 standards is currently available/ I have not felt that conclusion by itself could determine my decision in this matter. 3. Good Faith The Act requires that, before I grant an extension of time to any auto manufacturer, I must find that "all good faith efforts have been made to meet the [1977] standards." Even though industry spending on emission controls has stayed at a high level, there might have been some difficulty in making that finding if the current level of control efforts had not provedsusscesful. Industry emission control expenditures, though down from the peak levels of 1973 and 1974, are projected to re- main high. GM testified that its expenditures here in 1975, 1976, and 1977 would average about $200 million per year, down from the peaks of $310 and $450 million reached in 1973 and 1974 respectively. Almost all the drop is related to the high costs of tooling up to produce the catalytic converter in 1975. Research and engineering expenses are projected to remain at the level of $140 million a year throughout this period. GM App. Appendix 21. Ford projects emissions control research expenditures of about $175 million per year for 1975 and 1976, down only slightly from the peak of $200 million in the preceding two years. F. App. VIII-B. Chrysler historically has spent far less on auto emis- sion controls than the other two major companies. It did not provide figures beyond 1975, stating that its uncertain financial situation made such estimates impossible. Though the estimated figures for 1975 show a substantial drop from 1974 levels, Chrysler explained that other budgets had been even more significantly curtailed. C. App. Vol. IV p. 205; Tr. 255-56. By the standards of past suspension decisions, these expenditures would be taken as sufficient to satisfy the "good faith" test in its financial aspect. What is more disturbing is the significant decline since 1973 in emission testing of vehicles (except for testing by Ford) aimed at meeting the statutory HC and CO emission standards. This drop-off is clear from the face of the Technical Appendix. ------- - 59 - In the words of the Status Report (p. 6-2): [M]ost manufacturers, in the opinion of the report team, are working on improved oxida- tion catalyst systems at a relatively low level currently. One possible reason for this could be the current reduced level of employ- ment in the industry in general .... Another reason could be that the industry is waiting to see what will happen during the upcoming EPA Suspension hearings, and also waiting to see how their proposals to the Congress and the Administration for a moratorium on future emission standards are received. There might be some difficulty in making a finding of good faith in the face of such a testing effort but for one factor. The industry, both the NAS and my technical staff agree, has developed the technology to attain the statutory HC and CO standards in the 1977 model year. Since there is no requirement that a company spend more than is needed to meet the standards, the success of the auto industry here warrants a finding of "good faith by definition." 4. The Public Interest The compelling reasons which have caused me to find that the public interest requires a suspension of the 1977 standards have already been discussed. Technology that would increase emission of H2S04, with all the uncertainty and concern that surrounds its health effects, cannot be con- sidered "effective" within the meaning of the Clean Air Act and, until the exact outlines of the problem are clarified, it is not in the public interest to compel its application. Several other items that might have been discussed under this heading, such as the potential for use of "alter- native engines" have been addressed in earlier sections. The major questions that remain to be considered here are the impact of achieving the statutory standards in 1977 on auto cost and fuel consumption and on the economy generally, and the impact of failing to achieve them on air quality. a. The Impact of Various Standards on Fuel Economy Estimates on the cost in fuel economy of achieving the 1977 statutory emission standards on schedule fell within a relatively narrow range. GM calculated a 16% loss from 1975 levels, but this was based on comparing fully optimized 1975 production ------- - 60 - vehicles with 1977 prototypes. GM App. 4a-l, Figs. 7 & 8; I-b-2. Ford set the loss at 5% from 1975 levels, or 24% below what could otherwise be achieved if the HC and CO standards were not tightened. F. App. I-c-3, II-B-2-5, Appendix 6 page 6. Chrysler's figures were a 9% reduction from 1975. They estimated that the 1975 levels could be preserved if the current national standards were extended. C. App. IV-C&D-5. Volkswagen testified that achieving the standards would entail "little or no" fuel economy loss, Tr. 1039, 1070-71. Given the natural temptation on the manufacturer's part to err on the conservative side, I believe these estimates are fully consistent with those of the National Academy of Sciences that a 5% loss from 1975 levels would probably result, Tr. 2355, 2381, of the Department of Transportation that the loss would be 10%, Tr. 2511, and of my own staff that the loss would be between those two figures unless new technology is introduced at a faster rate than the industry Is currently planning for it. The impact of meeting interim standards set at the current California levels would be markedly less. GM set the loss at 10% from current 1975 levels if the standards were attained by "application of current technology used on 1975 California vehicles to all 1977 vehicles", GM App. I-c- 2. It hardly seems necessary to assume that the 1975 control technology will remain without significant improvement two model years later. Ford estimated that the loss would be 6 to 8 percent over what could have been achieved if the current national HC and CO standards were extended, or a gain of 14% over 1975 levels. F. App. II-B-5, Appendix 6 p. 6. Chrysler estimated the loss from 1975 at 5%, C. App. IV-C&D-5, even though the average industry-wide difference between the two standards in 1975 was only 6%, Status Rept. 3-7, and Chrysler would have had the two intervening years to work on fuel economy improvements. Finally, if the interim California levels were to be extended for 1977, but with a NOX standard of 3.1 g/mi (which would require legislative action), the loss was estimated by each of the major auto companies at 3 - 5% over continuation of present standards. Tr. 47, 240 (Chrysler); Tr. 314 (GM) ; Tr. 633-35, 739 (Ford). b. The Economic Impact of Various Standards There was somewhat more variation in estimates of auto price increases that might accompany attainment of the statutory emission standards than was the case for fuel economy. Still, the estimates were all in the same basic ------- - 61 - area with the auto companies once again tending to the pessimistic side. General Motors estimated that a sticker price in- crease of $130-50 over present systems would result if a "warm-up" converter were used, and $35-50 (with possible upward adjustment for catalyst change) if it were not. These figures were in 1975 dollars. GM App. l-b-2, 4-b-4. Ford's estimate is likewise about $150, mostly for increased size and precious metal loading of the catalytic converter, though this was inflated by factoring in an inflation adjustment for 1977 which was estimated at 15%. F. App. I-C-2; Appendix 6 p. 7; Tr. 831-32. Chrysler was significantly higher at $260, C. App. IV-K-8, a figure adjusted to account for the effect of an estimated 20% total inflation by 1977, Tr. 152. These figures are at the high end of the range estimated by my technical staff, see Status Kept. p. 4-4 and significantly more than the estimate of the National Academy of Sciences, NAS Rept. p. 89. The National Academy, however, did not attempt to account for the use of a "start catalyst." There is even more agreement as to the impact of emission standards set at the current California levels.. GM estimates the sticker price increase at about $23 over that of the current national system, GM App. I-C-2. That increase was set by Ford at $50, (presumably once again with an adjustment for inflation), F. App. I-C-2, by the NAS at about $40, see NAS Rept.,p. 89, and by my own technical staff at about $40, Status Rept. p. 4-4. Chrysler did not provide an estimate. As for the suggestion that the standards be set at .9 g/rai. HC, 9 g/mi. CO, and 3.1 g/mi. NOX, the resulting price increase was described by Chrysler as "nominal, an additional $10", Tr. 49, and by General Motors as $20 to $25, Tr. 313. Both price increases and reductions in fuel economy that might result from tighter emission standards could in theory be expected to affect new car sales adversely. However, a study by my staff indicates that even at statutory levels the impact on sales would be on the order of a 1% reduction, ------- - 62 - c. Air Quality Considerations The impact of any relaxation of auto emission standards on air quality is obviously relevant to any suspension decision, and vital to consideration of any pro- posals for legislative action here. At the same time, neither the composition of the suspension hearing panel nor the nature of the witnesses made it possible to assess this matter in the specific context of the hearing. Instead, EPA has performed its own, analysis of this matter. That study, together with a summary, is separately available from EPA and will only be touched on here. "Air Quality Impact of Alternative Emission Standards for Light Duty Vehicles" will be available separately from EPA's Office of Air and Waste Management and as part of the environmental impact statement being prepared for the President's proposed energy program, which includes Clean Air Act Amendments. The air quality impact analysis suggests that, although the relative differences in air quality in 1977- 1981 resulting from various possible combinations of standards, ranging from the current Federal interims to the statutory standards, do not appear to be enormous and do not reverse the current trend toward improvement, they are significant. These differences are particularly significant when one considers the number of areas that may still violate the air quality standards (especially for photochemical oxidants) by 1985 or 1990 at any of the auto emission control levels and the difficulties of achieving the remaining emission reductions needed to attain the standards. Accordingly, only a new air quality threat of the potential scope and seriousness of the sulfuric acid problem could make the decision temporarily to forego further HC and CO reductions a relatively clear one. DATED: Administrator ------- |