ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECT i'6^,;/AG ENCY, WASHING TON," D. Holmes (301) 443-1677 (Home) (301) 593-6495 Hardesty (301) 443-1663 (Home) (301) 654-0231 FOR RELEASE AFTER 9:30 A.M., MAY 6, 1971 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS AT THE HEARING ON MOTOR VEHICLE POLLUTION CONTROL, WASHINGTON, D.C. May 6 - 7, 1971 Last week the Environmental Protection Agency announced national standards for six air pollutants. These six pollutants are the most widely present contaminants in our air today. They already are present in amounts which create a danger to public health. Emissions of these pollutants into the air must be controlled. Of these six pollutants, four cannot be effectively controlled except by controlling emissions from automobiles. That is why we" are here today. Unless we can control the automobile^to the levels prescribed by Congress in the Clean Air Act, as amended in 1970, the automobile is and will remain a major threat to our public health. I cannot therefore overstate the importance of the effort that we are here to discuss and consider. The announced topic is: What is being done to control emissions from automobiles? What can and should be done? Our witnesses will include all of the major domestic and foreign manufacturers of automobiles sold in the United (more) ------- -2- States. We will also hear from other industries with major stakes in this effort. We will hear from representatives of the academic world, from representatives of public interest organizations, from representatives of private research and engineering firms which have been active in attempting to design automobile engines with a potential for extremely low emissions, from suppliers of material and devices that may be important in mass producing low emission cars, and from other interested and informed groups. The effort to produce an essentially pollution-free car is and must be a joint undertaking in which all segments of our society participate. The responsibility of the Environmental Protection Agency is to insure that the effort is successful and that the public is fully informed. Before we begin with this morning's presentations, I want to emphasize two points that are central to the exercise of the regula- tory authority that Congress has given us under the provisions of the Clean Air Act relating to automotive emissions. Both points are directly pertinent to the topic of this hearing. As all of you are aware, the Clean Air Act itself prescribes emission standards which become effective with the model years 1975 and 1976. These standards require a 90% reduction in emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, as compared with 1970 and 1971 cars. No one disputes that these are tough standards. Congress clearly believed that achievement by the latter half of this decade of these low levels of automobile emissions is so vital to improvement of the nation's air quality that it wrote these standards into positive law. (more) ------- -3- Congress' intent is unmistakably clean. The need for successful control of automobile emissions is an overriding national priority. Competing considerations having to do with our widely-shared desire for maximum transportation convenience, at the lowest possible cost, are important to all of us. But these competing considerations cannot be permitted to frustrate our efforts to attain and maintain a healthy environment. My first point, then, is to emphasize that the law itself does not permit traditional conceptions of satisfactory vehicle driving performance to stand in the way of whatever changes in vehicle design and power system are needed to control emissions. The same is true with regard to vehicle cost. This hearing is part of a continuing effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to find out just what sacrifices might be needed, in cost, in fuel economy, in power, in acceleration, and in other historic yard- sticks of vehicle performance, to produce an automobile that we can live with as a people. The low-emission car of the future may be a more expensive car. It may not equal today's car in road performance. But this is a price that may be necessary if we are to have and preserve a healthy environment for ourselves and our families. As a consequence, we cannot and will not accept anything less than a wide open research and development effort to meet the Act's requirements. We will not, for example, find acceptable a manu- facturer's decision not to explore innovative designs or power (more) ------- -4- systems on the ground that a vehicle so designed or so powered would be more costly or would not meet traditional performance criteria. We must develop and apply whatever technology is needed to achieve the degree of emission control required by the Act, and we must be willing to accept any necessary sacrifices in other areas of vehicle performance. My second point is related to the first and has to do with the specific power conferred upon me by the Clean Air Act to suspend the effective date of an emission standard for one year. Exercise of this power is carefully circumscribed by law* I am required to make a determination relating to good faith, and two separate deter- minations concerning the technological feasibility of meeting the statutory standards. I have given serious consideration to the proper construction of the statutory provision for suspension. It is my present judge- ment that the required determinations relating to technological feasibility do not permit me to suspend an emission standard in favor of a single applicant or group of applicants, if technical knowledge exists, in the industry or elsewhere, which would enable any member of the industry to mass produce a light duty motor vehicle in compliance with the Act. It is important that all of the implications of this construction of the law be well understood at the earliest possible time. It means that if any member of the industry could meet the Act's dead- lines for compliance, all applications for a suspension will be denied* (more) ------- |