EPA targets off-road vehicles, marine vessels in new pollution controls

Monday, May 10th 2004, 5:13 pm

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The government is moving on a new front to cut air pollution. This time ferry boats and harbor tugs, farm tractors and train locomotives, and dirt movers at construction sites are the targets.

The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing new regulations aimed at cutting the amount of smog-causing chemicals and fine soot that comes from these off-road diesel-powered vehicles and machinery.

The regulation, which EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt signed on Tuesday, is viewed by environmentalists and state air pollution control officials as key to meeting federal air quality health standards.

``It is a change that will result in the people of this nation living longer, and living better,'' Leavitt said. He said the agreement represents cooperation among widely diverse groups including the oil industry, environmentalists, engine manufacturers and state and local air pollution control officials.

About 159 million people live in areas where smog or microscopic soot is making the air unhealthy, says a recent EPA analysis. The agency cites off-road vehicles used in construction, farming, industrial plants and airports as one reason for the problem.

Those vehicles account for a quarter of all the smog-causing nitrogen oxide and nearly half of the fine soot from mobile sources, according to the EPA. Air pollution in port areas and along major rivers is aggravated by diesel exhausts from ferries, tug boats and barges.

The EPA regulation, first proposed a year ago, requires refiners to lower the amount of sulfur in diesel fuel for such engines to 500 parts per million by 2007 and to 15 parts per million by 2010. That means less pollution will come out of the tailpipes. Manufacturers also can build cleaner burning engines since the fuel no longer will contain most of the sulfur that damages catalytic converters and other emissions control devices.

Now diesel fuel contains as much as 3,400 parts per million of sulfur.

With the cleaner fuel and new engine standards, smog-causing nitrogen oxide and microscopic soot from off-road vehicles and equipment will be reduced by more than 90 percent, the EPA estimates.

Fine soot and smog are blamed for increases in respiratory illnesses and thousands of premature deaths annually. Children, the elderly and people suffering from asthma are especially vulnerable.

Leavitt, after briefing President Bush on Monday about the new diesel regulations and other air quality issues, compared the effort to reduce pollution from off-road vehicles to the government years ago removing lead from gasoline.

``We're now going to take sulfur out of diesel, and add catalytic converters to diesel engines,'' Leavitt told reporters. ``The result will be that that black puff of diesel smoke that we've become accustomed to seeing on big trucks and on construction equipment and on buses will be a thing of the past.''

The EPA previously issued requirements for cleaner diesel fuel for large tractor-trailer rigs, trucks and buses, and for gasoline, forcing refiners to take most of the sulfur out of these fuels.

Together, the new diesel engine and fuel requirements will have ``substantial air quality and public health benefits,'' agreed Bill Becker, executive director of associations representing state and local air pollution control officials. ``This rule will play a key role in helping states and localities ... meet health-based air quality standards.''

Becker said state officials and environmentalists had wanted the low-sulfur fuel to be required as early as 2007, but after refiners said they couldn't meet the deadline, they were given until 2010. In return, the EPA agreed to expand the rule to cover marine vessels and locomotives.

The Bush administration and the EPA in particular have been under heavy criticism from environmentalists over air quality issues, including actions that give industry more flexibility in dealing with pollution from power plants and in reducing mercury emissions.

But environmentalists applauded the EPA's diesel fuel rule.

``It's remarkable that these strong rules come from the same administration that has otherwise turned back the clock on 30 years of environmental progress,'' said Emily Figdor of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a grass-roots environmental advocacy group.

Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the industry-sponsored Diesel Technology Forum, said the tougher fuel requirements will usher in ``a new era of off-road diesel engines and equipment.''