But automakers insist carbon-dioxide emissions cannot be eliminated.
July 6, 2002
By JIM WASSERMAN
The Associated Press
Smoother-rolling tires, quick-shifting transmissions and even credits for telecommuting. These are ways California may curb carbon-dioxide emissions if Gov. Gray Davis signs AB1493.
Though California's proposed war on tailpipes doesn't begin until 2009, experts and automotive authorities say there are countless ways to wage it. They cite prospects for more hybrid gas-electric cars and engines that shut down at traffic lights.
They also tout cleaner-burning natural gas.
Among suggestions are financial incentives for fuel-efficient tires that increase mileage by 5 to 8 percent and greater use of natural-gas fuels to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 20 percent.
"There are continuously variable transmissions that shift through large numbers of gears and smoother transmissions that are not on the market, but are on the shelf," offers Russell Long, director of the Bluewater Network, the San Francisco-based environmental group that backed bill.
"It may be slightly more expensive," he says, "but not much."
Jerry Martin, spokesman for the Air Resources Board, which would write regulations to implement the law, says automakers won't have to invent new technology. He cites technical improvements already in motion to make cars cleaner and more efficient. Among them: variable cylinder valve timing to cut carbon-dioxide emissions about 5 percent and cylinders that stop when the vehicle isn't moving - cutting emissions up to 6 percent.
Solutions that aren't in the mix include new taxes on gasoline or sport utility vehicles. The Air Resources Board also can't force carmakers to sell lighter vehicles, require lower speed limits or make Californians drive less. Those restrictions on the air board were added to the bill to undercut an auto industry advertising blitz that suggested all were possibilities.
A consortium of 13 American, European and Japanese automakers is vowing to explore "any option" to block the bill. Industry lobbyists have long maintained that no technology exists to remove carbon dioxide from vehicle exhaust.
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