Regulators
vow to push clean engine rules despite court
ruling
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Clean air regulators
vowed Wednesday to keep pushing for stringent
anti-smog requirements for public vehicle
fleets, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling
that they may have overstepped their authority
by setting rules in Southern California.
In
an 8-1 ruling, the court said regulators
did not have the right to impose rules on
private fleets requiring engines that use
clean fuel and produce low emissions.
It said a lower court would rule on whether
the regulations could be applied to public
fleets.
The
rules were imposed in 2000 by the South
Coast Air Quality Management District, which
regulates air quality in Los Angeles, San
Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.
The
regulations were intended to help bring
the region’s worst-in-the-nation air
quality into compliance with federal clean
air requirements by 2010. The region could
lose billions in highway funds as a penalty
for missing the deadline.
‘‘L.A.
really needs every tool available to clean
up its air, and this will really be a significant
impediment to doing so,’’ Emily
Figdor, a clean air advocate for Environment
California, said of the court decision.
Wednesday’s
ruling was a win for oil companies and diesel
engine manufacturers that claimed the local
pollution rules conflicted with national
standards.
However, the ruling will have little immediate
effect because only a few of the vehicles
currently being regulated are in private
fleets, AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said.
The
restrictions mostly apply to fleets of vehicles
such as buses, waste haulers, street sweepers,
airport shuttles and taxi cabs. More than
5,500 clean-fuel, heavy duty vehicles and
more than 3,400 low-emission passenger vehicles
have replaced old vehicles since the rules
took effect.
The
U.S. District Court in Los Angeles will
rule on the public fleets issue. The AQMD
hopes it will allow the district to regulate
state-owned or contracted vehicles along
with vehicles such as airport shuttles and
taxis licensed by public agencies.
‘‘We
now expect another long legal battle over
whether the air district has the power to
protect the health of Southern Californians
by requiring the purchase of cleaner vehicles,’’
said Gail Ruderman Feuer, an attorney for
the Natural Resources Defense Council and
other environmental groups that intervened
in the lawsuit.
Justice
Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said
the emission rules appear to blocked by
the federal Clean Air Act.
‘‘If
one state or political subdivision may enact
such rules, then so may any other; and the
end result would undo Congress’s carefully
calibrated regulatory scheme,’’
he wrote.
The
act gives states some authority to set their
own rules, but the plaintiffs said it did
not allow a local regulatory agency like
the AQMD to set standards.
Jed
Mandel, president of the Engine Manufacturers
Association, one of the plaintiffs, said
the AQMD had no authority to regulate fleets
owned by other public entities like the
city of Los Angeles.
‘‘Can
South Coast as a matter of state and federal
law tell the city how to spend their money?
I don’t believe they can,’’
he said.
Mandel
said the court ruling was a victory for
consumers and clean air. Engines mandated
by the regulations were no cleaner than
the diesel-burning engines they replaced,
he added.
The
AQMD, however, said heavy-duty diesel fuel
engines, including those targeted by the
regulations, are responsible for 70 percent
of the total cancer risk from air pollution
in California.
The
AQMD could have expanded the rules to private
fleets if the court had ruled in its favor.
The agency might still seek a waiver from
the Environmental Protection Agency granting
the state, and in turn the district, permission
to regulate private fleets.
The
San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals had upheld the AQMD rules, but
the decision was voided by the Supreme Court
decision.
|
