Salt Lake Tribune
November 23, 2010
By Judy Fahys

Federal environmental regulators are cracking down on the Utah air-quality rules that cover times when companies release unplanned pollution.

If the state Division of Air Quality cannot fix its regulation in a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can restrict new building in high-pollution areas and even block federal highway funds statewide. But Utah officials and the EPA say they are trying to find a workable solution before it comes to that.

“It’s our expectation,” said Carl Daly of EPA’s air office in Denver, “we’ll have this resolved before those sanctions would be triggered.”

Jeremy Nichols, who works with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians, is applauding the crackdown. The group sued EPA to force it to close what it calls a state loophole that gives Utah’s 1,200 air-pollution permit holders a “blanket exemption to clean-air limits” when their plants have “unintentional breakdowns.”

“It puts the state in a position where it’s difficult to enforce” the Clean Air Act, Nichols said.

“This is people’s clean air at stake.”

Utah air regulators have been talking with the EPA and companies with air permits for more than five years about how best to bring the state regulation in line with the Clean Air Act. The court has given EPA until February to force the state to bring its law in line.

The main area of disagreement is over whether a violation is automatic when a power plant, refinery, cement maker or other source of regulated emissions releases excessive pollution during a breakdown.

Businesses like Utah’s approach because it gives them an opportunity to explain their reasons before being accused of a violation. But the EPA and environmentalists say Utah’s rules make it hard for the public and regulators to keep tabs on those excess-pollution emissions and enforce the federal clean air law.

The breakdowns case is not the only one in which environmental groups have successfully force EPA to bring Utah’s air laws in line with federal ones. Similar court-ordered deadlines have been imposed on problems with particulate matter, smoke-management and other state regulations that are out of sync with federal law.

Since the state Division of Air Quality has agreed to carry out the federal Clean Air Act, the EPA has to make sure that the state’s efforts are on par with federal requirements.

Cheryl Heying, director of Utah air programs, noted the deadlines are tight for meeting the EPA’s requirements. The state has a year to come up with an acceptable regulation once the EPA fields public comment and makes a final decision about how to proceed.

And, in the event that the EPA can’t accept Utah’s proposed fix, sanctions would be phased in, with pollution-reduction constraints on new construction of buildings that add significant pollution and, possibly later, highway funding restrictions.

“We’ve got to go through the process and gather input,” Heying said, noting that transportation, industry and government representatives will all be at the table.

State regulators have estimated in the past that there are between 20 and 40 times a year when companies report pollution from breakdowns.

Daly said the Clean Air Act requires the state to stay within a “budget” to limit air pollution, on a day-to-day basis as well as during unusual situations when a pipe breaks or pollution equipment fails. States like Wyoming and Colorado that have had breakdown regulations like Utah’s have revised theirs and now comply with EPA standards.

fahys@sltrib.com

Forbes Magazine
By Hannah Elliott

The Forbes Magazine List You Do NOT Want to be on!

Starting in 2011 the Ford Focus electric sedan will be sold in 19 cities across the United States. It’s built in Michigan, uses the same platform as the conventional, gas-powered Focus sedan, and can go 100 miles on a single charge of its zero-emission lithium-ion battery.

Compare that to the Buick Lucerne. The $29,730 sedan gets 15 miles per gallon in the city, and 23 mpg on the highway. All that burnt fuel dumps an EPA-estimated 10.4 tons of carbon dioxide into the environment yearly–significantly more than other cars in its class, like the Toyota ( TM – news – people ) Avalon (8.1 tons per year) and Chevrolet Impala (6.3 tons).

In fact, the Lucerne is so far behind the pack in terms of its environmental footprint that it landed on our 2010 list of the year’s dirtiest vehicles, along with the GMC Yukon, Cadillac CTS and Toyota Sienna.

To be fair, all of these cars meet or exceed federal emissions standards, and are significantly cleaner than the heavy, loud, inefficient gas guzzlers our grandparents drove. Automakers are quick to defend their cleanliness: The Sienna, for instance, rates lower in terms of fuel economy because of a gas-hungry all- wheel-drive model, which competitors don’t offer, according to a Toyota Motors spokesman.

Still, the cars on this list lag behind the rest of the market, and are certainly “dirtier” than other new models.

To determine the dirtiest cars on America’s roads, we looked at data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for all 2011-model-year vehicles. Each car was scored for its performance in terms of air pollution, fuel efficiency and carbon footprint ratings.

Our air pollution score reflects the amount of tailpipe emissions a vehicle releases; vehicles with better scores emit fewer pollutants like hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. The carbon footprint score measures the impact a vehicle has on the environment, based on how many tons of CO2 it dumps annually. Those estimates are based on full fuel-cycles, combine all steps in the use of a fuel from production to consumption, and include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane, the three major greenhouse gases emitted by motor vehicles.

For each car, we supposed 15,000 miles driven annually, 45% on the highway and 55% in the city. The worst offenders in each of 10 automotive segments made our list.

We did not evaluate vehicles classified as “heavy duty,” like the 3500 series of the Dodge Ram, which are exempt from federal fuel economy requirements. We also deliberately omitted some vehicles that rated higher on the particulate-emissions scale, including exotics like the Ferrari 599 GTO and high-performance variants like Mercedes-Benz’s AMG. Many of those cars do have poor emissions and fuel efficiency ratings but are produced in such small quantities and are driven so infrequently that they don’t significantly contribute to air-pollution problems.

Our analysis shows that the biggest factor affecting a car’s “dirtiness” is its fuel efficiency–or lack thereof. A 20-mile-per-gallon gas guzzler like the Chevrolet Corvette creates more pollution as it burns more fuel. Drive a car that gets just 5 miles per gallon more, and you’ll prevent 10 tons of carbon dioxide from hitting the air over a vehicle’s lifetime, according to EPA data.

Vehicular carbon dioxide emissions are a major factor in air pollution. Cars account for 51% of the carbon dioxide emissions in a typical household, while appliances like refrigerators account for 26%, and heating and cooling systems account for 18%. The rest of the spectrum comes from inefficiencies and waste, according to the EPA.

All of the vehicles on our list scored equally poor in terms of the amount of air pollution they release. But there are still some vehicles that stand out from the pack, like the Cadillac CTS, which boasts the biggest carbon footprint, at 13.3 tons of CO2 emitted each year. This 8-cylinder automatic large sedan gets just 12 mpg in the city and 18 on the highway, with anticipated annual fuel costs of more than $3,300, according to the EPA. As expected, the manual and V6 versions of the CTS receive better scores than the automatic version with a bigger engine.

The Nissan Titan stands out for a different reason: Surprisingly, the version of this truck that runs on conventional gasoline gets better gas mileage than the version that runs on supposedly more eco-friendly E85 biofuel. E85 is perceived as more green because of its smaller carbon footprint (10.6 tons per year vs. 13.3 for regular gasoline).

It’s important to rate and rank vehicle efficiency, says Karl Simon, director of compliance and innovation for the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, because it helps consumers make smarter purchases. It also prompts automakers to innovate.

“There’s definitely a secondary benefit to this process,” says Simon. “Nobody wants to be known as the dirty manufacturer.”