Tougher Emission Rules Set for Big Diesel Vehicles

[papau]

EPA announced on Monday that on Tuesday new regulations to significantly reduce emissions from tractors, bulldozers, locomotives, barges and other nonroad vehicles propelled by diesel fuel are announced! - Bush actually does a good for the Environment! Next Hell will freeze over!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/politics/11ENVI.html

Tougher Emission Rules Set for Big Diesel Vehicles
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

ASHINGTON, May 10 — <snip>Michael O. Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said after a meeting with President Bush that the regulations would be made official on Tuesday, setting in motion a plan for full compliance by 2012.

The new regulations require refineries to produce cleaner-burning diesel fuel and engine makers to cut diesel emissions by more than 90 percent, a reduction that health experts say could prevent as many as 12,000 premature deaths and 15,000 heart attacks every year.

<snip>The new regulations, the first for this group of vehicles, were developed through years of collaboration among environmental groups, public health advocates, engine makers and fuel refineries. Representatives from all of the groups said the adoption of the new standards reflected an extraordinary, and unusual, willingness of the E.P.A. to listen to everybody.<snip>

Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, which has battled the White House on other environmental issues, said the new regulations placed the biggest financial burden on two companies that make a variety of diesel-powered engines, Cummins and Caterpillar. But because one company, Cummins, is based in Indiana, a state Mr. Bush is sure to win in the November election, and the other in Illinois, which Mr. Bush will probably lose, Mr. Bush is not likely to suffer any adverse consequences, Mr. Clapp said.

Further, he predicted, the new standards will become "the poster child to create the image that the administration is strongly pursuing dangerous air pollutants."<snip>

[Brotherjohn]

1. It's not hell freezing over. It's an election coming up.

First, Bush "apologizes" (sort of) for once.
Then, Bush enacts stringent new environmental standards.

In the next few months, you can expect a few other, well-calculated, reversals (or "compromises", which is how the media will characterize them) in an attempt at trying to repaint himself as something other than the rabid radical he is. He's a "uniter, not a divider", remember?

Too late, though. Everyone has already seen how radical he is, and how cynical he is. Most people are just waiting to see what his October surprise will be, and they'll see it for what it is (whether it's Osama, big terror attack or bust, gas prices plummetting, whatever).

He's used up his trust.

[WVhill]

2. Bush had nothing to do with those.

They've been scheduled for some time. The major truck engine manufacturers, Cat, Cummins, Detroit and Mack started developing the technology years ago. The newer trucks already have some of the new technology. The process started years ago when the engine builders replaced mechanical engines with electronic engines. The latest technology addresses add-ons to clean up the exhaust including catalytic converters and exhaust gas recirculation.

Fleet operators are more than a little nervous. The catalytic converters go for about $5,000. All it takes is a fill-up with the wrong fuel once to ruin one.

The announcement was SOP.