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Environment Group Calls for Stricter Emissions Standards
Calif. guidelines seen as model for Connecticut
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Business New Haven
10/13/2003
By: BNH
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HARTFORD — Connecticut residents will breathe cleaner air and suffer fewer respiratory ailments, cardiovascular diseases and cancers if the state adopts stricter vehicle emission standards similar to those now in place in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and California, according to a new report commissioned by the Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE).
The study, "The Drive for Cleaner Air in Connecticut: The Benefits of Adopting the California Low-Emission Vehicle Standard for Cars and Light-Duty Trucks," examines three major categories of pollutants from motor vehicles — air toxics, smog-forming pollutants and greenhouse gases — that make Connecticut’s air some of the most polluted in the nation, according to the CFE.
The report concludes that while the federal emission standards would reduce pollution over the next 25 years, the stricter and more protective Low Emission Vehicles II (LEV II) standards would produce greater health benefits for Connecticut residents.
"Adopting the stricter vehicle emission standards will make a difference in every city and town in the state, and especially in areas near congested highways," said David Brown, a public health toxicologist and co-author of the report. "We know that exposure to air pollutants has caused disease. Now we also know that reducing exposure will reduce disease significantly."
According to the report, motor vehicle emissions are the source of about 40 percent of toxic air pollution in the region. Because the state’s air is among the most polluted in the country, CFE says, Connecticut residents face relatively high cancer and respiratory risks.
Every year, for example, smog sends nearly 3,000 Connecticut residents to the emergency room and is associated with approximately 100,000 asthma attacks, according to CFE.
Adopting stricter emission standards would reduce the amount of toxic acetaldehyde, benzene, 1,3-butadiene and formaldehyde emitted into the state’s air. According to CFE, the results would include:
o 33 percent fewer air toxics emitted in 2025 from cars and light trucks than under the federal Tier 2 program — the equivalent of taking 193,000 of current cars off the roads.
o 12 percent fewer cancers attributable to motor vehicle-associated air toxics under LEV II as compared to Tier 2, which translates to about 130 fewer cancer cases over a decade.
o Reductions in total exposures to air toxics, bringing significant reductions in respiratory irritation for many Connecticut residents, moving more than 14,000 out of the at-risk category.
"Connecticut residents deserve to have a clean, healthy and safe environment in which to live and raise a family," said Donald Strait, CFE’s executive director. "There is no better evidence to support adopting stricter emission standards and no better time to ask our legislators and leaders to support the program."
The proposed stricter emission standards, which advocates hope to bring to the General Assembly for adoption in the 2004 session, would take effect with the 2007 model year. The program includes stricter emission standards for all new passenger motor vehicles, and a requirement that automobile manufacturers sell increasing numbers of cars that incorporate hybrid gas-electric engines and other innovative technology to reduce emissions even further.
The emission standards would mandate that, beginning with the 2007 model year, all cars meet stricter standards for toxic chemicals and smog-forming pollutants. Every automaker has developed the technology for clean conventional cars to meet these standards and is marketing those cars in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont, states that have passed the stricter standards, according to CFE.
The hybrid vehicle program requires that ten percent of all vehicles sold between 2007 and 2009 achieve even lower emission levels, with a portion of those vehicles using gas-electric hybrid engines. This program will increase over time, to sixteen percent by 2018.
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