Clean Cars Program - Overview
Cars, trucks and SUVs produce smog-forming air pollution and air toxics, responsible for asthma, respiratory and lung diseases and cancer. Vehicles are responsible for more than half of all smog-forming emissions nationally.
The pollution performance of just a handful of corporations has a dramatic impact on the air we breathe and the climate we will pass on to future generations. General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan are responsible for more than 90 percent of the heat-trapping and smog-forming emissions from new automobiles today. With New Mexicans driving more each year, unless action is taken to bring cleaner cars to New Mexico’s roads, the transportation sector’s contribution to the state’s air pollution and global warming problems will only get worse.
A Road to the Solution
Although the federal government regulates smog-forming and air toxic emissions from vehicles, California has the authority under the Clean Air Act to set its own vehicle emission standards. States have the option of choosing to comply with federal standards of California’s Clean Cars Program.
Currently, thirteen states have adopted the California program: California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington. These states represent about 36 percent of the nation’s vehicle market. Others, like Colorado, Florida and Arizona, are considering adoption.
The Clean Cars Program has three main parts. First, the Low Emission Vehicle (LEV II) standards set smog-forming and toxic emission standards. Second, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program ensures a supply of clean vehicles and an appropriate investment in the infrastructure and research needed to develop the next generation of clean cars. Third, the program establishes fleet-wide average global warming standards. The global warming pollution standards, finalized in 2005, go into effect model year (MY) 2009 and ramp up each year until full phase-in by MY 2016, when new cars and lighter light duty trucks will emit 34 percent less global warming emissions and new heavier trucks will emit 25 percent less.
A Victory for New Mexico’s Environment, Public Health and Consumer Pocketbooks
The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo Air Quality Control Board, under authority from the New Mexico Air Quality Control Act, adopted the Clean Cars Program on November 28, 2007. The program will apply to new vehicles beginning in MY 2011.
The Clean Cars Program would drastically reduce global warming emissions, reduce toxic emissions (including benzene and formaldehyde) by 12 percent, cut smog-forming emissions of volatile organic compounds by 5 percent and nitrogen oxides by 11 percent and reduce health hazardous particulate matter. These emission reductions would help to protect public health, clean up New Mexico’s skies and help establish New Mexico as a leader on solutions to global warming.
Because Clean Car technology also helps to make vehicles more efficient, consumers will benefit from reduced operating costs. Although vehicles are projected to cost about $1,000 more in 2016, a consumer buying a new car in 2016 and paying $20 more per month on the car loan, would save an average of $43 per month due to fuel savings for a total of $23 net savings per month (assuming gas prices of $3.00 per gallon). This savings would be even higher if gas prices rise above $3/gallon. The increased cost of the vehicle is entirely offset by operating cost savings.
As a result of these operational savings, roughly 214 million gallons of gasoline would be saved in New Mexico by 2020 as a result of the program, saving New Mexico consumers $623 million annually, reenergizing the local economy and helping to reduce New Mexico’s dependence on foreign oil.
Unfortunately, the day the Program was approved in New Mexico, a group of four Democratic lawmakers and car dealers from around the State filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block implementation of the Program.
