Vehicle Emissions

For the second time in three months, the Clinton Administration on Wednesday put off its threat to cut California's federal highway funding if the state does not bring its Smog Check program into compliance with federal clean-air standards. This time, however, federal and state officials are expressing optimism that negotiations may lead to a mutually acceptable solution to the quandary over how to improve the state's flawed system of detecting motor vehicle emissions.

CHP Officer Ronald W. Perkins sat patiently in his patrol car on the shoulder of the Garden Grove Freeway in Santa Ana. "Sometimes it's just a matter of wait and see," he said. Finally, a large diesel truck rolled by, spewing black smoke from its tall exhaust pipe. "There's one," he said, accelerating onto the roadway.

Nabbed by smog-busters and labeled "gross polluters," many California motorists are rebelling against the expense and inconvenience of the state's newly revamped Smog Check program. Kyoko Pleet, for one, feels she's paid her fair share--in time and money--to help clean Southern California's dirty air. After spending $500 to repair her 1987 Nissan Sentra's faulty carburetor, Pleet repeatedly called the jammed Smog Check phone lines to book an appointment at a newly created referee station.

Filiberto Cervantes has already separated from his wife and kids, lost his car, moved into his truck and says he subsists largely on a diet of $1 cheese burritos. But Jan. 1 looms like a date with the grim reaper himself. "The first of the year will probably be the end of my family," said Cervantes, showing a visitor his big-rig cab turned dwelling, now parked in a fast-food lot in Long Beach. "I don't know what's next." Cervantes is among thousands of truckers servicing the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex who are facing a day of reckoning this New Year's.

In a major effort to accelerate the shift to cars powered by cleaner fuels, the state Air Resources Board on Thursday endorsed the broad outlines of a plan to wean California motorists of conventional gasoline-powered cars by as early as 1997. The proposed requirements, which go far beyond the already tough 1994 tailpipe emission limits adopted last June for conventional gasoline-powered cars, would have major implications for auto makers and oil companies, as well as for consumers.

The Supreme Court appeared closely divided Wednesday over an environmental challenge to the Bush administration's refusal to regulate the greenhouse gases that are believed to cause global warming. At issue is whether a dozen blue states, led by California and Massachusetts, can spur federal regulators to limit vehicle emissions.

The automobile and oil industries are expected today to unveil new research data showing how new formulations of gasoline can reduce smog-forming auto emissions, as demonstrated in an unprecedented $14-million joint industry research project. The 14-month project, believed to be the largest study of its kind, is part of a dual industry effort to demonstrate that gasoline can reduce smog as much as alternative fuels such as methanol, ethanol or compressed natural gas.

Unable to break a deadlock between competing interests, the chief U.S. Senate sponsor of legislation to revamp and strengthen the 1977 Clean Air Act said he is dropping plans to win congressional approval of the bill this year. Failure to pass the bill will not immediately affect the South Coast Air Basin's plans to proceed with more restrictions on polluters. But James M.

The Bush Administration will fight to resurrect a defeated proposal requiring the American automobile industry to produce millions of cars capable of running on cleaner alternative fuels, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday. The centerpiece of a bill modernizing air pollution laws for the first time in more than a decade, the requirement was emasculated by a House panel last week after EPA Administrator William K. Reilly and White House Chief of Staff John H.

In the face of an all-out lobbying effort by the major oil companies, a Senate committee Tuesday gutted an anti-smog bill that would have required vehicle manufacturers to begin selling cars and light trucks in California that can run on methanol or other low-polluting fuels.