California may rule Colorado vehicles

WHAT’S PROPOSED: Governor Bill Ritter wants to set emissions standards for new vehicles sold in Colorado, beginning in 2011 at the earliest.

WHAT’S NOT: Officials are not proposing a return of emissions testing for vehicles already on the road.

Could the SUVs and Jeeps that Coloradans drive to the ski slopes be coughing up emissions that warm the Earth and decrease the amount of snow to ski on?

Maybe. According to state officials, cars and trucks cause 23 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado. Getting cleaner vehicles onto the roads is a major part of a plan unveiled Nov. 5 by Gov. Bill Ritter to combat global warming.

It’s the most controversial part, and potentially the most expensive for Colorado residents. While cars were once screened for carbon monoxide in El Paso County, Ritter’s plan would create regulations for new cars based on greenhouse gas emissions.

The auto industry says that not only would it drive up the cost of vehicles, but it could make it impossible for dealers to sell larger vehicles, depending on what standards are set by a board that monitors air quality in California.

“It’s anticipated to cost more, potentially quite a bit more, but that remains to be seen in an exact amount,” said Tim Jackson, president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.

Estimates of how the pro- posal would increase the cost of a new car range from a couple hundred dollars to $1,000.

Officials haven’t said what rules they will adopt, but they have only one option: the socalled California standards.

California was the only state to have emissions rules in 1966, when the federal Clean Air Act established a cutoff for states to establish their own rules.

So that state’s standards are the only ones any other can adopt, something 15 other states have done or are in the process of doing.

Unlike federal efficiency standards, which have a milesper-gallon threshold, the state would set a maximum grams of carbon dioxide per mile driven on new cars sold here.

The standards were set in 2005 by the California Air Resources Board.

The earliest the rules could take effect is 2011, and they would be phased in over seven years, said Ginny Brannon, climate change manager with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

She could not provide an estimate of how it would affect the price of new cars in Colorado. But the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, an independent group that this year recommended the same thing, estimated the cost would jump $17 to $367 in the first three years and $434 to $1,064 in years four through six.

Jackson said the requirements would limit the types of cars available in Colorado.

“Not only do we not have anything in the showroom today that will meet the California standard . . . We don’t have anything in the pipeline with which we can be assured we can meet it by 2013,” Jackson said.

State officials, though, say that with so many states adopting the standards, 40 percent of the U.S. market, the manufacturers will meet the demand.

Plus, Brannon said, the additional cost will be offset by better fuel efficiency.

It remains to be seen how Colorado drivers will react. While polls show people here support environmental measures, they also like big cars.

“They’ll say, ‘Yeah,’ they want to be green and they’ll say they’re ready to put solar panels on their home,” Jackson said. “They’ll talk about the economy car, but most of them are buying a more traditional vehicle.”

By “more traditional,” he means the SUVs, pickups and vans that make up 60 percent of car sales in Colorado.

The standards set to take effect in California in 2009 would preclude most cars currently on the market from being sold here, and Jackson said if California’s air quality officials raise the standards even more, the large vehicles could disappear from the market.

“There’s going to be a rude awakening when they’re not going to be able to get that vehicle again,” Jackson said.

The clean-cars initiative is only part of Ritter’s ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

DRAWING PRAISE

Environmental groups have praised the goal and cleancars initiative.

“The governor made it clear that what he announced is a beginning. It’s a good

beginning, but there’s certainly a lot more that will need to be done on transportation to reach the goal he announced,” said Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.

Adopting the California standard was one of the 11 transportation-related measures recommended this year by a panel of elected officials, known as the Colorado Climate Project. None of the others are being considered, Brannon said.

These included recommendations to require a low-carbon gasoline, which could add 4.2 to 6.5 cents to every gallon of gas and is set to take effect in California in 2010, and to allow insurance companies to charge based on miles driven.

The latter has not been implemented in any state, though a few pilot programs are in the works.

But, Brannon said, officials will look at other specific vehicle measures as the plan progresses.

Another thing drivers in El Paso County won’t see from the climate-change plan is emissions testing.

The 26-year-old mandatory testing program was halted in January because the air here meets federal standards, and no part of Ritter’s plan includes restarting it.

Ozone, however, could eventually force a return of testing in El Paso County.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in March will issue new ozone standards, and the air here could suddenly be rated as too dirty.

Carbon monoxide is a toxic byproduct of combustion, while ozone is the combination of gases that cause smog.

While both affect air quality, neither carbon monoxide nor ozone are considered greenhouse gases.

If that happens, the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments will have to come up with a plan to address it, and emissions testing could be a part of that, said the council’s environmental projects manager, Rich Muzzy.

He doubts it would be a return to the old system of biannual testing at commercial auto garages, because that equipment tested for carbon monoxide, not ozone, he said.

It could take the form of remote-sensing equipment and cameras to identify polluting cars on the road, he said. No decision will be made until at least summer 2009.

If testing did come back, many drivers could face quite a shock.

Since testing ended, the Colorado Springs market has been flooded with cars that couldn’t pass in the Denver area, where testing continues, said Mike Castine, owner of Exhaust Readers, a shop on North Nevada Avenue.

And they aren’t all old clunkers.

“The newer cars that aren’t maintained are every bit as bad as the older cars,” he said. “If all of a sudden we have a program come back, the consumer is the guinea pig.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1605 or scott.rappold@gazette.com