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U.S. EPA launches hearings on reducing sulfur in diesel fuel
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants a 97-percent reduction in sulfur from diesel fuel by the year 2006, and it's taking its proposal directly to the public. The second of five scheduled hearings on the issue will take place in Rosemont, Illinois, on Tuesday. At the first of the hearings -- conducted Monday in New York -- Margo Oge of the EPA said, "Anyone who has ever driven behind a bus or a truck is familiar with the smell of the diesel fuel and familiar with the cloudy emissions that come out from those trucks."
The agency heard testimony from doctors, lawyers and activists who said exhaust from diesel fuel is polluting the air and contributing to rising asthma rates in U.S. cities. "Just as removing lead from gasoline was the key to cleaning up cars in the mid 1970s, removing sulfur from diesel will be the key to cleaning up diesel trucks and buses in the coming decades," testified Richard Kassel of the Natural Resources Defense Council Industry reactsRed Cavaney, a petroleum industry official, agreed that sulfur emissions need to be reduced, but he said a 90-percent reduction is more reasonable. "We are concerned that the agency's diesel sulfur proposal risks going too far, too fast," testified Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute. "We estimate that EPA's proposal could add about $2,600 to the cost of a trucker's annual operations in higher diesel fuel costs," he said The higher fuel costs could also harm businesses with small fleets of vehicles such as bakeries and nurseries, farmer-owned refineries and, ultimately, all consumers, Cavaney said. A link to asthma?New York City has reason to be concerned about diesel emissions and their possible link to asthma. According to the New York Department of Health, hospitalization rates for asthma in the city are three times higher than the national average. In the south Bronx, the hospitalization rates are eight times as high. That's where Yolanda Garcia, of the group Nos Quedamos (We Stay), lived when she lost her 24-year-old son to asthma. With the help of planners, architects, lawyers and others, community activist Garcia wages her battle for cleaner air out of a small storefront in the south Bronx. "My legacy to my son is to try and mitigate what is wrong so that no other children or young people have to die the way he did," Garcia said. "Our children would like to play baseball, but they can't because they can't breathe," she said. The final three hearings are scheduled for: • June 22 in Atlanta • June 27 in Los Angeles • June 29, 2000 in Denver RELATED STORIES: U.S. gasoline producers blame Washington for high prices RELATED SITES: Environmental Protection Agency |
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CNN's Maria Hinojosa reports on a hearing in New York on the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal for a 97-percent reduction in sulphur from diesel fuel by the year 2006.
