CALIFORNIA'S DIESEL RULES HURTING STATE

So the U.S. will respond with lip service to hysteria over supposed global warming. Good for the U.S. Maybe President Bill Clinton sees what environmental overregulation is doing to California and hopes to spare the rest of the country.

Oct. 25, 1993

3 min read

Clinton last week repeated his goal of limiting emissions of radiative gases in 2000 to 1990 levels but made most of the effort voluntary. He didn't raise fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles. He didn't demand higher fuel taxes. He urged people to plant trees, called for energy-efficient household appliances, and pushed a plan to encourage use of public transportation. In other words, he shook his finger at a pet environmentalist demon but refused to go along with an exorcism that would demand bleeding of the national economy.

CALIFORNIA'S DIESEL RULES

California should have such sense. Refiners now must sell diesel fuel that meets its stringent requirements, and some have decided instead to hit the road. Truckers report spot shortages. Diesel's price has jumped by 50% in 2 months (see Newsletter).

Disruptions are temporary, state environmental regulators declare in glittering assertions of the inevitable. Yes, demand will realign with supply. Some truckers and farmers, like several large refiners, will decide that participation in California's diesel market isn't worth the cost. But it may be a forced decision: Diesel that meets the new specifications is suspected of damaging engines.

The question is how much more California's already struggling economy will suffer while a hybrid diesel market adjusts.

This all has come about because California committed one of the two fatal sins of government regulation: overkill. Sulfur reductions mandated by federal Clean Air Act amendments weren't enough for the state. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) made refiners slash aromatics content of diesel, too - or produce alternative fuels able to meet tough emission targets.

The requirement has crunched California refiners, who face two further regulatory challenges. One is a mandate by CARB to begin selling in 1996 a reformulated gasoline meeting content and performance standards stricter than those set by federal law. The other challenge is a program by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to reduce plant emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide (see story, p. 35).

Refiners are scrambling. Some of them couldn't retool in time to meet the Oct. 1 deadline for low-sulfur, low-aromatics diesel and had to apply for variances. Time will resolve that problem. Time also will solve the problem of engine damage - perhaps by making more refiners decide that production of CARB diesel isn't worth the effort. It should tell CARB something that dispensers of non-CARB diesel just outside California enjoy booming sales.

CONSIDERING COST

That California, especially the Los Angeles basin, has serious air pollution problems is beyond question. Regulators simply have gone too far. They have made their entire state a bad place to sell diesel, to drive trucks and tractors, and for growing numbers of people, to live and work. Someone is going to have to examine the difference between air quality gains that can be expected from federally mandated reformulated fuels and those from California's hybrids and ask whether it's worth the cost.

Apparently, President Clinton did some thinking of this type before he decided to take the soft approach to global warming. That's encouraging. The next step on global warming is to avoid the other fatal mistake of government regulation: regulation where none is warranted.