The power of this unheralded group of gubernatorial appointees who write the state’s air regs–they include schoolteachers, doctors and lawyers–will become apparent again in a few weeks. That’s when the Environmental Protection Agency will propose new regulations that affect automobiles beginning in 2004. They’ll require carmakers to build cleaner sport utility vehicles, restrict the use of diesel engines and mandate cleaner gasoline–all steps CARB has already taken. In lobbying circles, that’s creating more talk of the EPA’s playing second fiddle as California’s regulations become a de facto national standard. “They can do things in California that politically wouldn’t fly in Washington,” says a high-level EPA staffer. “Although we probably wouldn’t want to admit it publicly, that makes it easier for us to do it for the rest of the country.”
That’s long made CARB a four-letter word in Detroit, where critics say CARB lacks the technical savvy to be making such big decisions. “The hearings are almost like an old-town-hall atmosphere,” says William H. Freedman, who has lobbied CARB on behalf of the auto industry. “They might spend three to four hours on a multibillion-dollar issue and have discussions that seem so… painfully ordinary.” The requirement to build slow-selling electric vehicles still galls DaimlerChrysler’s Robert Eaton: “I don’t believe the technology will yield to the point where it makes electric vehicles competitive.”
CARB spokesman Jerry Martin says the agency’s 1,000 staffers keep the nontechnical board members up to speed, and that the agency’s rules force carmakers to push the boundaries of existing technology. The proof, he says, is in the breathing: automotive emissions have been reduced 95 percent since the 1970s. For that, environmentalists say CARB should be lauded. “California has the worst air pollution in the country, [but] CARB is dealing with it and the American people [benefit],” says Ann Mesnikoff of the Sierra Club. This year’s batch of rules will bring a big benefit in five years: they’ll require sport utilities to be as clean as cars. Engineers are devising beefed-up catalytic converters to clean those exhausts, at a cost of roughly $200 per vehicle. The industry may not like it. But as with many CARB rules, they’ll have to learn to live with it.
