Controlling Climate Gases from Nonroad Engines

Controlling Climate Gases from Nonroad Engines

States Petition EPA to Control Climate Gases from Nonroad Engines
SACRAMENTO, California, Feb, 2008  - California Attorney 
General Edmund G. Brown Jr. will host a news conference Tuesday announcing 
a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking the agency 
to adopt greenhouse gas emissions standards for nonroad vehicles, engines 
and equipment. 
Other states, government agencies, and national environmental 
organizations that are joining California in petitioning the EPA include 
Connecticut, Oregon, New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Department of 
Environmental Protection, the International Center for Technology 
Assessment, Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth. 
"Millions of industrial machines in mines, on farms, and construction 
sites spew massive quantities of unregulated greenhouse gas pollution," 
Attorney General Brown said. "The Environmental Protection Agency has not 
regulated the emissions from these vehicles and engines - just like it has 
failed to curb greenhouse gases from cars, ocean-going vessels, and 
aircraft." 
Among the wide range of nonroad vehicles and engine that the EPA is 
authorized to regulate are construction and farm machinery, logging 
equipment, outdoor power equipment, recreational vehicles, lawn and garden 
equipment, marine vessels, aircraft, and locomotives. 

Attorney General Brown recently filed separate petitions to the EPA 
calling for aircraft and ocean-going vessel regulations. 
Locomotives are excluded from the latest petition because regulating train 
emissions involves different technological and legal issues. 
The nonroad engines and vehicles cited in the petition emitted 220 million 
tons of carbon dioxide in 2007 - an amount equivalent to the emissions 
from 40 million cars, Brown says. 
Mining and construction equipment accounted for 32 percent of these 
emissions, followed by agricultural and industrial equipment. According to 
the California Air Resources Board, there are approximately 17.8 million 
of these machines and engines in California. 
EPA data shows that the emissions from snowmobiles, golf carts, riding 
lawn mowers, agricultural equipment and off-road vehicles are growing at a 
faster rate - 49 percent between 1990 and 2005 - than greenhouse gas 
emissions from motor vehicles or aircraft. These vehicles emit more 
greenhouse gases than all domestic aircraft. 
In tomorrow’s petition, California will assert that the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency has the authority and the duty to adopt national 
greenhouse gas emissions standards for the entire sector of nonroad 
engines and vehicles.
 
California and the other states and groups are petitioning the EPA to:

  Make a determination that greenhouse gas emissions from nonroad sources 
  contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health and welfare

  Adopt greenhouse gas emissions standards, under Section 213 of the Clean 
  Air Act, for new nonroad vehicles and engines

  Adopt the regulations that are necessary to carry out these emissions 
  limits.

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