By Joel Gay
Car dealers in New Mexico last November filed suit in federal court
to prevent the state and the city of Albuquerque from enacting stricter
pollution controls on new cars. Now a coalition of New Mexico
environmental, consumer protection and health groups has intervened in
the case, siding with the two governments.
The issue revolves around the clean-cars program originally adopted by California in 2002 that holds car manufacturers to tough, new standards as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Federal judges have upheld
the state's right to require automakers to provide their state with
cleaner cars, provided California gets a waiver from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. So far the EPA has denied the waiver.
Meantime more than a dozen states have taken advantage of a provision
in the federal Clean Air Act that allows other states to adopt the
California standards. New Mexico joined that group in November, through parallel votes by the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo Air Quality Control Board.
The New Mexico move was quickly challenged at both the state and
federal levels by more than a dozen car dealers statewide, including
Zangara Dodge in Albuquerque and Jack Key Motors of Alamogordo, Deming
and Las Cruces, along with the National Automobile Dealers Association.
Four New Mexico legislators signed onto the state-court lawsuit, too,
though that one was dismissed by a Las Cruces judge on technical grounds. It is being appealed.
But the federal court case
continues to move forward, and late last week a coalition of 13 groups
ranging from the Sierra Club to the American Lung Association of New
Mexico filed to intervene. Lauren Ketcham, representing the lead
organization in the coalition, Environment New Mexico,
called the car dealers' lawsuit "frivolous," since federal judges in
California and Vermont have ruled against the car industry in similar
cases. In a statement, Ketcham added:
"We're confident that the court will uphold New
Mexico's program. It's unfortunate that the auto industry continues to
fight innovation, rather than rolling up their sleeves and working to
deliver the cleaner vehicles drivers want."
Cars built to the new standards could cost slightly more — up to
$300, Ketcham says — but one provision of the California standards is
that their gas savings would exceed those costs. At $3.10 a gallon,
Ketcham said, New Mexicans could save 213 million gallons of gas, worth
about $623 million, over the average lifetime of the cars purchased
here.
The plaintiffs argue that the added cost of building cars to the
tougher standards will drive customers to neighboring states to buy new
cars and trucks. They also contend that only a state can adopt the
California standards, and that the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Air
Quality Board does not have that authority.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is representing the coalition,
which also includes Environmental Defense, Southwest Environmental
Center, 1000 Friends of New Mexico, New Mexico Physicians for Social
Responsibility, Southwest Energy Alliance, Consumer Federation of
America, New Mexico Public Interest Research Group, Coalition for Clean
Affordable Energy, and New Energy Economy.
