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Issues >
Energy
> Choice Cut >
Printer
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billion
Created by the Clinton Administration in 1993, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) is a cooperative research and development partnership aimed at creating a prototype "super-efficient" car. The program brings together the Big Three Automakers (DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and General Motors), federal agencies, and several government defense, energy, and weapons laboratories. PNGV is divided into 3 stages. The final stage, Goal III, has automakers producing a prototype vehicle that will achieve approximately 80 miles per gallon by 2004, although the auto manufacturers will not have to market this vehicle to the public. Over the past eight years, the federal government has spent more than $1 billion on PNGV. Yet, the average fuel economy of new passenger vehicles sold over that same time has slid to its lowest point in 20 years. Green
Scissors Proposal Current Status On June 14, 2000, Representatives John Sununu (R-NH) and Robert Andrews (D-NJ) offered an amendment to the fiscal year 2001 Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 4578) to cut PNGV by $126.5 million. The amendment passed 214 to 211. Funding for the program was later restored and increased to $146 million during conference negotiations. Under PNGV, the auto industry chooses the "preferred technology" for meeting Goal III. The industry appears prepared to choose a hybrid production prototype vehicle that will use a highly polluting diesel combustion engine. The deadline to reach Goal III has already been delayed from 2003 to 2004. Program Hurts Taxpayers This program is corporate
welfare, benefiting the major U.S. auto and diesel engine manufacturers.
Auto manufacturers
do not need subsidies to produce "super-efficient cars."
PNGV's Goal III fails to include any requirement that technologies
developed from this federal research should be used in cars sold
today. In fact, automakers will have fulfilled their obligations
under PNGV with a single prototype production vehicle nearly
10 years after the program began. Program Hurts the Environment The auto industry is using PNGV to block more aggressive pollution reducing regulation. Automakers use PNGV as a shield against raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Higher CAFE standards are the single biggest step the U.S. could take to curb global warming. A "next generation" vehicle should be both extremely efficient and extremely clean. The auto industry has not embraced a strong target for emissions of air pollutants (smog-forming and particulate pollution) from the "new generation" vehicle. Environmentalists believe that the program should not be funded until the program participants, including the auto industry, formally adopts a goal of achieving Tier 2 Bin 2 emission standards or better by 2004. Tier 2 Bin 2 standards set auto emissions at 0.02 grams of nitrogen oxide per mile and 0.01 grams of particulate matter per mile. The preferred fuel choice
for PNGV appears to be diesel.
Diesel fuel poses significant emissions problems, including increased
nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Diesel particulate matter
contains cancer-causing chemicals that include arsenic, benzene,
formaldehyde, nickel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Contacts
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