Friday, 21 Sep 2001

You Can't Be Too Car-ful

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences is worried that it might have overestimated the amount of fuel savings possible if automakers were to redesign their vehicles. The academy is holding a public hearing in early October to consider changing a report issued this summer that found that fuel economy of some vehicles could be boosted as much as 40 percent without requiring big reductions in size or weight. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, however, says the academy may have double-counted the efficiencies of some technologies to come up with the 40 percent figure.

Let's Beat Frank About This

Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Wednesday denied rumors that he was trying to attach a rider to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge onto a fast-moving national defense bill. Speaking on the Senate floor, Murkowski said, "That is certainly not the case. It would be inappropriate and in poor taste." Only hours later, however, a Murkowski ally on energy issues, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), submitted just such an amendment. Inhofe spokesperson Gary Hoitsma said, "We just feel these energy security issues are so important in light of what's happened and independent of what's happened."

Celling Like Hotcakes

Canadian company Ballard Power Systems announced yesterday that it had signed a three-year, $22 million deal to provide Ford with fuel cells for a line of vehicles the automaker hopes to launch by 2004. Ballard is providing fuel-cell technology to DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Nissan, and Volkswagen, among others. General Motors expects to have a fuel cell-powered pickup truck ready for tests by the end of this year.

Hip, Hip, EPA!

In its largest enforcement action ever in a pesticides case, the U.S. EPA is seeking $3.7 million in penalties from a Memphis, Tenn.-based pesticide manufacturer for using chemicals from unapproved foreign manufacturers. The agency says that the Micro Flo Company imported thousands of drums of insecticide ingredients from 1996 to 1999 under the pretense that they were from an approved manufacturer in India, when the chemicals were actually from elsewhere. The EPA's Marlene Tucker said there was no evidence that the chemicals had hurt anyone, but "the whole point of the statute is not that the harm occurred but that the risk of harm is there." The approved manufacturer in India, United Phosphorous, is suing Micro Flo and its parent company BASF for $57 million.

They Have Found What They're Looking for

Following a negative environmental report from the California Energy Commission, a major energy firm has ended its plans to build a big power plant seven miles from Joshua Tree National Park. Environmentalists had feared that a new state law to speed power-plant approval, which was created in the wake of California's energy "crisis" this spring, would mean that plans for the power plant would go ahead. But the commission gave the thumbs down to the InterGen plant, comforting park officials who feared that it would harm the endangered desert tortoise and other animals by bringing more dirty air to the area, which already suffers from being downwind from smog-laden Los Angeles.