By Michael Kahn
SAN FRANCISCO, April 24 (Reuters) - Faced with tough auto industry opposition, California officials voted on Thursday to further scale back the nation's first mandate requiring automakers to deliver so-called zero emissions vehicles.
The California Air Resources Board voted 8-3 to lower the number of these vehicles that must be on California roads by 2005 while also allowing car manufacturers to produce fuel cell cars rather than just electric ones to meet the requirements.
"What the board did was modify the existing program," said Richard Varenchik, a spokesman for the board. "They did that by offering manufacturers two ways to meet the mandate -- either through fuel cells or battery-operated vehicles."
The politically appointed board's decision marks the latest turn in the long road to require car makers to offer zero emissions or low-polluting vehicles to drivers in the nation's most populous state.
A spokesman for the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers could not immediately be reached but the group has argued against the regulations in the past on grounds that few want battery-operated vehicles.
Environmental groups had mixed reactions. While disappointed officials once again weakened the rules, a spokesman for one environmental group said there were also fears the board would accept a staff proposal to eliminate increasing the requirements beyond 2008.
"The important step the board took today was ensuring that an increasing number of zero emission cars will be delivered to California," said Jason Mark, a spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Hopefully this is the last step before the rules actually go into effect."
LEGAL WRANGLING
In 1990, the board jolted the automobile industry by announcing plans to require a full 10 percent or an estimated 100,000 of the new cars sold in California in 2003 to be zero emissions vehicles -- a goal which auto producers quickly and repeatedly attacked as unreasonable.
Legal wrangling, however, kept the mandate from taking effect and the board softened the proposed regulations over the years. California lowered the requirement for zero emission vehicles to 2 percent in 2001 but the auto industry won a preliminary injunction to block the revised rules.
In response, the state rewrote the regulations and approved new ones on Thursday that should sweep away the legal challenge although they also lower the required number of zero emissions vehicles, Mark said.
"The state has removed the legal question marks and restored the programs," he added. "It can now go into effect in 2005."
The board's decision means car makers will have to deliver at least 250 fuel cell cars -- which generally run on hydrogen -- or larger numbers of battery-powered vehicles by 2008. The target rises to 27,500 by 2014, according to the air resources board spokesman.
This is less than the estimated 30,000 zero emissions vehicles that would have been required by 2010 under the 2001 rules had taken effect.
In addition, the program calls for the industry to provide a percentage of low-pollution cars such as hybrids by 2010 based on a percentage of the automakers' sales in the state. Environmental groups estimated that figure at 125,000 compared to only 70,000 under the 2001 regulations.