* Environment committee to vote on Dec. 14
* Any decision would require plenary endorsement
By Alissa de Carbonnel
BRUSSELS, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Members of the European Parliament are expected to vote against car pollution testing rules they say are too soft on automakers and fail to learn the lessons of Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal, politicians and EU sources said.
Members of the Parliament's environment committee said they had cross-party support for a proposal - which will be put to a committee vote on Dec. 14 - that aims to block an EU emissions testing deal agreed in October.
That deal, agreed in a closed-door committee of representatives of the 28 member states, still allowed vehicles to carry on emitting more than twice official pollution limits.
"We need to object because it is a crazy decision. Car makers have been delaying this for years. Then we find out they have been cheating on it and we reward them by giving them more time and saying they can emit more," Green environment spokesperson and vice-president Bas Eickhout said.
Cross-party coordinators met at the Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday and agreed a time-table for the parliamentary action, which will culminate in a plenary vote in January.
Dutch Liberal politician Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy also said he was confident of a majority to oppose the testing deal in the environment committee.
"When there are companies who are deliberately trying to fool us, we are rewarding them. What kind of message is that to the rest of the world?" Gerbrandy said. "We are showing that we are rather weak guardians of our European regulation."
Any decision in the environment committee would have to be confirmed by a plenary vote, where cross-party support would be more difficult. If a plenary vote also went against the EU's emissions testing deal, the executive European Commission would have to draw up a new proposal.
Despite what could mean a delay of up two years measures to narrow the gap between emissions produced in artificial testing conditions and in real driving conditions, politicians said their objection would signal their desire for tougher measures.
"When I sense the mood, I think there will be a majority that will reject the proposal in the plenary as well," said Mark Demesmaeker, a member of the Conservatives and Reformists Group, the biggest parliamentary bloc.
"The technology to build cleaner diesel cars is there; the pollution by diesel cars is harming our health," he said. "They are killing us." (Editing by Barbara Lewis and Mark Potter)