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UK goes for hardest emission regs
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• Britain has launched a campaign to subject Europe to some of the strictest diesel emission laws in the world for trucks over 3.5 tonnes. If adopted the anti-pollution drive could add £2,000 to the cost of an FIGV.
Environment Secretary Chris Patten has urged the European Commission in Brussels to adopt the US standard by the middle of the present decade, and Transport Minister Robert Atkins has called on MPs of all parties to support the move. Pressure has been building on the Government to press ahead with tough anti-pollution controls on diesel engines which would require new engine designs, cleaner Dery and sophisticated engine management systems. Atkins says: "Mr Patten is urging the European Commission at the Environment Council to make proposals to introduce tighter controls on gaseous emissions from heavy diesels and a set limit for the first time for particulate emissions from these vehicles.
"The Government believes that the Community's longterm aim should be to set a mid-1990s diesel standard based as closely as possible on the US 1994 standard, both in limit values and test procedure," says Patten. In particular these standards slash the legal limit on nitrogen oxide and particulates emissions from new vehicles.
Graham Montgomerie, engineering liason manager at the FTA, says: ''We do not like the automatic acceptance of what works in the US. The United States is a totally different country with different fuel, a different climate and different vehicle utilisation."
The FTA and RHA are concerned that the latest proposals would be unenforceable. Last month (CM 8-14 February) Malcolm Fendick, head of the Department of Transport's policy branch for environmental standards, conceded that the DTp is struggling to work out
how in-service testing could be carried out by the Vehicle Inspectorate and the enforcement agencies.
Montgomerie says a 13mode test cycle is used to measure emissions, and warns: "I cannot foresee police and vehicle inspectors undertaking such tests in the layby at Crick on the Ml."
It is not yet clear if the proposal will be backed by Britain's fellow EC members, but the European Commission is known to be reluctant to adopt stringent US emission levels.