An Auto Industry Ad Leaves Critics Choking
By Danny Hakim
The New York Times
Tuesday 22 March 2005
Detroit - Toyota, Ford, BMW and several other automakers are
financing an advertising campaign aimed at politicians that asserts
that automobiles are "virtually emission-free."
The campaign is part of an effort by a broad coalition of
automakers to present their vehicles as environmentally benign at a
time when the coalition is suing California to block a new regulation
to curb global warming emissions and continuing to lobby in
Washington against tougher fuel-economy regulations.
A print version of the ad has appeared in journals aimed at
legislators like Roll Call, Congress Daily and Congressional
Quarterly, as well as in the industry trade publication Automotive
News, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the
lobbying group behind the campaign.
The ads have sparked a campaign by the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an environmentalist group that says its efforts have
generated 20,000 complaints asking the Federal Trade Commission to
investigate whether the industry is making misleading claims.
While regulations have indeed forced automakers to greatly
improve emissions of smog-forming pollutants, the ads essentially
ignore greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide as an automotive
emission. The ads appear to contradict some automakers' own
statements about rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions from cars
and trucks. Smog-forming emissions remain a public health issue,
according to environmental and consumer groups, as the number of
vehicles continues to increase.
"Our advertising practices division and our enforcement division
are both aware of the ad and the campaign by UCS," Mitch Katz, a
spokesman for the trade commission, said, referring to the Union of
Concerned Scientists. "We are evaluating the complaints we've
received right now."
He declined to say how many complaints the commission had received.
The alliance includes most major automakers: Toyota, General
Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Mazda, BMW, Mitsubishi, Porsche and
Volkswagen.
The ad shows a picture of a toddler in a car eating a Popsicle.
"Your car may never be spotless, but it's 99 percent cleaner than
you think," the ad says. "Autos manufactured today are virtually
emission-free. And that's a dramatic improvement over models from
just 30 years ago."
Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the alliance, said that the
ad's use of the term "virtually emission-free" should be understood
to refer only to emissions classified as pollutants by the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Whether to consider greenhouse gases as pollutants is a
politically charged issue. The Clinton administration determined
carbon dioxide to be a pollutant, but the Bush administration
reversed the decision. Several states and environment groups are
suing to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon
dioxide emissions as pollutants.
But David Friedman, research director of the Union of Concerned
Scientists' clean vehicles program, said the advertisement itself
made no such distinction - it simply called vehicles "virtually
emission-free."
"It reminds you of the cigarette makers," he said. "They're
trying to hide the harmful emissions coming from their vehicles."
Though some cars on the road today are considered to be emitting
roughly 99 percent fewer smog-forming particles than cars did in the
pre-regulatory 1960s, Bergquist said the statement could not be
broadly applied to all new cars and trucks until regulations of such
emissions take effect by 2010.
Automotive emissions of greenhouse gases, however, have been
rising for two reasons: The number of vehicles is increasing and
average fuel economy has declined since the late 1980s because of
surging sales of sport utility vehicles and big pickups.
Many scientists have raised potentially serious health concerns
related to global warming, though there are dissenters. Most major
automakers have said that they do take the issue of reducing global
warming emissions quite seriously. In DaimlerChrysler's 2004
environmental report, for instance, the company's chief executive,
JŸrgen Schrempp, said in an opening statement that reducing "CO
emissions is the central topic as we strive for sustainable mobility."
But Dennis Fitzgibbons, a spokesman for the company in
Washington, said that the ad referred to emissions "that have
health-based effects that are defined under the Clean Air Act."
Not all automakers appeared to agree with the alliance's blanket
assessment that cars are now "virtually emission-free." Honda, which
is not an alliance member, said, "Today's vehicles in many cases are
virtually emissions-free with regards to smog-forming" gases.
"However, CO emissions remain a significant contributor to global
warming trends."
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