The California senate has passed the first US bill proposing to limit carbon dioxide emissions from vehicle exhaust, Associated Press (AP) reported.
AP said that Senate Democrats bowed to concerns over global warming and the environment protection lobby to vote 22 to 13 to pass the bill.
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California already has stricter vehicle exhaust emissions laws than the other 49 states.
The politicians ignored fierce objections by global car makers and their dealers who saw the bill as a backdoor attempt to make them sell smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles, AP said.
“It’s going to whiplash our California car market without any benefit for our consumers,” Peter Welch of the California Motor Car Dealers Association told AP. “We just think it’s a dumb idea.”
AP said the senate-approved legislation now returns to the Democrat-controlled state assembly for agreement on Senate changes and, if approved goes to Governor Gray Davis for signing.
Davis spokesman Russ Lopez, told AP that the California governor had not indicated a position.
Davis is up for re-election this November and faces a barrage of lobbying on the bill, one of the year’s most contentious, AP said.
AP added that the bill is supported by the state’s big cities, Silicon Valley business executives, water districts and celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbra Streisand but opposed by car makers and dealers, the United Auto Workers Union, the California Farm Bureau Federation and the California Chamber of Commerce, representing much of the state’s business community.
The bill would give global automakers until 2009 to begin restricting their California output of carbon dioxide and would require the California Air Resources Board to write regulations by January 1, 2005, to limit carbon dioxide from non-commercial cars and light trucks, AP said.
The United Kingdom recently introduced new taxation systems based on vehicle carbon dioxide emissions. Private motorists pay annual road tax for new cars on a sliding scale according to CO2 emissions while company car drivers pay benefit-in-kind tax using a similar scale.
Advertising and promotional materials for new vehicles must display CO2 output as well as fuel efficiency details.
