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ADMINISTRATION REINVENTION PROGRAM WILL SAVE CAR MAKERS MILLIONS IN CERTIFYING CLEAN VEHICLES

Release Date: 03/16/99
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner today announced a new Clinton Administration regulatory reinvention initiative that will save auto manufacturers an estimated $55 million through improved procedures for ensuring that tailpipe emissions meet clean-air health standards. The new Compliance Assurance Program is called CAP 2000 because auto manufacturers can voluntarily opt into the program beginning in model-year 2000.
Browner said, “Under the Clinton Administration’s efforts to reinvent government, led by Vice President Al Gore, we are making environmental regulations fairer, more efficient, and more protective. The program we are announcing today will allow auto makers to save millions of dollars while ensuring that cars run cleanly and do more to protect public health and the environment of all Americans.”

Every year, EPA certifies that new passenger cars and trucks will meet air pollution emissions standards before they are sold. In the past, annual certification applications for a large volume manufacturer could typically amount to 13,000 pages and take 120,000 hours to complete, costing a company $8.4 million. CAP 2000 cuts this burdensome workload for certification in half -- an industry-wide savings that works out to $55 million.

At the same time, the CAP 2000 program is a more effective way to ensure that motor vehicles actually achieve the emissions reductions for which they are certified. Currently, certification focuses on prototype vehicles not yet on the road. Under CAP 2000, manufacturers will test more than 2000 customer-owned, in-use vehicles each year, providing a much larger and better data base on actual performance. If non-complying vehicles are identified, the manufacturer must test more vehicles to determine if a recall is necessary. This approach provides auto makers with a more cost-effective approach for producing vehicles with more durable emission control equipment. The overall result is cleaner air.

The streamlined process offered by CAP 2000 is another outcome of the Clinton Administration’s efforts to reinvent government. In March 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore and EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner proposed an agenda to reinvent
environmental programs as part of the Administration’s broader reinvention effort. Since then, the agency has cut more than 26.9 million hours of unnecessary paperwork burden, valued at $807 million a year, while at the same time strengthening protection of public health and the environment. Public access to environmental information has been dramatically increased, with EPA’s website now receiving more than 40 million visits a month. Through EPA’s growing voluntary programs, the latest annual results show that more than 6,000 businesses and other partners saved $1.6 billion while conserving enough electricity to light 56 million households for a year and cutting harmful carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the nation’s highways.

The CAP 2000 rule will be published in the Federal Register soon and is available on the EPA website at: www.epa.gov/OMSWWW.

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