January 11 , 2012

BY EMAIL AND US MAIL TRANSMISSION

The Honorable Lisa Jackson

Administrator USEPA Headquarters Ariel Rios Building

Mail Code: 1101A 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20460 jackson.li sa@epa.gov

Dear Administrator Jackson:

We are writing to strongly urge you to take an important step to reduce pollution from the nation's cars, lig ht trucks, and sport

- utility vehicles. In particular, w e respectfully ask you

to immediately propose Tier 3 emissions and gasoline standards for passenger vehicles and to finalize these protections by the summer of 2012

. A rigorous Tier 3 program

would have immediat e and far

- reaching health and environ mental benefits: reducing a cascade of harmful airborne contaminants, ensuring longer and healthier lives, and helping states and communities across o ur country restore healthy air. These vital health protections will be achieved at an extremely modest cost

– the additional cost to consumers of the cleaner gasoline would be less than a penny a gallon

. And timely

finalization of Tier 3 standards would allow manufacturers to efficiently align tech nology upgrades with pe nding fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards

. Now is

the time to secure these human health protections for our nation.

Millions of Americans breathe cleaner, healthier air as a result of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's lead ership in carrying ou t our nation's clean air laws. B ut serious challenges remain. More than 1 in 3 Americans still live in areas where air pollutant

levels exceed at least one of the h ealth

- based National Ambie nt Air Quality Standards

. And p assenger ve hicles remain the second largest emitters of oxides of nitrogen and

volatile o rganic compounds in the U.S.

– the p rimary pollutants that form ozone . These

vehicles also emit m ore than half of all carbon monoxide pollution and contribute significantly to l ethal particula te matter emissions.

A protective Tier 3 program has the p otential to cut gasoline vehicle emissions of nitrogen oxides by nearly sixty percent, carbon monoxide by about 38 percent

, and volatile organic compounds by close to a third when th ese protections are carried out

. T he substantial emissions reductions from all vehicles will translate into more than 400 avoided premature deaths and 52,000 avoided lost workdays each year. 1

1 NACAA, Cleaner Cars, Cleaner Fuel, Cleaner Air: The Need for and Benefits of Tier 3

Ve hicle and Fuel Regulations ; October, 2011.R educing sulfur in gasoline will also result in an immediate r eduction in emissions from the existing fleet

– on the order o f approximately 260,000 tons of nitrogen oxides in 2017 when the program begins

– equivalent to taking 33 million cars off our nation’s roads

.

A timely federal Tier 3 program is also imperat ive for s tates to meet the health

- based National Ambient Air Q u ality S tandards, including the ozone standard adopted in 2008

, which assumed final Tier 3 emissions and gasoline standards in its baseline. E mission s reductions not achieved through a rigorous Tier 3 program would have to come from

co ntrols on local sources, which c ould be far less significant in magnitude and less cost

effective

.

A timely Tier 3 program is critical to protect human health from transportation sector pollution and one of the sin gle most cost

- effective solutions our nation can deploy to help states achieve and maintain healthy air in communities out of compliance with health

based nat ional air quality standards. We cannot afford to delay these vital clean air protections for mill ions of Americans

.

In a May 2010 Rose Garden ceremony, President Obama announced his intention to finalize a Tier 3 program by 2012 that would reduce sulfur levels in gasoline and introduce cleaner cars, light trucks and sport

- utility vehicles on the same schedule as his already

- finalized greenhouse gas program. Proposing this program now will help ensure that the President’s commitment is kept. Thus, we strongly urge you to propose this program as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke

Presid ent
Natural Resources Defense Council

Michael Brune

Executive Director

Sierra Club Kevin Knobloch

President

Union of Concerned Scientists

Fred Krupp

President

Environmental Defense Fund

cc: Bob Perciasepe , Deputy Administrator, EPA ( perciasepe.bob@epa.gov ) Gina McCarthy, Assistant Administrator, OAR ( mccarthy.gina@epa.gov ) Nancy Sutley, Chair, CEQ ( Nancy_H._Sutley@ce q.eop.gov ) Gary Guzy, Deputy Director, CEQ ( Gary_S._Guzy@ceq.eop.gov ) Margo Oge, Director, OAR/OTAQ ( oge.margo@epa.gov ) Cass Sunstein, Administrator, OIRA ( Cass_R._Sunstein@omb.eop.gov ) Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

, ( Heather_R._Zichal@who.eop.gov )