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OAR Box 1142 

Prepped by Ollie Stewart 

Document Number: 

26) IV-F-24 

Docket Number: 

A-87-11 

Printed 4/23/2008 10:21:22 AM Sheet 26 of 30 
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A-81-11 

IV-F-2 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

IN THE MATTER OF: 

Control of Air Pollution from ) 

New Motor Vehicles and New Motor ) EPA DOCKET 

Vehicle Engines; Refueling Emission ) #A-87-11 

Regulations for Light-Duty Vehicles ) 

and Trucks and Heaw-Duty Vehicles ) 

Public Hearing of the Environmental Protection Agency in 

the above-entitled matter, held at Domino's Farms, 44 Frank 

Lloyd Wright Drive, Ann Arbor, Michigan, on July 22, 1993. 

APPEARANCES: 

RICHARD WILSON 

Director, Office of Mobile Sources 

CHARLES GRAY 

Director, Regulatory Programs and Technology 

CHET FRANCE 

Director, Regulation Development and Support Division 

GLENN PASSAVANT 

Chief, Special Regulatory Projects Branch 

CHUCK FREED 

Manufacturers Operations Division 

CHARLES HOTT 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 

STEVE SILVERMAN 

Office of General Counsel 

Western Wayne Court Reporting Service 

Plymouth, Michigan 

Susan Beale, Reporter 

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INDE X 

INTRODUCTION 

Richard Wilson 

AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION 

Richard Klimisch, Sam Leonard, 

Mike Schwartz, Gordon Allardyce 

Discussion 

GENERAL MOTORS 

Sam Leonard, Kevin Cullen, 

Harold Haskew, Jim Pasek 

Discussion 

FORD MOTOR COMPANY 

Kelly Brown 

Discussion 

CHRYSLER CORPORATION 

Gordon Allardyce, Fred Maloney, Gary Dawson 

Discussion 

Page: 

3 

6 

13 

18 

28 

46 

51 

62 

66 

ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS 

Greg Dana 67 

Discussion 68 

AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE 

Bill O'Keefe 

Discussion 

TOYOTA 

Matt Kevnick, Ed Brune, 

K. Takeuchi, N. Morimitsu 

Discussion 

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL 

AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION 

Deborah Sheiman 

Discussion 

72 

81 

91 

101 

111 

118 

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SOCIETY OF INDEPENDENT GASOLINE MARKETERS OF AMERICA 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONVENIENCE STORES 

PETROLEUM MARKETERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 

Keith Ausbrook 119 

Discussion 125 

INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY 

Stephen Oesch 

Discussion 

127 

135 

RECREATION VEHICLE INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION 

Edward F. Conway, Jr. 

Discussion 

148 

155 

HEAT TECHNOLOGY, INCORPORATED 

Fred Heller 

Discussion 

168 

174 

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Ann Arbor, Michigan 

Thursday, July 22, 1993 - 9:00 a.m. 

MR. WILSON: Good morning, everybody. On 

behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, I would like to 

welcome all of you to today's hearing. My name is Dick Wilson. 

I am Director of the Office of Mobile Sources and I'll be 

serving as the Presiding Officer for today's hearing. 

The EPA panel will consist of myself, 

Charles Gray, Director for Regulatory Programs and Technology, 

Chet France, Director of the Regulation Development and Support 

Division, Glenn Passavant, Chief of the Special Regulatory 

Projects Branch, Steve Silverman from our Office of General 

Counsel, Chuck Freed from the Manufacturers Operations Division, 

and Charles Hott from the National Highway Traffic Safety 

Administration, 

We will be hearing testimony today on a 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for provisions concerning onboard 

refueling controls for light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks 

and heavy-duty vehicles pursuant to the provisions of the Clean 

Air Act as Amended in November of 1990. EPA's latest Notice on 

the proposed regulations was published in the Federal Register 

on May 27, 1993. 

In that Notice, EPA identified test 

procedure options that would combine the refueling and new 
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evaporative tests to the greatest degree possible. The goals 

were to reduce the testing burden and to allow, if not encourage, the use of integrated evap/refueling canister system 

designs. In developing the options, EPA expected that the 

requirements for refueling emissions control would result in 

similar integrated systems canister sizes and purge designs as 

those required for evaporative emission control systems. 

Since publication of the Notice, EPA has 

had several technical meetings with representatives of the 

American Automobile Manufacturers Association concerning the 

test procedure requirements necessary to accomplish EPA's stated 

goals for integrating the refueling and evap test procedures. 

In particular, the fuel temperature specifications of the 

refueling test were discussed in detail. As a result of these 

meetings, revisions to the refueling temperature requirements 

were identified. Specifically, a dispensed fuel temperature of 

67 degrees F and tank temperature of 80 degrees F is now thought 

to result in a refueling canister size similar to that required 

by the evap test procedure. EPA believes that these revisions 

would provide greater flexibility to manufacturers in designing 

their refueling control systems and should resolve safety 

concerns previously expressed in the rulemaking record. 

EPA is, therefore, considering adoption 

of refueling option B1 as described in the Notice along with 
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the changes in the temperatures as described above. Additional 

information regarding the meetings with AAMA is in the docket 

for this rulemaking. EPA requests comments on this new option 

as well as those described in the Notice. 

Before getting started with today's 

testimony, I would like to take a few minutes to describe how 

we will conduct the hearing. 

We are conducting this hearing in 

accordance with Section 307(d)(5) of the amended Clean Air Act, 

which requires EPA to provide interested persons with an 

opportunity for oral presentation of data, views, or arguments, 

in addition to an opportunity to make written submissions. 

The record of this hearing will remain 

open until August 22, 1993 for additional written comments or 

rebuttal. 

The hearing will be conducted informally, 

and formal rules of evidence will not apply. The Presiding 

Officer is authorized, however, to strike from the record 

statements which are deemed irrelevant or needlessly repetitious, and to enforce reasonable limits on the duration of the 

statement of any witness. 

Witnesses are requested to state their 

names and affiliations prior to making their statements and to 

complete the name cards on the table. When a witness has 
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finished his or her presentation, members of the EPA panel will 

be given an opportunity to ask questions concerning issues 

raised in the testimony. Witnesses are reminded that any false 

statement or false response to questions may be a violation of 

law. 

If there are any members of the audience 

who have not already contacted us, and who wish to testify, 

please submit your name at the reception table. We will make 

every effort to accommodate all those who wish to testify. We 

would like all attendees to sign the attendance log whether or 

not they testify. 

Finally, if you would like a transcript 

of the proceedings, you should make arrangements directly with 

the court reporter during one of the breaks. The transcript 

should be available in the docket in two weeks. 

The docket number for the Onboard 

Refueling Program is A-87-11. The docket is located at 401 

M Street, S.W., in room M-1500 of Waterside Mall. 

With that, we'll begin with the first 

speaker. The first witness is the American Automobile 

Manufacturers Association. 

MR. KLIMISCH: Good morning. My name is 

Dick Klimisch. With me today are Sam Leonard, Mike Schwartz and 

Gordon Allardyce. I am here today to present the testimony of 
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the American Automobile Manufacturers Association on the issues 

raised by EPA's Federal Register Notice of May 27, 1993, 

concerning onboard refueling vapor recovery. This is a very 

complicated rulemaking, even by EPA's standards, but the members 

of AAMA all agree on how we believe EPA should proceed. My 

purpose this morning is to give you a brief overview of our 

overall position.and our main concerns. My colleagues here and 

I will then be glad to answer any general questions that we can 

address on behalf of the AAMA, prior to individual company 

presentations by our members. 

We want to begin our testimony here this 

morning by establishing what we think the main objectives of 

this rulemaking proceeding should be. The best way to understand our objectives is to review briefly how we got to this 

point. In 1987, EPA published a proposal to require ORVR 

systems capable of passing a 0.10 gram per gallon refueling 

emissions test. The complete details of that August 1987 

proposed test procedure are not important now. The key point 

is that our members told us that those test procedures would 

probably have required them to use so-called "nonintegrated" 

refueling emissions control systems, virtually across their 

entire product lines. Under the original 1987 proposal, we 

would have had to deploy those systems with as little as two 

years' leadtime. 
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As soon as the shape of EPA's proposed 

ORVR test procedure became clear, safety experts within our 

member companies, at NHTSA and elsewhere began to raise serious 

concerns about the complexity and other features of the systems 

that would be needed to pass the proposed regulation. EPA, 

therefore, elected to keep the docket open to address the 

potential safety risks of an ORVR requirement. 

The five years after publication of EPA's 

1987 proposal were spent on extensive study and testing of 

prototype ORVR systems designed to pass the type of test procedure described by the Agency in the Federal Register. There 

were some changes in specific elements of the test procedure, 

but the basic hardware and functional requirements created by 

the test procedure did not change. 

By April of 1992, it was clear that we, 

meaning EPA, NHTSA and the automobile industry, had done all we 

could to study the types of systems required by the test procedures under discussion since 1987. We all concluded that 

there was an increased safety risk in the types of systems we 

had been evaluating and that that risk was inherent to systems 

of that type. Accordingly, EPA determined not to require ORVR 

controls. 

We believe at that time, and still believe 

today, that EPA has the discretion to not promulgate an ORVR 
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rule if the rule would create safety risks. As the House 

committee responsible for what became the new text of Section 

202(a)(6) stated in 1990, "No one wants a rule that requires 

controls for the consumer that present safety problems." There 

may be a mandatory duty to require ORVR controls on gasolinepowered passenger cars, but only if ORVR controls are safe. 

We believe the Court of Appeals agreed 

with your basic position on the primacy of the safety issues as 

stated in 1987 and restated in 1992. As Judge Edwards stated, 

it would be "nonsensical" to require the installation of 

emissions control systems that would present "inherent and 

unreasonable safety risks." But the Court disagreed with the 

methodology used by EPA in reaching its conclusion, a methodology that did not examine "all plausible" methods of addressing 

the safety concerns presented by the 1987 to 1992 record. 

The Court thus directed the agencies to 

go back to the drawing board, and see if there was some other 

way of avoiding the safety risks identified by NHTSA, EPA and 

the manufacturers. The basic goal for the remand proceedings 

is, therefore, to try to develop an ORVR rule that meets the 

main goal of Congress, to provide for vehicle-based refueling 

emissions control under the environmental conditions of concern, 

and to ensure that the rule addresses the safety concerns 

identified by NHTSA. We're glad to be able to report that it 
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appears that, in the last few weeks, substantial progress has 

been made in trying to reach that goal. We may not be all the 

way there yet, be we're much further along now than we were two 

years, or even two months, ago. 

We believe that changes in the ORVR test 

procedures can substantially affect the design of the ORVR 

control system for passenger cars. This slide shows the key 

recommended elements of the ORVR test procedure. What we need, 

at a minimum, is a test procedure and a performance standard 

that allows manufacturers to fit the ORVR function primarily 

within the hardware design and performance envelope of an 

enhanced evaporative emissions control system, across a full 

product line of passenger cars. Such a test procedure and 

performance standard might allow us to reduce or eliminate most 

concerns about system complexity, including eliminating the need 

for widespread use of more complex "nonintegrated" ORVR designs 

that had created safety concerns for our members and NHTSA. 

EPA's solicitation of comments on the new test procedure discussed this morning indicates that we have taken the first steps 

toward achieving that goal with a rule that would control refueling emissions under the conditions of concern. 

Once EPA has defined a new passenger car 

test procedure and set an appropriate performance standard, it 

will then be possible to revisit the safety concerns in the 

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current record and to determine whether the risks that were of 

concern in the past have now been resolved. In doing so, EPA 

must consult with NHTSA and the public in the safety evaluation 

of its new rule. In order to deal responsibly with EPA's 

obligations under the statute, the EPA's safety evaluation must 

lead to clear answers that comprehensively address each safety 

issue raised by the current record or the Court of Appeals, or 

identified in the course of the new evaluation. Unless EPA is 

convinced that those risks have been addressed and so states in 

the final rule, the Agency can and must determine not to proceed 

with ORVR controls. 

One reason it is critical for EPA to 

provide a clear and decisive answer on the safety issues now is 

that the Agency recognized in its April 1992 Register Notice the 

normal precertification review process under Sections 202(a)(4) 

and 206(a)(3) generally comes far too late in the new vehicle 

design and release process to provide a workable opportunity to 

address potential ORVR-related problems. As EPA noted in its 

April 1992 Register Notice, Congress wanted the issue of ORVR 

safety to be resolved in the rulemaking under Section 202(a)(6), 

and that this resolution be incorporated in the final rule. 

We will need to know later this year 

whether, and if so how, EPA thinks that its new test procedure 

addresses the safety risks of ORVR previously identified in the 

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addresses the safety risks of ORVR previously identified in the 

docket. That will allow us to focus on ORVR systems that can 

meet EPA's specific requirements. 

I also want to comment briefly on the 

question of whether EPA should extend an ORVR rule to light-duty 

trucks, heavy-duty engines, and engines and vehicles powered by 

diesel and alternative fuels. We'll provide comments on the 

statutory issues raised by such a proposal in our written 

materials for the Agency later. 

From a technical perspective, it's 

important to note that we have only recently been able to confer 

with EPA regarding a new ORVR test procedure concept. We need 

to study the implications of the new test procedure concept for 

the design of ORVR systems for trucks. That will require us to 

consider, on an industry-wide basis, numerous different fuel 

system configurations, as well as a variety of operating cycles 

and engine purge parameters that are generally unique to trucks. 

For those truck classes that have traditionally been tested on 

engine dynamometers, published data on truck engine purge 

characteristics during typical passenger car driving cycles, 

such as the LA-4, are very scarce. The necessary initial 

evaluation effort cannot possibly be completed within the 30 

days allowed for comment on the current ORVR proposal. 

It will also be critical for EPA to 

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conduct a full regulatory benefit/cost analysis of any rule that 

might apply to vehicle classes other than passenger cars. A 

truck ORVR rule will not have a significant beneficial impact 

on the efforts of the States to attain the ozone standard, and 

we see no other well-defined benefit to a truck ORVR rule. Well 

before ORVR controls could be implemented, the non-attainment 

areas of concern will have installed Stage 2 controls. 

That concludes my statement. The other 

members of the AAMA panel and I would be glad to answer your 

questions. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for your 

testimony this morning. I just had, I guess, in one area, a 

couple of questions on the last part of your testimony on this 

truck issue. What percentage of the refueling incidents occur 

with trucks or what percentage of the fuels used by trucks? 

MR. KLIMISCH: It's somewhere between 30 

and 40 percent, I think, 37 percent. 

MR. WILSON: So obviously a significant 

part of the motor vehicle fleet? 

MR. KLIMISCH: Yes. 

MR. WILSON: I guess your argument for not 

covering trucks is that the benefits you'd get from that come 

too late? 

MR. KLIMISCH: No, that Stage 2 will catch 

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those refueling emissions. 

MR. WILSON: But there's also a provision 

in the statute that says many of the non-attainment areas can 

opt out of Stage 2 if we promulgate an onboard rule. How do you 

deal with that? 

MR. LEONARD: May I take that one? 

Basically, by the time an ORVR rule begins 

to come into force, all of the areas that can opt out of the 

Stage 2 controls will have been by law in compliance since 1996. 

ORVR rules won't start until '97, '98, '99 model and long after 

that, before they're in full force across the country, any area 

that does not make compliance by that time frame, according to 

the terms of the Clean Air Act, bumps up to the next classification. If it's serious, then they've got to put Stage 2 in. All 

the serious, severe and extreme areas will have Stage 2, so it's 

a duplication of effort for any non-attainment area existing at 

that time frame to do ORVR controls even for passenger cars, but 

definitely for trucks. 

MR. WILSON: Certainly the ORVR program 

would give benefits in the long terms for maintenance, I mean, 

to sort of offset at least growth in vehicle miles traveled over 

the last years if that continued. 

I guess the other question in that regard 

though is the statute also provides that the Stage 2 require14 
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ments get dropped down the road once there's, I don't remember 

the magic words, but a significant number of vehicles have 

onboard systems on them. 

MR. LEONARD: I believe if you look 

closely at the language in the Clean Air Act on that it refers 

to a significant number of the vehicles required to have Stage 

2 under 202(a)(6), which is limited specifically to passenger 

cars. 

MR. WILSON: So you'd argue that we could 

still allow the Stage 2 systems to be dropped, even though onboard wasn't on trucks? 

MR. LEONARD: If it's able to do so and 

it meets air quality benefits, yes. 

MR. WILSON: Of course at that point then 

you'd lose, even in the severe areas, the benefit. 

MR. LEONARD: If you chose to drop Stage 

2 from an area that already has put the capital investments in 

and whose recovery from the Stage 2 systems is probably paying 

their operating costs, yes. 

MR. WILSON: Are the fuel systems especially on the lighter truck so different from the passenger 

car ones that that's a technical problem? 

MR. KLIMISCH: Well, they are different 

and until we see the final rule, we won't know exactly what 

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those configurations have been and we're focusing on passenger 

cars obviously. There is an engineering resource question as 

wei 1. 

MR. HOTT: I have one question; if EPA was 

to allow or require ORVR systems on light-duty trucks, what 

leadtime requirements would you need to develop a safe system? 

MR. KLIMISCH: I think that's a manufacturer specific question and I'd prefer you ask the individual 

companies that. There is an engineering resource. This is 

consuming a lot of resources for a few years. 

MR. HOTT: Okay, I'll phrase it later with 

them. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Just a couple of questions; I notice you said that you don't see any well-defined 

benefit to applying onboard on trucks. What about air toxics 

benefits? Have you considered those? 

MR. LEONARD: First, looking at the air 

toxics emissions from vehicles in total, we're looking at 

something by the turn of the century that's going to be down to 

a risk in the neighborhood of one in a million, absent anything 

more going on. Second, the two toxics that I remember being of 

primary concern are benzene, which is being controlled in the 

gasoline today under reformulated gasoline rules, and the second 

one that's arguably of concern is the rat cancer studies on 

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unleaded gasoline vapors, which are the ones that were the basis 

of much of the discussion in the original rule. 

I think, looking through the record of 

what's happened since that original '87 rulemaking, the cancer 

incidents from unleaded gasoline, as far as being a human cancer 

risk factor, have pretty much been discredited and, therefore, 

I think the toxic benefits of any ORVR rule are relatively 

1imited. 

MR. KLIMISCH: Most of the toxic concerns 

were in the exhaust and those will be reduced drastically with 

reductions in emissions or further emission control gains. 

MR. SILVERMAN: And one other question; 

you indicate that there's just 30 days to comment on this aspect 

of the proposal, but we did propose this in 1987 and then reopened the record on it in 1991 on this specific point, did we 

not? 

MR. LEONARD: Which specific point? 

MR. SILVERMAN: On applying onboard to 

non-light-duty vehicles. 

MR. LEONARD: It's been on and off so many 

times that the development work has quit a couple times. 

MR. KLIMISCH: Our situation is that we've 

been focusing on passenger cars and the new test procedure not 

being finalized, so it's difficult to focus on a final system. 

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MR. SCHWARTZ: It's true that it's been 

proposed several times, but if we were to comment with respect 

to trucks in the context of the old test procedures, our 

response would be pretty straightforward and we don't want to 

'*s> 

give you that one. The response would be that it looks like it 

drives you to separate systems on the trucks and safety 

concerns. But I don't think that's really relevant. We would 

assume that, given time, if we put our heads together, we might 

arrive at a test procedure that achieves similar results on 

trucks, but it couldn't be done in the narrow constraints of 

this rulemaking. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. 

Next is General Motors. 

MR. LEONARD: Good morning. My name is 

Sam Leonard. I'm the Director of Automotive Emissions Control 

at General Motors. I am accompanied here today by Kevin Cullen, 

Harold Haskew and Jim Pasek, also of GM. GM supports the 

testimony you heard this morning from the AAMA panel. We will 

provide more detailed written comments later. After my initial 

statement, my colleagues and I wi 11 respond to any questions you 

may have. 

The critical issue for everyone here today 

is to ensure that the Agency complies with the requirements of 

Section 202(a)(6) and properly responds to the questions that 

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the Court of Appeals in NRDC v. Reilly said that EPA needed to 

address. Some of these issues are connected with the potential 

changes in the test procedure discussed in the AAMA testimony. 

Our top priority in this rulemaking is to 

do our best to ensure that any final ORVR rule adopted by EPA 

does not create an unreasonable safety risk for the motoring 

public. We need guidance and help from EPA and NHTSA on this 

subject, and we need it soon, starting today. There's nothing 

more important in this rulemaking than working together with 

EPA, NHTSA and other companies to develop a safe ORVR rule. 

It's useful to begin with this statement 

from the House committee that worked on the ORVR provisions of 

the Clean Air Act of 1990. The House committee stated that "no 

one wants a rule that requires controls for the consumer that 

present safety problems." That's why EPA never finalized its 

first ORVR proposal. As Administrator Thomas stated in 1987, 

EPA's position was that "no increase in overall risk should be 

accepted because of the presence of onboard control systems." 

When NHTSA looked at the ORVR safety issue 

for EPA, it identified a number of potential problems in the 

type of canister-based systems under discussion in the 1987r1991 

time frame. I've attempted to summarize them on this slide. 

NHTSA was especially critical of the larger, nonintegrated 

canister design, and the added fuel system complexity required 

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address. Some of these issues are connected with the potential 

changes in the test procedure discussed in the AAMA testimony. 

Our top priority in this rulemaking is to 

do our best to ensure that any final ORVR rule adopted by EPA 

does not create an unreasonable safety risk for the motoring 

public. We need guidance and help from EPA and NHTSA on this 

subject, and we need it soon, starting today. There's nothing 

more important in this rulemaking than working together with 

EPA, NHTSA and other companies to develop a safe ORVR rule. 

It's useful to begin with this statement 

from the House committee that worked on the ORVR provisions of 

the Clean Air Act of 1990. The House committee stated that "no 

one wants a rule that requires controls for the consumer that 

present safety problems." That's why EPA never finalized its 

first ORVR proposal. As Administrator Thomas stated in 1987, 

EPA's position was that "no increase in overall risk should be 

accepted because of the presence of onboard control systems." 

When NHTSA looked at the ORVR safety issue 

for EPA, it identified a number of potential problems in the 

type of canister-based systems under discussion in the 1987-1991 

time frame. I've attempted to summarize them on this slide. 

NHTSA was especially critical of the larger, nonintegrated canister design, and the added fuel system complexity required by 

the test procedures and standards proposed by EPA at that time. 

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NHTSA also found that the less complex 

ORVR designs developed by the oil companies and EPA involved 

serious driveabi1ity-related risks under some operating conditions. NHTSA concluded that the design-related risks of the 

ORVR systems it had evaluated were present in all those designs. 

We agreed with NHTSA's concerns based upon 

our understanding of the emissions control requirements that EPA 

had defined at that time. As this slide from our September 1991 

ORVR hearing testimony shows, we determined that an integrated 

design under that procedure would have needed 38 cubic feet of 

purge for a typical passenger car over an LA-4 in order to pass 

one of the ORVR requirements under discussion. The infeasibility of meeting that purge requirement would have compelled 

us to use a nonintegrated design, with all or many of the design 

problems identified by NHTSA, across our entire passenger car 

product line. 

In March 1992, EPA accepted NHTSA's 

conclusions regarding the safety of the canister-based systems 

required by its earlier proposals, and determined not to proceed 

with ORVR rulemaking. It specifically endorsed NHTSA's position 

that the designs evaluated since 1987 involved increased risk. 

This slide quotes from the portions of 

NHTSA's final statement on ORVR safety risks in November 1991, 

as quoted in Judge Edward's decision last winter. As you can 

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see, NHTSA was critical of any system that involved "additional 

components." It found risks in any ORVR system that required 

those additional components. 

That's where matters stood prior to last 

winter's decision by the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals 

identified what it considered to be three basic problems with 

the analysis conducted by NHTSA and EPA. First, the Court held 

that, before deciding that all ORVR systems involved unacceptable risks, the Agency should have considered non-canistei—based 

alternatives. Second, the Court held that EPA did not have 

discretion to consider the availability of "Stage II" systems 

in deciding whether passenger car ORVR controls would be unreasonably hazardous and, therefore, inappropriate under Section 

202(a)(6) of the Clean Air. Third, the Court tried to fault 

some details of the government's technical analysis of ORVR 

systems, including the NHTSA analysis summarized on the previous 

slide. 

However, NRDC v. Reilly does not allow EPA 

and NHTSA to leave the safety concerns recognized by Congress 

in 1990 unaddressed or unresolved. The whole point of NRDC v. 

Reilly was that EPA had to address the deficiencies in its prior 

analysis, and then, and only then, determine whether an ORVR 

rule should be promulgated. The Court said that it would be 

"nonsensical" to establish an ORVR requirement that created 

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safety risks for the public. The decision in NRDC v. Reilly 

requires that the Agency engage in a step analysis to see 

whether the safety risks it identified last year can possibly 

be addressed. 

Turning to the first issue raised by NRDC 

v. Reilly, the viability of non-canister-based systems, here's 

the list of alternatives identified by the Court of Appeals, 

along with several others that we have evaluated at General 

Motors. The leading alternative, according to the Court of 

Appeals, is the so-called flexible fuel "bladder" concept. In 

his majority opinion, Judge Edwards noted claims by some equipment vendors that bladder technology could be production-ready 

"within one or two years." 

In light of Judge Edward's opinion, EPA 

has an important obligation to determine whether bladder 

technology is feasible and safe for purposes of ORVR control. 

General Motors and other vehicle manufacturers have long studied bladder technology for evaporative 

and refueling emissions control. Our conclusions are summarized 

on this slide. In addition to the lack of a material with suitable durabi 1 ity, flexibility, and permeabi1ity, we've determined 

that the bladder concept would require EPA to regulate the 

design of the fuel shutoff system in fuel nozzles at service 

stations nationwide. Current production nozzles would be 

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"tricked" by the dynamic pressure levels inside the bladder, 

into either shutting off the flow of gasoline as soon as it 

started to flow into the bladder, or into never shutting off the 

flow, and thus creating an overfill problem. 

It is also clear to us that a bladder 

system would still require the use of a canister to store vapor 

from the fuel tank headspace above the bladder until the engine 

could evacuate it. For that reason, bladder technology will not 

eliminate the need to displace vapor during the refueling event 

and store it in a canister. Bladder technology would also require the use of a mechanical seal device and a pressure relief 

valve not required by the some canister-based systems. 

For all reasons, we believe that EPA 

should find that bladder technology is not feasible nor safe, 

and could not be required prior to deployment of redesigned fuel 

dispenser nozzles nationwide. We will provide additional 

details on this issue in our written comments. 

The other alternatives to canister-based 

ORVR designs also need to be considered by EPA, because the 

Court of Appeals found that "in restricting its safety analysis 

to a single type of ORVR system, EPA disregarded its responsibility" under the Clean Air Act. The other alternatives, in our 

judgment, would tend to increase fuel system complexity, would 

require larger storage media and nonintegrated control systems, 

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and would be subject to unique and potentially dangerous failure 

modes. 

Nevertheless, EPA is obligated to evaluate 

them for feasibility and safety. We are ready to work with EPA 

in this process, and believe the Agency will determine once 

again that there are no alternatives to canister-based designs. 

This determination must be part of the final rule. 

Looking next at canister-based designs, 

EPA and NHTSA need to consider the impact of test procedure 

improvements, which can affect the Agency's prior safety 

findings. The decision process we would propose is outlined on 

this slide. We are proceeding for the present on an assumption 

that EPA will publish the type of modified test procedures and 

standard discussed in the AAMA testimony. If that expectation 

is fulfilled, the principal unique aspect of ORVR control will 

be the need to displace tank vapor to a canister on board the 

vehicle. We believe the system complexity, driveability 

concerns, and packaging issues related to nonintegrated systems 

will have been largely eliminated. EPA, in consultation with 

NHTSA, must then decide on the record whether that remaining 

issue, the displacement of tank vapor to the canister, presents 

an unreasonable risk to the motoring public. 

In this connection, we also think it is 

critical to recall EPA's conclusions in its April 1992 Federal 

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Register Notice regarding the safety review process under 

Sections 202(a)(4) and 206(a)(3) of the Clean Air Act. EPA 

determined, we think correctly, that it would be "irrational" 

to defer evaluation of the safety of canister-based systems to 

the late stages of new-vehicle design and release. As this 

slide shows, the precertification review process is not the 

appropriate time to resolve ORVR safety concerns; fuel system 

designs must be approved and tested long before the precertification review by EPA for a given model begins. 

We, therefore, need to be told in the 

final rule what types of ORVR systems and designs, if any, EPA 

and NHTSA believes would meet the requirements of the Clean Air 

Act and also be safe, in the judgment of both. The leadtime 

provisions of Section 202(a)(6) would be frustrated by a delay 

in such a determination until after promulgation of a final ORVR 

rule. 

We would be glad to cooperate in any 

reasonable procedure over the next few months that EPA and NHTSA 

will pursue to address this issue. We believe that the type of 

careful review of the safety issue needed now is probably inconsistent with the rulemaking schedule contained in EPA's proposed 

NRDC v. Reilly settlement agreement. That is one reason why we 

have objected to the August 1993 deadline for comments in this 

docket on the safety issue. 

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If I may summarize, there are issues that 

EPA needs to address now under the decision in NRDC v. Reilly. 

First, EPA and NHTSA need to consider 

alternatives to canister-based technologies and make appropriate 

findings on a full record regarding those alternatives. 

Second, EPA needs to determine, in 

consultation with NHTSA, whether its final canister-based rule 

creates an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety. If it 

does not believe that its rule creates such risk, then and only 

then can it proceed with promulgation of a final rule consistent 

with the intent of Congress. 

Finally, I want to address the proposal 

to require ORVR controls on vehicles other than gasoline-powered 

light-duty vehicles. The legislative history of the 1990 Clean 

Air Act shows that Congress intended to limit any ORVR requirement of any type to light-duty vehicles. Early versions of what 

became Section 202(a)(6) in the new Clean Air Act had left EPA 

with discretion to extend the ORVR rule to all vehicle classes, 

as had the 1977 Clean Air Act. The conferees in the 101st 

Congress limited the text of Section 202(a)(6) to light-duty 

vehicles. As Mr. Lukens, a manager on the part of the House, 

stated: "The onboard vapor recovery requirement is limited to 

light-duty vehicles, which means passenger cars. Congress made 

this choice because it was clear that applying onboard to trucks 

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would be infeasible and inappropriate, due in part to their 

larger fuel tanks." 

Extending an ORVR rule to trucks will not 

further the purpose of the Clean Air Act, because ORVR vehicles 

will enter the fleet too late to have a significant impact on 

the states' effort to meet the ozone standard. Moreover, 

typical sport-utility vehicle fuel tank sizes range from 21 to 

33 gallons; vans and full-size pickups typically have 27-34 

gallon fuel tanks as standard equipment; and larger utility 

vehicles are sold with tanks over 40 gallons in capacity. The 

canister sizes, purge requirements and packaging concerns for 

these vehicles are quite different from those relevant to 

passenger car applications. 

Even if EPA had discretion to extend ORVR 

controls to trucks, it could not do so without conducting a full 

regulatory impact analysis of the benefits and costs of the 

rule. The timing of an ORVR rule would mean that the rule would 

have no significant role in helping the states meet the ozone 

standard. The cost implications for trucks of the test procedure concept reviewed this morning have not yet been fully 

evaluated. There is no doubt, however, that extending an ORVR 

rule to trucks would require us to redirect limited capital and 

engineering resources from more environmentally beneficial truck 

programs to refueling emissions control. 

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We, therefore, urge EPA to limit its ORVR 

rule to light-duty vehicles. If EPA intends to continue its 

evaluation of an ORVR rule for other vehicle classes, we believe 

the Agency must prepare a full-scale regulatory impact analysis 

and a detailed justification for the rule under the Clean Air 

Act. 

This concludes my prepared statement. My 

colleagues and I will be glad to try to answer your questions. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for the 

testimony. I have a couple of questions. Assuming EPA and 

NHTSA conclude that a canister-based system is safe, I don't 

understand why you feel it's important for us to make a determination as to whether a bladder system, for example, is safe. 

Can you explain that? 

MR. LEONARD: With the Court saying that 

bladder systems are an alternative safe technology, it is 

essential that EPA look at all to see which is the safest. 

There is going to be some increased risk with onboard refueling 

vapor. The transfer of the vapor itself is the inherent risk 

that the canister-based system can't avoid. Therefore, it is 

essential that the bladder system be evaluated and a determination made as to its feasibility and safety as well. 

MR. WILSON: You think it's necessary for 

us to consider every conceivable type of system and evaluate it 

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in that regard? It seems like almost an undoable task. 

MR. LEONARD: It's real 1y the availabi1ity 

of it in the time frame that we're talking about. I think both 

Agencies have to determine whether to address the Court's statements. I believe the Agencies have to make that determination. 

MR. WILSON: Although, I thought the 

Court's statement was more of the view that if we were to find 

there is no safe system, we had to review every possible one. 

Presumably, if we find one, it's not clear to me we need to go 

further and review each and every other system and conclude 

whether it is safe. I'm trying to understand what your objective is. 

MR. LEONARD: Part of the argument by the 

proponents of a bladder system is that it does eliminate the 

inherent risk of a transfer of the vapor. I think the Agency 

has to look at that claim in its evaluation of the risks that 

are acceptable and not acceptable under this rulemaking. 

MR. GRAY: I have one question regarding 

your comments relative to the trucks and the size of the tanks 

being larger than, I assume you're expressing on average, as 

compared to passenger cars. You didn't show a range, I don't 

think, for the passenger car tank sizes, but that seems to be 

the logical presumption. I'm not real sure what — 

MR. LEONARD: I think the largest 

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passenger car tank we make is 25 gallons, 

MR. GRAY: And you mentioned 21 to 33 for 

the light trucks. 

MR. LEONARD: It's average, yes. 

MR. GRAY: I guess my principal question 

is, since the dispense flow rate of the fuel is the same whether 

the fuel is being dispensed into a passenger car or a light 

truck and since the size of the canister for the evaporative 

purposes is sized based on the volume of the tank and if the 

tank on the car or the truck is larger, then there would be a 

larger canister for evaporative purposes. 

I'm not really understanding why, from 

sort of a technical perspective, whether it's a larger tank on 

a passenger car versus the smallest tank on a passenger car 

because the range overlaps, or a larger tank on a truck than on 

a smaller truck, how that really makes a distinction, since the 

size of the canister is already keyed to the size of the tank 

and the dispensed fuel flow rate is the same. What am I 

missing? 

MR. LEONARD: Each individual tank configuration is different. Each heating or temperature — each 

tank configuration affects the temperature of the fuel in the 

tank when it gets pulled up to the station so it's dispensed 

into temperature. In real life, there are a lot of differences 

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in the way that the tanks in the vehicles operate. It's not 

enough, Charles, just to pass the test. The vehicle has to be 

designed to do all of the fueling with acceptable fuel quality 

and everything else that it has to do in normal customer usage 

and even to a large extent in abnormal customer usage. 

There are a lot of tank configurations 

for trucks that are different than passenger cars. The primary 

problem at this time is that we have spent what time we have had 

trying to evaluate and develop systems for passenger cars. We 

don't have a whole lot of development data on the trucks. I'm 

not saying that it will be totally different than passenger 

cars; I'm saying that at this time, I don't know, because we 

haven't had the opportunity to do the development work on the 

trucks. 

MR. GRAY: Okay, I think that's fair 

enough. I guess I'd also like to get your sense on what you 

have in mind with respect to the emphasis in your statement that 

EPA and NHTSA need to do additional review of the safety issue. 

What would be the criteria, for example, you would suggest? 

Something like safety risk or any risk we deal with is always 

in a relative context. Would you suggest that we eliminate 

gasoline fuel to eliminate any risk? I mean, there's got to be 

limits on anything from a practical context. 

There have been other actions that have 

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been taken by the Agency that should very significantly, I 

think, reduce whatever previous risk might have been associated 

with gasoline use in passenger cars through regulations that 

reduced the volatility of gasoline rather dramatically. And of 

course, that also has some assistance in terms of the fueling 

characteristics of the vehicle and other consumer concerns that 

you mentioned. How would you sort all that out? 

MR. LEONARD: As you point out, number 

one, I'm no expert on safety risk and don't pretend to be, 

Charles, but I think the Court's opinion was fairly clear under 

the mandate on passenger cars that the relative risk that you 

have to compare to is what is the risk to public health in the 

absence of ORVR, so that's relative. 

My own opinion on the Court and on the 

testimony that when you go to the truck systems, then you're not 

held to that strict standard. I think, when you go truck 

systems, it can be relative to other alternatives for accomplishing the same health reduction risks from the emissions and, 

therefore, I think when you go to the truck systems, it's 

relative to, for example, the Stage II system. I think it's 

relative to other alternatives for accomplishing the same 

environmental gains, 

MR. WILSON: Maybe you'll deal with some 

of this in your written comments, but I think you get into a 

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pretty complicated process where you essentially would be 

requiring Stage II systems to continue in place, assuming we 

went along with your logic, because they made more sense for 

trucks than onboard systems, but onboard systems would be there 

for cars and we'd have a relatively expensive duplicative system 

for the long, long term. 

MR. LEONARD: It would be much more 

expensive to have to recapitalize ORVR systems for trucks than 

to maintain operating expenses for Stage II in serious and 

severe areas. 

MR. WILSON: Well, I'd be interested in 

seeing your analysis on the truck issue. 

MR. FRANCE: I've got a question, mainly 

aimed at light trucks. The concept that was summarized for 

light-duty vehicles was one in which the test parameters and 

refueling were adjusted such that the canisters and the purge 

requirements would be driven by evap requirements. Test 

conditions aside, if you apply the same concept to light-duty 

trucks, I'm having a hard time understanding how canister sizes, 

purge requirements and packaging concerns would be different for 

light-trucks as compared to LDVs when in fact you had to deal 

with those concerns under the evap rules? 

MR. LEONARD: Number one, I thought I 

answered that question when Charles asked it, but Mr. Haskew 

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wants the opportunity to answer it. 

MR. HASKEW: Chet, I would come at this 

from a different way. We are here because Congress said we 

shall put onboard vapor recovery systems on cars and that was 

reinforced by the Court. That is not a discretion of EPA and 

there are no rules or requirements that you justify why, in the 

face of Stage II, you have to have onboard vapor recovery on 

cars. Unfortunately, for technical people, that's not the 

condition and we're here saying, how can we do it in the best 

possible way. 

A different situation exists for trucks. 

You are saying, let's also put them on trucks and we would say, 

should society spend the money to put hardware on trucks which 

is backed up or redundant. Stage II is a fact. It will be in 

place in all the non-attainment areas in the time frame we're 

talking about. There's no question about it's a proven 

technology and that it works. So the question is, should you 

apply it to trucks when the benefit is so, I would offer, 

minimal? It is a redundant backup system. Should not those 

monies, those engineering resources, be spent making durable 

systems or making things that have greater potential for clean 

air in the long term than just adding to the workload because, 

let's pile another good idea on top of a good idea. 

I don't think we would argue that there 

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is a size break for the safety or the performance of the system, 

which is the point your question was kind of leading to, was, 

is there some distinguishing point where these things become 

different. Well, I don't think that's our answer at all. It 

1s the fact that trucks are not covered under the congressional 

mandate and there is a different kind of rationalization that 

has to go on to say, should society have to pay for that. 

MR. FRANCE: That's not the question I 

asked. Let me try it again. It might be left best addressed 

in your comments. But my specific question was a technical 

question. Aside from the merits of regulating light trucks, if 

you set the refueling test conditions such that the evap 

requirements drive canister size and purge requirements, why 

would your concerns with respect to canister sizes and purge 

requirements and packaging be any different for light trucks as 

compared to light-duty vehicles, aside from the merits of 

regulating light trucks? 

MR. LEONARD: On a theoretical basis, 

they're not. On a practical basis, because of the number of 

trucks and especially because of the incomplete trucks, because 

of the heavy-duty trucks and the large number of applications 

and the fact that we sell engines in that category much more 

than we sell trucks, we are concerned about it on a practical 

basis. 

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The second point is, I think there are two 

standards of comparison. There is going to be some risk regardless of how we do this test procedure. I think you have a 

higher standard to meet when you try to put an ORVR system on 

a truck which is not mandated by Congress and has to be done 

under your general authority where you can consider alternatives 

like Stage II, which NHTSA has indicated is actually a safety 

benefit, than when you try to put them on passenger cars. I 

think it's a different standard of proof, a different burden 

that the Agency has to carry. 

MR. GRAY: I have one follow-up question 

regarding your more expanded answer to this question, since I 

raised it also initially. Understanding a significant point in 

your rationale to be that the redundancy of the requirement, the 

Stage II requirement, in many of the areas, from an air quality 

perspective, I'm sure you're aware the Act, where it requires 

Stage II, specifies that it would only be required for stations 

of a certain size and larger and for less than, I think 50,000 

gallons a month, maybe is it, unless it's not specifically 

required, and while that may represent ten, 15 percent, it 

probably varies from region to region, and while states have the 

discretion to apply it to a lower level and certainly in many 

areas may in fact do that', there still will be some volume of 

fuel that may go uncontrolled. 

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From an air quality perspective, it's 

probably more detrimental to have a significant percent uncontrolled than to compromise the 99 percent standard back to 

95, because in either case, you're talking about how much of 

what was emitted have you controlled and if a compromise of a 

standard from 99 to 95 is a four percent less overall effective 

program and you're comparing that to a program that doesn't 

include ten or 15 percent of the fuel, clearly you'd be better 

off having the standard across everything, but have it less 

stringent. So that's part of it from an air quality perspective 

that has to be dealt with in that context. 

Even in the short term, when the vehicles 

are being phased in with onboard, there would be some control 

from stations that wouldn't otherwise have Stage II and clearly 

there'd be control in areas from a toxic standpoint, that was 

mentioned earlier, where Stage II wouldn't be required. So from 

an air quality perspective there are some benefits. I think 

your point that some of the benefits though are also duplicated 

by Stage II in those non-attainment areas where they exist and 

I think that's a fair point and it ought to be included in an 

analysis. But there are elements of benefit, I think, it's 

important to point out that still would exist. If you have any 

different perspective on that, you're welcome to — 

MR. LEONARD: Basically what I would say, 

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number one, as you pointed out, the states have option to expand 

that Stage II requirement. Number two, many of them have done 

so and I think probably most of them will because the states are 

under their three percent per year RFP requirements, are driving 

to get to meet those reasonable further progress requirements. 

There's no way in the world that onboard refueling vapor is 

going to assist those states in meeting that three percent 

requirement because it takes fully 15 years or more for ORVR to 

come across the fleet. 

Furthermore, at best, from the point of 

being argumentative, was the wash whether Stage II was more 

effective when it was going nationwide than nationwide ORVft 

controls. I do not understand how 15 percent of the stations 

having to put Stage II on in the serious and severe areas that 

might not otherwise have to put it on, can compare the cost of 

doing ORVR control on a nationwide basis. 

MR. GRAY: Again, I think that point is 

a reasonable point to take into consideration, but there are 

benefits from a toxic standpoint. I might also point out that 

one of the earlier Clean Air Act Amendments had mandated that 

states be in compliance now almost many years ago, and we found 

out that in practical experience, even though this time around 

we are much more hopeful that attainment will be met according 

to the prescribed schedule, we are already experiencing some 

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difficulties or seeing some difficulties in states and I believe 

even for some of the areas that you have seen a mandate in the 

law for some time to implement Stage II, that there's not an 

across-the-board, on schedule implementation in all areas. 

It's difficult at this time to project 

with complete confidence the exact timing of these various 

things. And to the extent that some of the areas that are 

hopeful to attain in the reasonably near future may not, as you 

point out, then they go to a higher level of classification. 

But all that takes time, and if it slips far enough, of course 

there will be a larger percentage of vehicles that are in the 

population and we'll have to see how it all plays out. But if 

everything flows according to the Clean Air Act, your point is 

well-taken; it's just that things are already appearing to be 

running into some difficulties. 

MR. LEONARD: Maybe difficulty in the 

states doing what they're mandated to do, but if you look at 

the air quality results from 1988 to 1991, the number of ozone 

non-attainment areas has dropped from 101 to 56. So there has 

been significant progress before any of the 1990 Clean Air Act 

Amendments have had any impact at all on the air quality inventory out there in the states. I think it's going to be a lot 

better job this time around, Charles, than it was the last time. 

MR. WILSON: Anybody else? 

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MR. PASSAVANT: Sam, something you said 

in your testimony troubled me and you reiterated it in your 

response to a question. That was a statement there would be 

some additional risk involved in installing ORVR systems, as 

you call them, regardless of anything, and you were tying it to 

the transfer of the fuel vapor from the tank to the canister. 

It seems like when we make an assessment like that, we should 

be looking at this relative to the whole refueling event and 

the whole possibility of what could be happening. It seems to 

me that what's happening now today is that that five grams per 

gallon that would be transferred in our ORVR systems is actually 

going to the atmosphere right now, to the individual standing 

around the tank and presents a potential risk there. 

So in a sense here, what I'm saying is 

that I'm not so sure that there any delta in risk involved in 

this process at all. I'd like you to think about that. It 

seems like you're concerned about public health and safety and 

whether it's being contained in a line that's going to a 

canister or coming out the fill neck, it's still there. 

MR. LEONARD: I think under the Court's 

ruling in the passenger cars, that's the absolute relative 

assessment that you have to make for passenger cars. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Well, what do you think 

about that? You've twice said that there is a concern and I'm 

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totally lost to understand why. 

MR. LEONARD: Compared to the fuel system, 

there's an increased risk of transferring that amount of vapor 

underneath the vehicle into the canister. There's no question 

about that. What I do not know is whether that offsets the risk 

because you're the one that's going to make the health assessments on the vapors coming out of the filler neck. What I do 

know that I think that your burden, when you get to trucks, is 

that that relative risk has to be better than the alternative, 

which is Stage II, which also reduces those risks, and you still 

have the transfer risk underneath the vehicle. 

MR. PASSAVANT: The question here was sort 

of my concern that you were making such an absolute statement 

when I don't think it is absolute. 

MR. LEONARD: That's what I'm asking EPA 

to determine, whether it is. 

MR. PASSAVANT: We'll do that, but I don't 

know why you're feeling compelled to make such a strong statement about it when you have these offsetting considerations, 

that's all I'm trying to say. 

MR. LEONARD: I'm not selling them. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Okay, the next point I 

wanted to ask about was your statements about the certification 

review process for safety. In our proposal, we laid out a 

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process whereby we would sit down with the car companies early 

in the process, not three and a half years down the road, but 

early in the process, to talk over these considerations. I 

noticed you didn't comment on that. Do you have any thoughts 

now or would you comment for the record on that? 

MR. LEONARD: What I would like to see 

come out of this final rule is a kind of a, for want of a better 

word, a type approval type safety determination that an integrated canister-based system that utilizes good engineering 

practices, that has the canister similar to the size that you've 

got for an evap canister, that uses good practices for routing 

of the hoses, that uses the right size hoses and does all those 

things right, would be considered a safe system, it can be a 

safe system. That's the type of determination that we need made 

on the record up front. I think we will address the rest of 

your issue in our written comments. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Sam, the next point I 

wanted to ask you is to make sure that in talking about light 

trucks, you talked about a cost burden associated with them. 

As much as four years ago now, the Agency put an analysis in the 

docket, an updated analysis in the docket, on the cost of onboard and it covered all three of the vehicle classes. Our 

analysis at that time showed a very small cost for light trucks, 

which is under $5, if my recollection is correct. We never got 

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any feedback from anybody on that and would appreciate it if you 

could give us comments on that analysis as part of the final 

rulemaking. 

MR. LEONARD: We'll try to do that as part 

of our final comments. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Finally, on light trucks, 

one final point, if the Agency decides to pursue light trucks 

regardless of your testimony, I heard the AAMA testifiers talk 

about engineering resources. What would be your thoughts or 

your comments regarding what the Agency ought to be doing in 

terms of leadtime for light trucks, if we decided to pursue it? 

MR. LEONARD: Well, as long as it's understood I'm on record as against it entirely, I would not like to 

see it start at all, but I definitely don't want to see it 

started on any type of overlap with the passenger car requirement. A phase-in schedule similar to passenger cars beginning 

after the passenger car is completed would — 

MR. PASSAVANT: Understanding that you 

don't want to do it at all, but that's the type of ballpark 

you'd like to be in, in terms of implementation, if you had to 

do it? 

MR. LEONARD: If I had to do it, because 

of the engineering resources involved and heavy-duty trucks 

being only five or six percent of the market and being 

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everything that they are with all their complications and all 

of the people that are involved in assembling a heavy-duty 

truck, I don't understand how anybody with a rational approach 

could want to include heavy-duty trucks in an ORVR rulemaking. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Where do you draw the line 

between a heavy-duty truck and a light-duty truck? 

MR. LEONARD: I draw it at anything that's 

certified as light-duty. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Anything at 8,500 pounds? 

MR. LEONARD: Correct, 8,500. 

MR. PASSAVANT: What would be the 

difference between that statement and a complete versus an 

incomplete vehicle? 

MR. LEONARD: Very similar; most of our 

incomplete vehicles are over 8,500. 

MR. PASSAVANT: But all three of the 

domestic manufacturers have product line that's in the 8,500 to 

10,000 weight range, which is the first part of light trucks. 

It comes off the line as a complete vehicle and it's sold as a 

complete vehicle and that, to me, is a different animal than the 

vehicle that comes off as a cab chassis or something and goes 

on to an RV manufacturer or somebody. 

MR. LEONARD: Yes, it is. 

MR. PASSAVANT: What would be your 

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thoughts on the complete vehicle versus the incomplete vehicle 

in that light? 

MR. LEONARD: Any time that the system 

gets out of my control, which it does with an incomplete 

vehicle, I don't think you should put an ORVR on it at all. 

MR. PASSAVANT: But does a complete 

vehicle that goes down to a little dealership and is sold at 

9,000 pounds present any kind of different consideration than 

it does for a light truck that's a complete vehicle? So if I 

have a 9,000 pound pickup truck and an 8,000 pound pickup truck 

and they're both being sold off the lot as complete vehicles, 

are there different considerations there? 

MR. LEONARD: That's still part of the 

five percent and one of the things you into that area is a lot 

of models that have got 200, 300, 2,000, 3,000 units applications specific to that model. It just doesn't make sense to 

spend the engineering resources to redesign the systems for each 

one of those. 

MR. PASSAVANT: But from the perspectives 

that you've raised, I understand that it's still up in that five 

or six percent of the fuel consumption, but in terms of the 

design and the cost and such, I can't see it would be any 

different across those two lines. 

MR. LEONARD: I don't know. We haven't 

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had time to evaluate on that type of application. That's one 

of our smaller volume applications. If we ever did it, it would 

be one of the last ones we'd do under a phase-in schedule and 

we really haven't gotten into the development concerns to see 

whether there are unique concerns to that vehicle. I don't 

know. Until I get in and try to do it on that vehicle, I really 

don't know. Theoretically, probably not, but as a practical 

matter, I can't say. I have not done the development work. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Thanks. 

MR. WILSON: I think that's all the 

questions. Thank you very much for the testimony. 

Next is Ford Motor. 

MR. BROWN: I'm only the third witness, 

but I think a lot of what we have in our written statement here 

has already been said, so I'm going to try and skip through it 

to avoid being redundant and I look forward to the questions. 

I couldn't stand it sitting back there, letting Sam take all the 

questions. 

MR. WILSON: I think we ran out of 

questions, 

MR. BROWN: My name is Kelly Brown. I am 

the Director of the Automotive Emissions and Fuel Economy Office 

at Ford. We fully support the AAMA testimony that was presented 

at the hearing and we'd like it incorporated along with our full 

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written comments into the record. We're pleased to be here to 

discuss this issue once again and we look forward to working 

with EPA further to resolve the open issues that remain during 

the course of the rulemaking. 

Many complex issues associated with this 

rulemaking require extensive review, including the safety of 

today's state-of-the-art canister based systems, test procedures, technical feasibility, scope and applicability of ORVR 

regulations, cost benefit analysis, and the like. Since receiving this notice, our primary focus has been on developing 

a workable test procedure that would allow us to develop a new 

generation of canister-based systems which are reasonably safe. 

We believe canister-based systems to be the only technically 

feasible systems for onboard refueling vapor recovery. Because 

of the severe time and resource constraints, we have concentrated our efforts solely on gasoline fueled passenger cars. 

The remainder of my testimony will address test procedure 

modifications, safety issues, and applicability of the standard. 

With respect to test procedures, nonintegrated systems are typically more complex than integrated 

ORVR and evap systems because they will likely require duplicate 

hardware, requiring additional canisters, extra vapor lines and 

control valves, all of which can lead to failure. 

Under any of the proposed test procedures 

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contained in the May 27, 1993 Notice, a nonintegrated system 

would likely be required. This is because the refueling test 

would require significantly larger canister capacity than that 

required for evaporative emissions control. If the requirements 

were to be met by an integrated system with much larger canisters, it would also be necessary to increase purge rates, in 

order to meet the recently promulgated evap emission requirements. The only way to avoid the exhaust emissions interaction 

problems would be to design a nonintegrated system, in which 

the separate canister would be trickle-purged, or purged at a 

much slower rate, over the course of a full fuel tank. 

The industry's desire to develop ORVR 

systems that reduce safety risks have led us to propose test 

procedure changes which assure the control of these emissions, 

yet facilitate the use of integrated systems. Under the procedure described earlier during the AAMA statement, Ford 

believes, at least in most cases, we should be able to use the 

canister designed for the new evap systems as a common storage 

medium for refueling vapors. Doing so should allow us to 

develop reasonably safe canister-based systems. 

The safety issues associated with the 

proposed test procedure revisions need to be properly addressed 

by EPA. We believe that a new EPA and NHTSA safety review will 

find that ORVR canister-based systems developed under the 

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proposed test procedure revisions will not present an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety. We believe such a finding 

can be reached with respect to light-duty vehicles based on 

changed circumstances including, at a minimum, the following: 

Test procedure changes that would permit 

the use of an integrated ORVR/EVAP system, reducing complexity, 

thereby facilitating the development of reasonably safe 

canister-based systems and that assumes EPA adopts the test 

procedures that were described earlier. 

The use of Onboard Diagnostics will also 

check system integrity. 

The technological advancements made in 

canister-based designs for enhanced evaporative systems since 

the last report, for example, upgraded materials, improved purge 

hardware, and others. 

This review has to be completed early in 

the process to assist in identifying hardware changes that are 

necessary to develop a reasonably safe system. 

The applicability of the standard, and you 

spoke a lot about this yet this morning, I think the key things 

there are that neither Congress nor the Court told you that you 

had to do truck systems, nor did they tell you that you had to 

do them on the same timetable, both the regulatory timetable and 

implementation timetable, that you have to for cars. 

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That brings up unique issues; vehicles 

equipped with larger fuel tanks may require proportionately 

larger canister capacity for refueling as compared to enhanced 

EVAP. This could present major purge rate issues and packaging 

issues. The purge rate issue could force nonintegrated systems. 

If nonintegrated systems are required, 

significant packaging issues and complexity and safety issues 

will be added to the system. 

Due to the tight time constraints of this 

rulemaking, we have not determined if the test procedure modifications described in the Association testimony would be adequate 

to achieve results for trucks, the same as anticipated on cars. 

Another issues with these classes of 

trucks is that you get into the heavier light trucks, incomplete 

vehicles are sold to second-stage manufacturers and present 

unique problems. Second-stage manufacturers would face an 

almost overwhelming challenge to properly assemble onboard vapor 

controls. It is also difficult to control potential modifications that a second-stage manufacturer may make to such a fuel 

system and we have history of that. 

ORVR requirements are not mandated by law 

for light-duty trucks, heavy-duty vehicles and incomplete 

vehicles. If EPA proceeds under its discretionary authority to 

promulgate ORVR rules for these vehicles, it must perform a full 

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regulatory cost/benefit study to justify these requirements. 

It's our belief that when considering Stage II as an alternative, as required in the case of these non-passenger cars, 

ORVR requirements cannot be justified. 

In conclusion, Ford recommends that EPA 

adopt the test procedure changes for light-duty vehicles outlined by AAMA. These changes will allow for integrated systems 

that can reasonably and effectively control both evap and refueling emissions. These changes are directionally correct to 

reduce system complexity, and thereby facilitating the development of reasonably safe canister-based systems. 

Thank you; I'd be glad to take any 

questions. 

MR. FRANCE: Just a couple of questions 

regarding light-duty trucks; from the data that we have, I 

presume one of your concerns with respect to light trucks is the 

refueling vapor generation? 

MR. BROWN: Correct. 

MR. FRANCE: And the fact that it's a 

unique configuration; the data we have doesn't suggest that 

there's a relationship between tank size and vapor generation. 

The more dominant tends to be the fillneck design and diameter 

and other things like that. I was wondering if you had any 

information that would suggest otherwise, or have you drawn some 

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different observations with respect to tank size? 

MR. BROWN: When we have some cars, and 

that's all we've had a chance to work on, we haven't had a lot 

of time since we got the surprise ruling from the Court, but 

each of our cars yields different results and we assume, but we 

don't know, I wouldn't want to put an SAE paper out on it, we 

assume that it's not just tank size in the way we normally think 

of it, that is the number of gallons, but also configuration. 

Light truck fuel tanks are configured completely different from 

passenger cars and we also have some applications today that are 

dual tank systems and we don't know the mechanics of all that. 

Those issues need to be explored before 

we can come to the same conclusion on cars. In effect, on cars 

we haven't tested all of our applications. You have all the 

data we have. We've only done some limited testing and we're 

making some engineering judgments as to what we can do across 

passenger cars. When you get into the bigger trucks, especially 

the heavy trucks, the fuel tank configurations are often round, 

some have steps in them and they're considerably larger. So I 

think the simple answer to your question is, we don't know. We 

have concerns, but we don't know. 

MR. FRANCE: Same question I asked the 

General Motors panel, setting the merits of regulating light 

trucks aside, if the concept that was laid out was one in which 

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we sized the refueling canister to match that of evap, if we 

were successful in light trucks, my assumption is, the timing 

aside, that that concept would apply equally to light trucks and 

it would deal with packaging, complexity and other safety 

concerns for light trucks, as it has the potential to do with 

light-duty vehicles. Is that a fair statement? 

MR. BROWN: If I understand the question, 

I think the question was, if we spent the time to properly 

determine what procedural modifications were necessary to have 

the same size canisters on light trucks for both evap and 

refueling, you come to the same conclusion you would in cars. 

I think the problem we're having is the, if. We haven't gone 

through the process to see if the changes to the test procedure 

that we think would work on cars will also work on light trucks. 

And since neither the Court nor Congress told us to get on the 

same — I'm not comfortable with the schedule we're on for cars. 

We just don't have any other choice. We do have a choice in 

light trucks and we don't have to go that fast and we can stop 

and actually think and do intelligent things. That did not 

often happened in the Clean Air Act, but this is one of the rare 

chances we get. 

MR. FRANCE: Are you collecting any 

information on light trucks in terms of vapor generation? 

MR. BROWN: We are starting. I don't have 

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anything here to share. 

MR. FRANCE: Could you supply that off 

the record, I mean, in your comments? 

MR. BROWN: In a month; it won't be a lot, 

but we can give you what we've got. I doubt very seriously 

there's any way we could have any kind of extensive program in 

the next month. 

MR. SCHWARTZ: For the record, I'm Mike 

Schwartz. The problem would be if we scramble and get together 

data on one of our truck systems, we won't know which end of the 

spectrum it represents. The gram per gallon rate that you were 

talking about varies configuration to configuration and also the 

grams per diurnal varies somewhat from configuration to configuration. In passenger cars, we've really hustled to 

determine what we can so that we can have some confidence that 

there's a relationship we can depend on and we have depended on 

that relationship to mold the test procedure, as you know, so 

that it can reasonably match the canister size for evaporative 

emissions. 

We've got the variation in both things on 

trucks to still deal with and that is the variation in generation of grams per gallon during refueling and grams per diurnal 

or grams during running loss situations to consider on trucks. 

So I'm concerned that if we hustled and got some test data for 

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you on one of our truck platforms and then both sides assumed 

that that was representative and in the middle, that that 

wouldn't do it for us. 

MR. FRANCE: Well, just a comment in terms 

of our confidence, the data on the light-duty vehicle side, at 

least from our perspective, is not what I would consider 

exhaustive. 

MR. BROWN: That's what I said. 

MR. FRANCE: And we do have on the lightduty truck side, at least in the uncontrolled configuration, we 

have a good deal of new truck data and, like I said, a lot of 

that was collected by ATL. We don't see the differences that 

you're suggesting. I mean, they fall within the range of LDVs, 

so to whatever extent you can collect some data on one or more 

of your truck platforms, it would be helpful. 

MR. BROWN: I think what we're suggesting, 

I don't want to leave the impression that the work we've done 

in trying to work through the test procedures hasn't been helpful , it's been extremely helpful. And you're right, we don't 

have all the answers on cars and we've got our fingers crossed 

that between now and job one, 1999, or whenever this is first 

launched, I hope we don't have any oopses, because the oops 

doesn't allow us to put a car out that if we said, well, there 

goes one that's not safe. The oops for us means we don't build 

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that car. That's not a good position to be in. 

That means we might have to shut down 

assembly plants, tell people to go home and going back either 

through your process or, God forbid, the congressional process. 

It took 13 years the last time. We can't keep a plant down for 

13 years. There's no reason on earth why we would want to put 

trucks in, let me try and say it again because I think I tried 

to say it and the previous witnesses tried to say it, we are in 

an almost intellectually bankrupt process on cars, not because 

any of us want to, but because a judge and the rubber check 

crowd in Washington put us into this pickle. It's not a logical 

business situation. It's not the way you should be building 

cars. It's not the way to run a business. We're stuck. We 

don't have that same situation on trucks and we shouldn't put 

ourselves there. 

MR. PASSAVANT: I have a few quick things, 

very similar to what I asked GM. You alluded to a concern about 

getting caught at the eleventh hour with a problem and you can't 

get a vehicle certified and I'd like to know what your view 

would be on the phase-in proposal that the Agency made in terms 

of looking at the safety of systems early in the process and 

trying to sort of work out the details on that that's in our May 

27th Notice. 

MR. BROWN: I think that's a good idea. 

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I think what I understand, and I'm not an attorney, as you know, 

but what I understand the Court suggested, the nervous gentleman 

on my right is from the office of general counsel, what I understand the Court to have said is that you can wait until just 

before job one, when we're trying to get a certificate, when 

we're standing out here in Ann Arbor waiting to get a certificate, you've got the thing all built, the tooling's released, 

you've done pre-production builds, everything is changed over 

in the plants and you're starting to build cars and some guy in 

Ann Arbor say, no, it doesn't look safe to me. That's not a 

situation you can go through. I mean, if that happens, it ought 

to be because we, the manufacturer, did something stupid in the 

eleventh hour and changed something. That shouldn't be the 

normal course of business. You just can't run a business that 

way. 

MR. PASSAVANT: So you'd support that kind 

of a process after the final rule is underway but before much 

time has passed since then? 

MR. BROWN: I think you have to do that. 

I think it's mandatory. 

MR. PASSAVANT: In regards to the issue 

— my last few questions here are on the light-duty truck and 

the heavy-duty vehicle issue. I asked GM about the incomplete 

vehicles versus the complete vehicles and you alluded to it in 

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your comments as well. Do you draw a line there? Is that where 

you consider there's a significant set of differences in terms 

of design, engineering and other types of concerns? 

MR. BROWN: Once you get over 8,500 

pounds, and again, I'm talking only gasoline, you start getting, 

in our product and most of the industry, once you get over 85, 

you also get some diesels in and I don't think they ever should 

have been a part of this process. But once you get over 8,500 

pounds, you're into a whole different world where a lot of the 

product we sell are incomplete vehicles or motor homes and 

ambulances and tow trucks and school buses, things like that. 

There's a whole bunch of different companies involved and we had 

some bad experiences in the past with some of those people and 

the way they modified our vehicles after they left our plants. 

I don't think it's reasonable to give them 

a big bag of parts and hope that after they get their body on 

and some of the people add additional fuel tanks, after they 

get those all molded together and they put propane tanks and 

other things under there, it gives us hives to even think about 

them, and then you get into the bigger trucks, we're probably, 

I guess, the last of the full line manufacturers who make all 

size trucks ourselves and we still have gasoline powered truck 

up into Class 5 and touching Class 6. Those truck have big fuel 

tanks, much bigger than anything thought of. So in that case, 

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P.62 

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beyond evap, once you catch all the vapors, you're into a really 

unique situation for purge as to what to do with all of them. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Is there a difference 

though between a complete vehicle over 8,500 pounds and an 

incomplete vehicle? 

MR. BROWN: Well, the key difference is 

the body's missing on one of them. But I mean, the body in the 

context of this proceeding is the part that holds up the rest 

of the fuel system, the fillpipe and all the hoses. What we 

normally do is we put a stubby fillpipe on and we have a bag 

that's called a dunnage kit. It used to look like a little 

grapefruit bag full of parts, and we give them a book and tell 

them, do this, don't do that, and we spend a lot more time with 

secondary manufacturers now trying to teach them how to do it. 

With the onboard system, we'd be giving 

them a much bigger bag and a lot more parts and ones that, if 

you put them in backwards or you forget to hook a hose on right, 

like the vapor shutoff valve, the situation now, if the person 

hooked the vapor shutoff valve up wrong, you could end up 

filling all the canisters with fuel before it started running 

on the ground and he knew it and that's not a good situation. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Kelly, forthe record, can 

you tell us or give us an estimate of what percentage of your 

over 8,500 pound vehicles are incomplete versus complete? I 

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think that would help us in this process. 

MR. BROWN: I know it's a lot, but rather 

than guess, I'd rather give it to you for the record. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Thanks; I also know that 

you're not supporting extending this requirement to light trucks 

and heavy-duty vehicles. 

MR. BROWN: We tried to give that 

impression, yes. 

MR. PASSAVANT: You did; were the Agency 

to proceed under that track, can you give me some sense of what 

your views would be on leadtime for that? 

MR. BROWN: My preference would be to take 

it out of this rulemaking and go back through a normal rulemaking. Remember those, the normal rulemaking where you had 

reasonable notice and opportunity to comment, you had a hearing, 

you weren't compelled to a 30 day time period if you had issues 

to resolve, and then a reasonable amount of time for you to do 

the rule and then leadtime after that. 

I would also like to have a few years of 

passenger car production to see how they work. I don't mean 

just from a safety standpoint, but to make sure that in real 

customer use all our testing is right and they actually fill 

right and we're not getting nasty phone calls from customers and 

things like that. It would be certainly no sooner than after 

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we got done with the passenger cars. But actually again, I 

would prefer that we go through a rulemaking and let that 

rulemaking and leadtime requirements of the Act dictate it. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Finally, the last point 

is, you made mention in your oral comments that the Agency would 

need to do a separate RIA for that and of course we agree that's 

appropriate. In your written comments, I'd like you to comment 

on the information that we do have out there in the docket right 

now on the costs and benefits, et cetera, of light-duty trucks 

and heavy-duty vehicles as well. Thank you. 

MR. SILVERMAN: It's very clear you don't 

want us to do a requirement for trucks, but it sounds like 

you're saying we at least have the discretion to do it legally 

should we choose to. It's, there are more hurdles to jump over, 

but it does sound like you're saying we could do it legally if 

we compile the proper type of record and comply with procedural 

requisites. 

MR. BROWN: Our lawyers have told us that 

you do have the right. We weren't really focusing on the number 

of hurdles, but the requirements are different. And the main 

requirement that's different that's important in this proceeding 

is timing and timing to do it right. We don't have to stumble 

off blindly the way we do on passenger cars. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Thank you. 

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MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. I think 

we'll take about a ten minute break. 

MR. WILSON: If we can get started, the 

next witness is Chrysler Corporation. 

MR. ALLARDYCE: Good morning; I'm Gordon 

Allardyce and I'm Manager of Environmental and Energy Regulatory 

Planning for Chrysler Corporation. With me today are Fred 

Maloney of my staff and Gary Dawson, who is Chrysler's manager 

of Powertrain Systems. Chrysler is pleased to have the opportunity to present its position at this EPA hearing on the 

proposed adoption of onboard refueling vapor recovery regulations. Our testimony today will primarily address two key 

issues, first, the importance of an appropriate test procedure, 

and second, the implementation of ORVR for trucks. We will 

provide more detail on our position in our written comments. 

Additionally, I want to mention as a member of the American 

Automobile Manufacturers Association, Chrysler supports the AAMA 

comments presented on this rulemaking earlier today. 

We are here today because the Court of 

Appeals has directed the EPA to move forward with rulemaking on 

ORVR for passenger cars, notwithstanding the unresolved safety 

issues. The court's decision is of great concern to the automotive manufacturers. As we testified at the EPA hearing in 

September of 1991, the ORVR emission test procedure proposed in 

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the 1987 NPRM would cause us to build ORVR systems that add 

substantial complexity to fueling and evaporative emission 

control systems. 

Chrysler's development efforts have 

included both integrated and nonintegrated ORVR systems, but 

the constraints in EPA's proposal, if unchanged, will compel us 

to release only the nonintegrated system. Such a system is even 

more complex than an integrated system, requiring additional 

lines and connections along with an additional, dedicated ORVR 

canister. 

Chrysler believes that a nonintegrated 

system will increase the safety risk to the public over an 

integrated system because of the necessary additional lines and 

connections. While Chrysler will minimize any risks associated 

with ORVR,the added complexity of nonintegrated systems will 

reduce reliability and increase the difficulty of vehicle 

design, resulting in more costly ORVR systems. 

For these reasons, the AAMA approached EPA 

with an alternative test procedure that would accomplish two 

goals. First, the test procedure would not penalize the use of 

an integrated ORVR system, and second, it would not increase the 

size of the canister beyond that what will be on the car for 

stricter evaporative control. 

Based on EPA input, we have substantially 

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modified our initial proposal. Chrysler believes that this test 

procedure, which EPA outlined earlier today, will allow manufacturers to design and build integrated canister-based ORVR 

systems in a way that will minimize risks and eliminate many of 

our previous concerns without jeopardizing air quality. 

The challenge to design a safe and 

effective ORVR system remains. If ORVR were our only new task, 

the job would be greatly simplified. Howeyer, our task is complicated by two issues. First, the ORVR system will interact 

with other emission control systems implemented as the result 

of the Clean Air Act, such as, tighter tailpipe standards, 

stricter evaporative test procedures and onboard diagnostics. 

Second, the implementation of all regulations required over the 

next five years, across our entire product line, will strain 

Chrysler's limited engineering and financial resources. 

These problems are exacerbated by the 

unnecessary inclusion of trucks in the EPA proposal. Section 

202(a)(6) of the Clean Air Act requires ORVR only for light-duty 

vehicles, and according to Section 216(7), the definition for 

LDV does not include trucks of any kind. Therefore, it is clear 

that the court has not directed the EPA to include trucks in 

this or any rulemaking. 

For air quality purposes, it is not 

necessary for trucks to be equipped with ORVR systems because 

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they are redundant to the Stage II systems. Further, the 

proposed ORVR phase-in begins in 1998 model year and will take 

15 years to become fully implemented across the in-use fleet. 

But, Stage II refueling will be fully Implemented in all 

Serious, Severe and Extreme non-attainment areas by 1994, 

thereby providing full refueling emissions control commensurate 

with the letter and intent of the law. 

Additionally, some states have chosen to 

require Stage II controls in Moderate areas even though they are 

not required to do so when ORVR regulations are promulgated. 

These states are doing this for two reasons: they realize that 

Stage II provides immediate refueling control on all vehicles; 

and, they can thereby obtain credit towards the 15 percent VOC 

reduction mandate. Moderate areas must be in attainment by 

November 1996, or they will be reclassified to a higher nonattainment status for which Stage II will then be required. 

However, if EPA should feel compelled to 

promulgate truck ORVR regulations, we recommend that EPA pursue 

this under separate rulemaking. A wide variety of options is 

open to the Agency since the Clean Air Act does not require 

trucks to be equipped with ORVR. The EPA can, for instance, 

limit truck applications, increase leadtime, extend the phasein period, or modify the standards. 

Most of the development work on ORVR 

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systems to this point has been performed on LDVs. While it may 

appear straightforward to adapt passenger car ORVR systems to 

trucks, it is not a simple matter because each fuel system 

requires individual engineering development. The proposed LDV 

rulemaking and implementation schedule does not allow adequate 

time to address the special problems of trucks. 

In summary, Chrysler appreciates EPA's 

cooperation in considering AAMA's concerns with the ORVR test 

proposal and the modifications made to address these concerns. 

An appropriate test procedure can eliminate many of the concerns 

we have had with ORVR systems on passenger cars. We also urge 

that EPA not require trucks to be equipped with ORVR systems. 

If however, ORVR regulations are considered for trucks, they 

should proceed under a separate rulemaking process. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you. 

MR. GRAY: I just have one question 

relative to this separate rulemaking process. I assume that 

means in terms of a schedule. Do you have a particular schedule 

for implementation for light-duty trucks that you think would 

provide sufficient time to consider whatever special characteristics that those vehicles have that are perhaps different 

than your passenger car platforms? 

MR. ALLARDYCE: Well, if you decide to go 

for trucks, then certainly after the phase-in for light-duty 

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vehicles. How far after that depends on a number of factors, 

of course. We haven't had really any opportunity to look at the 

problems associated with trucks, that's one of the factors. We 

have to do the development work, provide the systems, make sure 

they're safe and so on. So it will take some time. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. 

Next is the Association of International 

Automobile Manufacturers. 

MR. DANA: Good morning; my name is 

Gregory Dana. I'm with the Association of International 

Automobile Manufacturers. I apologize to the panel that I don't 

have a written copy of my statement. Due to all the last minute 

negotiations, we haven't had time to put something together 

prepared, but we'll submit something for the record. I'd like 

to make a fairly brief oral statement here because you've 

covered many of the points already by the Big Three representatives testifying, and as I said before, I'll supplement what I 

say today with written comments before the close of the comment 

period. 

We agree with the statement made by Dr. 

Klimisch on behalf of AAMA, specifically the test procedure 

issues that have been negotiated with EPA over the last few 

weeks that would allow the use of integrated systems. However, 

EPA's opening statement did not address the level of the 

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standard and we would like to emphasize that we cannot endorse 

a standard any more stringent than the 0.20 gram per gallon for 

light-duty gasoline fueled vehicles. 

We would also like to comment that the 

final rule should address only the gasoline fueled, light-duty 

vehicles, not trucks, nor vehicles that run on alternative 

fuels. We think any application of this rule to light-duty 

trucks would need a complete regulatory impact analysis that 

takes into account all the changed circumstances that have 

occurred since the 1987 proposal and the other documents that 

were published by EPA in 1991. 

In its 1992 Federal Register Notice, EPA 

stated that it would be "irrational" to put off the safety 

assessment of onboard systems to review under Section 202(a)(4) 

and 202(a)(6) of the Clean Air Act. We agree that some 

assessment of the safety of such systems needs to be done as a 

part of the EPA's final rule prior to the effort put forth by 

manufacturers on design of vehicles. 

With that, I'd like to finish my 

statement. I'd be happy to answer any question you might have. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you. 

MR. GRAY: I guess I am curious relative 

to your reaction to the test procedure option that has been 

outlined today, whether or not you and your member companies 

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believe that that will provide greater flexibility and provide 

including the flexibility of using an integrated system if the 

manufacturer chose that approach? 

MR. DANA: I can say that tentatively we 

think so. Given that we heard the final position of this test 

procedure, I believe, yesterday, there really hasn't been time 

to coordinate it very completely with all my members, but at 

least on its surface it seems to move in the right direction. 

MR. GRAY: You think that's an important 

objective to have a procedure that would allow an integrated 

systems in a canister of the same size nominally as the 

evaporative system? 

MR. DANA: Yes, we do. 

MR. GRAY: You think that if that option 

were finalized, that that would deal with a lot of the safety 

concerns that have been previously expressed regarding the 

previous proposal? 

MR. DANA: I think we would think it goes 

in the right direction. It certainly goes a long way towards 

that. I think we still have concerns about somehow correcting 

the record on the safety of onboard systems that came out of 

EPA's proposal or Notice in the past to not go forward with 

onboard. 

MR. GRAY: When you say, correcting, what 

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specifically do you mean? If you change the test procedure to 

allow more flexibility and a particular different system, are 

there — 

MR. DANA: I'm not speaking of the test 

procedure per se. I'm speaking of the fact that there's still 

a concern that in the decision not to go forward in the past, 

that there is some statement on the record that we think needs 

to be solved before we get into the process of designing and 

building cars with onboard systems. 

MR. GRAY: Again, do you have anything 

more specific in terms of, there's a lot of statements in that 

record, a certain aspect of it? 

MR. DANA: I don't have it here in front 

of me to quote, but again, I think the general finding that was 

made by the Agency was that there was some concern of light 

increased risk in safety because of these systems. I think we 

just need to see something that somehow answers that in the 

process of this final rule, that's all. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Greg, I'd like to pursue 

a couple of the same points as I did with others. You expressed 

a concern about the certification timing and so on. Would your 

member companies, either now or for the record, provide us with 

some input as to how you would support or participate in a postfinal rule process for resolving these safety issues that we 

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talked about in terms of the May 27th Notice, we laid out a 

process in there, just to sit down and sort some of this stuff 

out? It seems to me that addresses the concerns you raised. 

MR. DANA: We can address that in our 

written comments, 

MR. PASSAVANT: I'd also like to ask you 

to pass on to your member companies the fact that we'd like to 

have comments on our documents in the docket that laid out the 

costs and benefits of onboard for light-duty trucks. Similarly, 

if we were to proceed with the light-duty truck and heavy-duty 

vehicle implementation, we'd be interested in getting your 

organization and your member companies' perspectives on leadtime 

and phase-in. 

MR. DANA: As I said, I haven't had time 

to coordinate those kinds of views. I think we'd be generally 

supportive of the views already expressed, but we can certainly 

answer that in the record. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Just out of curiosity, I 

think I remember in 1991, it was Toyota's testimony that they 

were contemplating a nonintegrated system. Do you know if that 

apparently is no longer under consideration, is that right? 

MR. DANA: Well, Toyota does have a 

statement prepared for today. I think you'd best ask them that. 

MR. WILSON: Thanks very much. 

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Next is the American Petroleum Institute. 

MR. O'KEEFE: Good morning; my name is 

Bill O'Keefe. I'm Executive Vice President of the American 

Petroleum Institute. I'm here on behalf of API's 300 member 

companies to testify in support of EPA's proposed rule requiring 

onboard vehicle emission controls on light-duty vehicles. 

This hearing is hopefully the last 

installment in the long, agonizing history of the rulemaking 

process for onboard refueling vapor controls, a history almost 

as long as EPA's existence. I have personally been involved 

with this matter for over ten years, the last six of which in 

connection with the proposed rule being discussed today. I kat 

it's normal, Dick, to say that it's a pleasure to be here, but 

under those circumstances, I'd want to use a different adjective 

and I'm sure you probably would also. 

I mention this painfully long history 

and want to briefly highlight it for two reasons. First, it 

demonstrates how contentious issues can frustrate rational 

decision-making as well as create an incentive to over-analyze 

and undei—decide. Second, because this issue has had such a 

contentious history, it is imperative that the Agency proceed 

in a way that avoids creating new opportunities for further 

delay and that brings this matter to conclusion in accordance 

with the recent court decision and settlement agreement. 

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Onboard vapor recovery systems will 

efficiently, cost-effectively and safely reduce gasoline 

refueling vapor emissions and contribute to improved air quality 

nationwide. Although this conclusion has been challenged, it 

is firmly supported by a wealth of research, technical data and 

analyses which have been a part of the EPA record for years. 

Originally, Congress gave EPA the discretion in 1977 to promulgate the rule if the Administrator 

found that it was "feasible and desireable" to employ such 

technology. Although development and testing data, some of 

which was available in the late 1970s, and numerous analyses 

demonstrated that onboard controls were both feasible and 

desireable, EPA failed to finalize its 1987 proposal for such 

controls. 

In amending the Clean Air Act in 1990, 

Congress removed Agency discretion and said EPA "shall ... 

promulgate standards" requiring onboard controls on light-duty 

vehicles after consultation with DOT. Two years later, EPA 

reopened the comment period on its 1987 proposal, but declined 

to issue the final rule because of what we consider to be 

unpersuasive safety concerns raised by the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration. 

We strongly disagree with EPA's failure 

to act and so did the D.C. Court of Appeals which has now 

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ordered EPA to issue a rule requiring onboard recovery systems. 

As I said at the outset, the history of this issue is a compelling reason to promulgate this rule promptly and in a way 

that avoids any further delay. To me, this means issuing a rule 

with clear and realistic requirements and time schedules. While 

it is always possible to perfect features of a rule or design 

new ones, this is clearly a situation where the process should 

be guided by the philosophy that the best should not be the 

enemy of the better. 

The Court's decision requires that the 

rule be issued without further debate about whether onboard 

vehicle controls result in an "unquantifiable degradation in 

safety." Any safety issues regarding onboard refueling controls 

will be addressed during the four-year leadtime prior to 

implementation in model year 1998 vehicles. 

We've heard some unique interpretations 

today of what the Court said. Plain language to some is 

obviously not plain language to others. So I'd like to quote 

for the record some excerpts of the Court's decision. Quote, 

The statute expressly provides that EPA, quote, shall promulgate 

standards after consultation with DOT, not subject to or conditioned upon that consultation. No substantive result of the 

consultation is comprehended within the text that might eviscerate EPA's mandatory duty to promulgate standards, No 

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determination is required, no minimal standard for safety is 

articulated and no particular measure or purpose of the 

consultation is specified. Sections 206(a)(3)(a) and 202(a)(4) 

of the Act provide for a later certification process to ensure 

that no system will be installed in an automobile for sale to 

the public unless it is safe. However, the safety evaluation 

comes at a later stage in the implementation the emission 

control systems, unquote. 

Let me now turn to the major issues EPA 

raised in the May 27th proposal. My statement today will be 

supplemented with detailed comments that we will submit for the 

record. 

One, all fuel types should be included, 

There should be no exclusion for non-gasoline based fuel 

systems, unless it can be demonstrated that onboard refueling 

vapor control technologies either cannot be developed or are 

unnecessary for. such systems. 

Two, California cars should be included. 

API supports requiring onboard controls in new cars sold in all 

50 states, including California. Vehicle purchasers in 

California are entitled to the same benefits as new car purchasers in other states. There is no rational basis for 

exempting California, which must at least meet federal standards. Further, California vehicles can operate in other states 

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and be re-sold outside of California. 

The waiver granted for the California Low 

Emissions Vehicle program this past January does not waive 

onboard requirements in California. Onboard standards had not 

been promulgated when that waiver was granted. After the 

federal onboard standard is promulgated by January 22, 1994, 

California's emission standards for model year 1994 and beyond 

will not be "as protective in the aggregate" as the federal 

standards, unless California adopts an onboard requirement. 

Since Stage II is not a vehicle-based control, it cannot be 

considered in determining whether California's vehicle emission 

standards are "as protective" as federal standards. Consequently, onboard vehicle refueling controls must be included on 

California vehicles beginning in model year 1998. 

Three, the rule should not be compromised 

by coverage of all vehicle classes. Applying the onboard rule 

to all vehicle classes is a legitimate exercise of EPA's general 

rulemaking authority under Section 202(a)(1). Obviously, 

greater benefits are preferable to fewer. However, expanding 

coverage of the rule must not in any way delay or compromise 

EPA's mandatory obligation under Section 202(a)(6) to promulgate 

onboard standards for light-duty vehicles and, under the recent 

settlement agreement, to promulgate such standards by January 

22, 1994. Achieving that objective must take precedence over 

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others. 

Four, EPA's proposed refueling test is 

acceptable. API believes that automakers should be free to 

choose any of the options proposed in Figure 1 of the May 1993 

proposal. We will evaluate the changes that were identified 

this morning. The refueling test ultimately required should be 

realistic and reasonable and designed to achieve an appropriate 

level of control. And operating data should be the basis for 

any changes in test requirements. 

EPA requested comments on incorporating 

a refueling test into the recently modified test procedure for 

evaporative emission control. Logical inference would lead to 

the conclusion that a single test is preferable to multiple 

tests. However, developing and evaluating such a comprehensive 

procedure could represent a significant undertaking. Promulgation of the onboard rule by January 1994 should not be delayed 

or in any way jeopardized by development of an alternative test 

procedure, such as a procedure that measures both refueling and 

evaporative emissions. Thus, any modification to the emission 

test procedure to incorporate the refueling test should be a 

separate rulemaking and should satisfy the criteria for efficiency, cost-effectiveness and reasonableness. In the 

meantime, it is important that the two test procedures be 

compatible, consistent and, together, be realistic. 

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Five, finally, and most importantly, 

potential safety issues need not be discussed to promulgation 

of Congressionally, and judicially, mandated onboard refueling 

controls. If safety issues remain, they can be resolved through 

discussions with EPA and NHTSA early on, well before certification occurs in three or four years. And, as I urged in 1991, 

the National Academy of Engineering should be involved in the 

"honest broker" role to help resolve technical differences of 

opinion. Furthermore, onboard refueling control systems, 

whether they are canistei—based or use a different technology, 

should meet the same federal safety standards as other vehicle 

systems. Inventing unnecessarily stringent safety tests for 

onboard refueling control systems will not keep the process on 

track, and no convincing evidence exists to justify them. 

Although questions about safety were not 

intended to be the main focus of this hearing, I believe 

comments on this subject are important since it is the reason 

that EPA declined to issue a rule in 1991, and safety has been 

raised several times this morning. Our support for onboard 

refueling systems and my emphasis on publishing a rule that 

complies with the court decision and settlement agreement does 

not reflect a disregard of safety. If there was any convincing 

evidence that onboard refueling controls would be unsafe, we 

wouldn't advocate them. Indeed, it's precisely because we have 

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spent over a decade developing, building and testing prototypes, 

conducting engineering studies and studying vehicle recall and 

accident statistics, that we remain strong advocates for onboard 

controls. 

The technology is not new or complicated. 

For canister-based systems, it represents a simple expansion of 

the evaporative emission control systems. Millions of existing 

vehicles are equipped with evaporative control canisters, and 

no evidence exists that they present an unreasonable safety 

risk. This conclusion is reinforced by analysis of recall data, 

safety reports and NHTSA's data of crash-related fires, which 

have been steadily declining for almost two decades. 

Demonstration vehicles equipped with 

refueling canisters, both early and more advanced prototypes, 

have been driven for tens of thousands of miles under normal 

road conditions. In no instance have these vehicles created an 

unreasonable safety risk. 

As I pointed out in 1991, there are 

reasons why onboard systems can enhance vehicle safety: 

eliminating the "external vent line" improves crash integrity; 

reducing tank pressure reduces the risk of fuel escaping through 

a break in the fuel system from any cause; and refueling canisters can be moved out of the engine compartment and positioned 

in safer locations. 

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Although there were a lot of assertions 

about the safety of canister-based refueling controls two years 

ago, and they have been repeated extensively today, EPA recently 

observed that no one, not automakers, NHTSA or auto safety 

consultants, raised a concern about safety during EPA's recent 

evaporative emission control rulemaking. Enhanced evaporative 

systems are likely to involve larger canisters and line sizes 

and be more complex than current systems. Going from an 

enhanced evaporative system to a refueling system will be a 

modest and incremental, not radical, change. 

Put in perspective, refueling canister 

technology has undergone more than 15 years of research, 

development and testing and been studied by federal agencies 

and private contractors. Questions raised have been questions 

answered. Moreover, as we have seen today, imaginative minds 

can always construct new questions and issues. However, once 

a rule is issued, automakers will still have four more years to 

refine and perfect the technology, addressing any new issues 

that might develop. The time has come to bring this matter to 

a conclusion and end the cycle of prolonged debate and delay. 

Congress said issue the rule. The Court of Appeals said that 

Congress did indeed say issue the rule. 

Two years ago, my final comment was that 

the Agency should get on with it. January 22, 1994 is only six 

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months away. That should be more than adequate time if the time 

is used wisely. 

questions, 

Thank you, and I'd be glad to answer any 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for that 

testimony. The only question I had was, do you have a reaction 

to the discussion earlier about changes to the just slightly 

adjusted test procedure and how that would affect — 

MR. O'KEEFE: We will evaluate those and 

they will be part of our comment. Having just seen them today, 

we haven't had time. 

MR. GRAY: I have one question about some 

of the earlier discussion regarding Stage II equipment, first 

with respect to serious and severe areas that would be implementing such equipment in the option in the Act for those areas 

to at some point in the future consider discontinuing that 

requirement when sufficient vehicles equipped with onboard 

controls are in place. What's your perspective on the maintenance costs, I think, was one characterization of what would 

be saved in eliminating the Stage II equipment in those areas? 

Do you sense that there would be a real interest on the part of 

fuel retailers and true savings, or do you think it's a marginal 

savings? Could you expand upon what's really involved here? 

MR. O'KEEFE: Yes, I will. Most gasoline 

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stations are owned by small businessmen. It's not the Exxon and 

Mobile and Texaco, so they're small business people. If you 

look at the margins of gasoline in recent years, they're very 

thin. The fact that the capital costs have been incurred 

neglects the fact that in a very competitive environment, and 

it's clear the gasoline market is very competitive, those 

dealers have to find a way to earn enough to pay back those 

loans. Two, the maintenance costs are in the vicinity of $1,500 

per pump per year, so that's an ongoing cost. And if, as has 

been evidenced in California, you go through multiple generations, you may end up replacing the system before its useful 

1ifetime. 

So the fact that those costs have already 

been incurred, they're sunk. It's an ongoing cost of whether 

these people will be able to make sufficient margins to pay the 

maintenance costs, to repair hoses that have holes in them, 

upgrade them or ultimately replace the system. So I think all 

these dealers certainly would like to avoid any unnecessary cost 

and with the installation of onboard controls, which is a 

superior technology, there'd be no justification for them to 

bear that burden. 

MR. GRAY: Even some of your member 

companies have been very innovative with respect to advancing 

the technology for Stage II control to smaller, integrated vapor 

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return lines, so to speak, so there's a single hose now, instead 

of two hoses as the original versions generally were, and with 

some suggestion of, I think, of improved reliability and sealed 

fittings and that sort of thing. I think you also agreed that 

it was a good point that a substantial amount of the capital 

investment would be sunk with the initial installation and 

certainly plumbing under concrete and with the tankage. Do you 

anticipate any of that having any more maintenance than would 

be associated with the other plumbing for the liquid flow? It 

is principally a maintenance issue of the above-ground 

equipment? 

MR. O'KEEFE: We don't have any data on 

the maintenance cost of those systems and whether the frequency 

has increased. I think what's important is that there are 

provisions that areas can either avoid mandating Stage II or 

they can avoid continuing its existence after this rulemaking 

goes into effect. And there are areas that currently do not 

fall into the non-attainment area that may be marginal. These 

systems will ensure, will help keep them in attainment, and if 

they slip, then will avoid them having to go the direction of 

an inferior technology. • It's clear that the onboard controls 

are more cost-effective. 

There's always the problem of the marketplace for small dealers who are at the edge of a non-attainment 

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area. I think we see this in Washington, where Washington, D.C. 

has Stage II. They don't have it in Virginia yet or Montgomery 

County. You see differences in price and people will go there, 

so it puts those dealers at the edge at a very competitive 

disadvantage. 

MR. GRAY: I think the earlier discussion 

focused on the question of the onboard regulations also 

including light trucks and the issue that if it did not, there 

could be very significant air quality impacts associated with 

those vehicles if in areas that may have previously had Stage 

II, if the Stage II requirement was removed, and that's why the 

question of the ongoing cost or the maintenance cost becomes a 

fair point to be raised in the process of deliberating about the 

appropriateness and timing, I guess, as well of a truck's 

requirement. So really following up in a serious way about that 

analysis, I think if you could supply some additional detail for 

your estimate of $1,500 per pump per year, for example, that 

would be very helpful. 

MR. O'KEEFE: Well, we'll try and provide 

whatever additional information we have. With some of these 

improvements, they're proprietary systems and the companies 

don't give us the data on their cost of maintenance and upkeep. 

But I think the issue is one of looking 

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duty vehicles to trucks and taking a technology and modifying 

it. At this point we don't have any data on what that cost 

would be, because all of our research and analyses have dealt 

with automobiles and you have to compare that against what the 

marginal cost would be of Stage II that might expand into areas 

that are not now covered by the Clean Air Act. 

There are some areas that have installed 

that because they're wanting to reduce exposure to potential 

air toxics. There are the moderate areas which do not have to 

install Stage II and the Agency's indicated that with this 

rulemaking, it wouldn't enforce their not failing to do that. 

So there are a lot of variables you'd have to look at and using 

the onboard system, which clearly the record demonstrates is 

superior, ought to be the guiding factor. 

Is it superior, is it more effective, does 

it involve less enforcement and maintenance and does it provide 

benefits all over in attainment and non-attainments and improvements in the air quality, keeping areas so that they can grow 

as opposed to run the risk that they'll go into non-attainment. 

All arguments that suggest once this technology is in place that 

it can be considered for other vehicles and that that might be 

preferable to seeing areas go the route of a more costly, less 

effective and not as superior technology. I don't know if 

that's responsive. 

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i MR. GRAY: I think it does re-summarize 

the concept of needing to look at the benefits as well as the 

cost of the discretionary application of a requirement on light 

trucks. A key part of that analysis would be, what's the 

likelihood of an area not continuing the requirement once the 

population of vehicles were substantially equipped with onboard 

control. And one consideration that should be important would 

be, how much does it cost to maintain the Stage II equipment for 

whatever vehicles might not be covered. For example, in this 

issue, if light-duty trucks were not covered or heavy-duty 

trucks were not covered, there would continue to be a fairly 

substantial benefit of maintaining Stage II. 

The other alternative is to have onboard 

equipment on those vehicles and that would impose a nationwide 

cost that would have benefits in certain areas and we can assess 

those. But in putting the whole analysis together, I think it 

would, again, be very helpful to look to you and your companies 

as you should have the best experience available on what would 

be a reasonable projection of this maintenance cost. 

MR. O'KEEFE: We will put in the record 

all the information we can gather and analyze in the period of 

time that's available. 

But in addition to the maintenance costs 

that the dealer incurs, there's the cost of inspection and 

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enforcement. I think everybody's seen the difference in the 

effectiveness of the systems in California where there's heavy 

enforcement and inspection, the effectiveness in areas where 

that's not the case. So part of the cost of Stage II is also 

the cost that the cities bear by having to inspect and enforce 

that system. 

MR. GRAY: I just would also ask if you 

could make an estimate of the savings associated with the 

retention of vapors at the station? There is some savings in 

the amount of fuel that otherwise would be lost, and make an 

estimate of that. 

MR. O'KEEFE: I think we got that from 

past analyses. 

MR. PASSAVANT: I have a couple of things; 

from your statement, just to make sure I understand it, you do 

support onboard vapor recovery for light-duty trucks and heavyduty vehicles absent the concern about delaying the rule for 

some reason, is that what you're saying? 

MR. O'KEEFE: What I said was two things; 

one, more benefits are obviously better than fewer. The Agency 

has that within its general rulemaking authority. We have never 

done a complete analysis or an analysis of the extension of 

that, so I'm not really in a position to comment on it, except 

you do have the authority. My concern and our concern is that 

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if you exercise that, that it not in any way jeopardize going 

forward with the rulemaking that's required by January of next 

year. 

MR. PASSAVANT: The second question goes 

back to your oftentimes reference to the 1991 testimony. At 

that time, I think Exxon research and engineering, under 

contract with you guys, was finishing up some work on a noncanister-based system and we had asked, I had asked at that 

time, that you provide us with any information you had on the 

results of that and I don't believe that information ever came 

forth. 

MR. O'KEEFE: If I remember correctly, we 

had done a little bit of work on that. What Exxon had done a 

little bit of work on was a new absorbent material that was a 

substitute for charcoal, that in some of their analyses suggests 

you might be able to use this material inside the gasoline tank. 

I will go back to them and see what data they have on it, but 

I believe that's what you're referring to. 

MR. PASSAVANT: That's right and it's sort 

of in the spirit of what General Motors was asking us about 

earlier today. 

MR. O'KEEFE: We will include whatever 

information they have and any additional work since then on new 

absorbent material that might affect canister size. 

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MR. FREED: You suggest in your testimony 

that the California program should be included in the federal 

rule and note that California's waivers for their program will 

be at jeopardy unless it's included. Will you, when you respond 

for the record, please give us your assessment as to why the 

California program will be judged less protective unless this 

rule is extended to California? 

MR. O'KEEFE: Yes, we will. 

MR. FREED: You also note that unless, you 

say, the rule is extended by 1994, that protectiveness determination, you imply, would have to be reversed. Since there 

will be a number of years that will exist without this rule 

being in effect, would you also indicate whether you're 

suggesting that immediate action be taken, and if so, what 

analysis would support that action to reverse any California 

waivers? 

MR. O'KEEFE: We'll provide a complete 

analysis of our position. I think the main point I would like 

to make is that cars in California operate beyond California 

borders. They're resold to people who may not live in 

California and I don't think that there is a logic for assuming 

that the waiver given for the LEV extends to standards that have 

never been promulgated. If you follow that logic to a conclusion, it would suggest that the waivers originally given to 

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California did not need to be changed and, therefore, there was 

no reason to give a waiver for the LEV because they had a waiver 

in perpetuity. We will build on that point, but that was the 

basic rationale behind my comments. 

MR. FREED: And finally, with regard to 

whether we should take into account non-mobile environmental 

controls like Stage II when we do an assessment of the protectiveness determination for California, you suggest we should 

not. Would you provide us with your legal rationale as to why 

Stage II should not be considered when we arrive at that 

determination? 

MR. O'KEEFE: I will do that. I'm not a 

lawyer, but my understanding is that it's vehicle-based 

standards and there's history that has had a dichotomy between 

the vehicle and Stage II at the station, but, yes, we will. 

MR. FREED: Thank you. 

MR. SILVERMAN: With regard to the 

California waiver, that's not automatically reopened of course. 

Are you indicating you might file a petition to have it reopened? 

MR. O'KEEFE: I wouldn't want to say that. 

I wanted to make the observation that we think that your rulemaking should extend to California, and two, that the existing 

wavier does not exempt them from that. When we see how you go 

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forward with the rulemaking, we'll make a judgment about what 

to do and whether some action is called for. 

MR. SILVERMAN: And with regard to model 

year, I take it it's your view that if we promulgate a rule in 

January, 1994, that would be the '94 model year for purposes of 

leadtime? 

MR. O'KEEFE: Yes. 

MR. WILSON: I think that's all. Thank 

you. I think we'll do one more before lunch. Next is Toyota. 

MR. KEVNICK: Hello, my name is Matt 

Kevnick. There's one small correction. I will be giving the 

testimony as opposed to what's listed on the agenda. Ed has 

agreed to shuffle the overheads, so I appreciate that. 

I'm representing Toyota Technical Center 

of Ann Arbor. With me today from TTC also is Mr. Takeuchi and 

representing Toyota Motor Corporation is Mr. Morimitsu', Manager 

of Research and Development of Toyota Motor Corporation in 

Japan. On behalf of Toyota, I'd like to present our comments 

with respect to this ORVR proposed rule. 

As shown on this outline, our comments 

will consist of a general introduction and comment with regards 

to the implementation schedule for ORVR. Test procedure 

comments will consist of the option B1 and an idea from Toyota 

on an abbreviated test sequence and how it applies to the 

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integrated system and nonintegrated system, and then we would 

like to respond to other issues which include partial refueling, 

constant purge and puff loss. 

I'd like to state Toyota's general 

position with regards to the ORVR regulation. While Toyota 

recognizes the health and environmental benefits associated with 

the control of gasoline and refueling vapors, Toyota believes, 

as we have stated previously, that Stage II provides a safer 

control methodology for accomplishing this means. Since the 

safety issue remains, Toyota thinks that the ORVR regulation 

should be developed to minimize the safety concern. Therefore, 

it is our position that implementation of ORVR must proceed 

cautiously and judiciously in a manner which addresses safety 

while providing adequate leadtime and vehicle phase-in 

considerations. 

EPA has requested comments regarding 

implementation of ORVR. Toyota feels that, first, in order to 

address the limited opportunity for incorporating ORVR onto low 

sales volume vehicle models an exemption be allowed for these 

types of vehicles. Secondly, with regard to the extension of 

ORVR application beyond light-duty vehicles, Toyota believes 

that this issue should be considered after issuance of the LDV 

ORVR final rule, primarily due to time concerns. In addition 

to providing some relief to manufacturers' resources, this 

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consideration would ensure effectiveness, integrity and, above 

all, the safety of ORVR system application to light-duty truck 

and heavy-duty vehicles. 

At this time, I'd like to direct our 

comments to the test procedure issues. First, Toyota feels that 

the purpose of the test should be to verify design integrity and 

system performance. Secondly, to address the resource burden, 

tests should be capable of evaluating refueling emission, either 

independently or in conjunction with evap and tailpipe emission 

measurement. Thirdly, to permit design flexibility in addressing safety concerns, the test procedure should be simple, 

yet effective, and consider real world type conditions. And 

fourthly, since the refueling test procedure itself has been 

under consideration for some time, it is most important at this 

point to consider the manner in which canister preconditioning 

would be treated for ORVR tests. 

This chart depicts the time required for 

completion of the test proposals that EPA has described in the 

Federal Register. Toyota thinks that it is unreasonable to 

require such a time-consuming and complicated test procedure in 

order to accomplish canister preconditioning and vehicle 

stabilization before the refueling test. Toyota feels that the 

ORVR test could be simplified from the four day length without 

compromising the testing integrity. We would like to now 

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address our preferences on how this might be accomplished. 

Of the options provided, Toyota thinks 

that the EPA Option B1 would be preferable, provided that some 

modification be permitted. This is a diagram that was provided 

in the Federal Register. These modifications to B1 would 

address canister preconditioning, specifically to consider vapor 

loading and canister purge representing real world conditions 

and also to alleviate the test time burden. 

Before I discuss Toyota's idea on these 

modifications, I'd like to provide, for reference purposes, an 

estimation of the canister condition at each phase of the EPA 

B1 test procedure. The B1 test sequence is shown on the left 

side. The steps above the shaded ORVR test are considered to 

be preconditioning before the actual refueling test. The 

canister preconditioning of course is a two gram to breakthrough 

loading condition. Toyota's proposal would consider a shorter 

test sequence which would provide a similar severity for 

canister load, which is shown under the load condition, and one 

which is more representative of actual events that occur in the 

real world, 

This figure shows EPA's Option B1 on the 

left and groups it according to three categories under Loading, 

Purging and Vehicle Setup. On the right side is Toyota's 

proposal which contains the following key points. Under 

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Loading, a preferable loading of the three day diurnal 

equivalent, which we believe is the most severe condition of the 

real world situation, would be followed by a short UDDS cycle 

or prep cycle, followed by loading from a 95 percent refueling 

event. Following that would be the purge portion where bench 

purging would be accomplished. The purge volume would be 

determined by using the purge rate as defined by the running 

loss test driving sequence. Following that is the vehicle setup, which is really not much change from the EPA B1 option. 

I'd like to take a moment and explain the 

rationale that was used for developing this Toyota proposal. 

First, because of the design of the enhanced evap test, purging 

ability is already sufficiently evaluated in this procedure, so 

the provision to use bench purging should be reasonably acceptable. Secondly, in consideration of the ORVR abbreviated test 

sequence, loading of the canister during preconditioning and 

evaluation of vapor capture performance were determined to be 

the most important parameters for this test. Thirdly, the vapor 

loading is to be done by actual refueling process. In particular loading the canister to 1.5 times working capacity is termed 

to be very unrealistic. Toyota feels that the ORVR system 

design could be compromised with these types of loading 

requirements. 

While providing a representative level of 

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stringency to EPA's B1 proposal, the Toyota proposal can also 

be accomplished within a 24 hour time period, as shown here. 

Yet the Toyota proposal provides canister loading more representative of real world conditions, as opposed to the unrealistic loading procedures now under consideration. 

To support our contention that the current 

canister loading conditions do not duplicate real world situations, I'd like to provide this figure which simulates the real 

world trip pattern and canister load. The left side, which is 

labeled Normal Condition, represents a frequent driver who uses 

his vehicle every day. A 7.5 mile approximation was made here. 

We can see that under the column labeled Vapor Load, the 

canister is almost always purged and certainly never achieves 

the breakthrough or 1.5 times working capacity loaded state, 

which is shown by the dotted line. The right side of this 

figure is a very severe condition and one that is representative 

of the evap procedure, three day diurnal, plus a refueling 

event. Even under this scenario, the canister load of an enhanced evap system would never achieve these types of loadings. 

Justification for the use of bench purge 

in our proposal is offered here. This chart compares the vapor 

desorption characteristics of activated carbon canister subjected to both vehicle purge and bench purge. Since desorption 

characteristics are dependent upon purge air volume in actual 

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vehicles, there is no difference in desorption characteristics 

between an integrated system design and a nonintegrated system 

design. We can see also that the bench air flow purge rate of 

7.5 Bed Volumes per minute yields the same desorption effect 

that was provided by on-vehicle purging. Therefore, bench 

purging can easily simulate vehicle drive purge conditions. 

This figure depicts the Toyota abbreviated 

sequence proposal for an integrated system design and provides 

an illustration again of the canister loading condition. The 

sequence and rationale are as follows. Loading the canister to 

a three day diurnal equivalent level, subjecting then the 

vehicle to one LE-4 cycle to simulate driving to maybe, say, a 

refueling station, followed by loading the canister again by a 

refueling; this would be the maximum loaded condition that would 

be produced. Disconnecting the canister to allow bench purging, 

again, purge volume defined by the B1 running loss test driving 

cycle equivalent and then subjecting the vehicle to soak; on 

completion of this phase, reconnection of the canister and 

performing the refueling test would then commence. As mentioned 

previously, this procedure can be done in a 24 hour time period. 

From the canister simulation that is illustrated here, it can 

be seen that this is as severe of a loading pattern that exists 

for this sequence as was contained in the estimation for the B1 

sequence. 

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Similarly, the abbreviated sequence can 

be applied to a nonintegrated system. The sequence and 

rationale follows in the same manner as I have previously 

described for an integrated system. Again, the sequence can be 

done in a 24 hour time period in canister loading condition, 

which is representative for the refueling canisters provided 

here in the Load Condition column. 

Taking this abbreviated sequence proposal 

one step further, this chart shows how the enhanced evap test 

sequence could be modified to provide consistent and more 

realistic canister loading throughout the test sequence while 

offering a reduction in test time to less than one week. In 

addition, this procedure provides the opportunity to evaluate 

evaporative, exhaust and refueling emissions in one continuous 

sequence or could provide a single ORVR test sequence. The 

modifications consist of the treatment of canister preconditioning and loading and purging as well. 

Now I'd like to address other issues that 

were raised in EPA's Notice. Partial refueling, Toyota believes 

that EPA's consideration of a partial refueling requirement for 

nonintegrated system in order to ensure ORVR systems have 

adequate design margin is really not necessary. Vapor generation from refueling increases linearly in proportion to the 

amount of fuel that is consumed from the number of cycles 

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driven, which is shown on the bottom axis. On the other hand, 

the desorption characteristics of the canister change exponentially as shown by the curved line. The difference between 

the desorption of the canister and the amount of refueling vapor 

generation is the canister working capacity margin. This margin 

is smallest in the case of a full refueling test as shown on the 

far right side of this graph. Therefore, we suggest that anything other than a full refueling test would not be an effective 

use of time. 

Regarding a constant purge requirement, 

Toyota is very concerned about EPA's consideration of this 

requirement for nonintegrated systems. EPA suggests that in 

order to preclude an inappropriate purge strategy, this constant 

purge would be required during each UDDS cycle. Toyota does not 

think that this requirement would be reasonable. Manufacturers 

must have the ability to modify or reduce the purge rate in 

order to minimize the impact of purging of refueling vapors on 

tailpipe emissions if such a system were used. To require 

constant purge would present a formidable challenge to nonintegrated system design. Toyota believes that the purge should 

be managed from the span of one refueling event to another in 

order to minimize the impact of emission interaction. 

With regards to puff loss, for control of 

evaporative emissions during cap removal, either puff loss or 

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fuel tank pressure requirements can be equally effective, in 

Toyota's assessment. If puff loss is to be required as part of 

the ORVR regulation, the tank pressure requirement becomes 

redundant and should be eliminated. In addition, Toyota 

believes that for a system designed to relieve tank pressure 

before the cap is open, either requirement would be unnecessary. 

With regards to our position on selective 

enforcement audit, to require SHED for selective enforcement 

audit would be a significant burden to manufacturers. Toyota 

feels that SEA testing is not necessary since ORVR performance 

is decided by system design. 

In conclusion, Toyota recommends that 

prudent and careful consideration be given to ORVR implementation phase-in through the following: considering light-duty 

truck and heavy-duty vehicle implementation independently and 

allowing an ORVR exemption for small sales volume vehicle 

models; secondly, establishing the ORVR test sequence with the 

following modification, A, to accept the canister loading 

condition of three day diurnal load equivalent plus one drive 

cycle, plus a 95 percent refuel loading, and, B, to allow the 

use of bench purging instead of actual vehicle driving. 

Thirdly, EPA should consider modification to the enhanced 

evaporative emission test procedure for vehicles designed with 

an integrated ORVR system. Canister loading requirements would 

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be consistent with the ORVR recommendations that we have 

provided. 

Thank you very much, and we'd be happy to 

address any questions. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. 

MR. GRAY: I have a question first of all 

about the short test procedure, abbreviated test procedure 

proposal that you just made. As you summarized in your conclusion, there appears to be two basic characteristics of that 

abbreviated test. One is to modify the evaporative test loading 

procedure and substitute a different means of loading the canister, which you seem to suggest in your testimony you thought 

would be equivalent to loading the canister to two grams breakthrough. Is that a correct impression of what you were 

communicating? 

MR. KEVNICK: We believe that to be the 

case. 

MR. GRAY: So from a technical feasibility 

or stringency, more precisely, point of view, this loading issue 

you don't think will affect the stringency. It's simply a proposal to reduce the cost, you believe, of the loading procedure? 

MR. KEVNICK: To reduce the time and also 

to represent a more realistic approach to canister loading in 

terms of what would actually happen out in the real world. 

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MR. TAKEUCHI: We prefer performance-based 

canister loading. We believe maybe two gram breakthrough 

penalizes canister size. But if we used performance-based, I 

think that provides manufacturer flexibility of ORVR design. 

MR. GRAY: So if there's flexibility, it 

might not always load the canister to the same level? 

MR. TAKEUCHI: Same difficulty; more 

precisely, if we utilize the same size canister severity, we 

believe equivalent. 

MR. GRAY: With respect to the second part 

of the abbreviated test, the substitution of bench purging 

instead of actual driving, I guess I'm a bit uncertain how you 

would determine the level of bench purging. I assume you would 

put some type of a flow meter in the purge line to establish the 

equivalent volume purge for perhaps the actual driving that had 

been included in the B1 procedure? 

MR. KEVNICK: That's correct. The general 

concept or the idea would be to propose or come to you and say, 

this is what we believe to be representative of actual purge 

volume on the running loss test cycle, using some type of a 

measuring device to measure purge volume. 

MR. GRAY: How would you suggest dealing 

with the vapors otherwise being generated during that actual 

drive? Since you just measured volume, it's not clear how that 

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approach would deal with the fact that if you had actually 

driven the vehicle, there would be some level of vapors 

generated from the tank that would also affect the loading of 

the canister, depending on the configuration, of course, to the 

extent to which it affects it, but it would still be a factor? 

MR. KEVNICK: I'm sorry, I'm not sure we 

understand the question. 

MR. GRAY: If you purge the vehicle, 

measure the volume, ten cubit feet or whatever, for the drive, 

when actually driving the vehicle, the vehicle is generating 

some vapors from the tank, the running loss vapors, and if 

you're not generating vapors, you're only pulling air through 

the canister. It would seem like it would be more completely 

purged with a bench test than it might have been purged had you 

actually driven the vehicle. How would you address that? 

MR. TAKEUCHI: I understand the question. 

First question, we drive the vehicle and we measure the purge 

rate. Our proposal is — I'm sorry, the base draft proposal is 

EPA's Option B1. So Option B1 does not include the running loss 

test; I think running loss — equivalent test of running loss 

test. So this time we do not include the running loss test 

vapor generation over our test procedure. Is that okay? 

MR. GRAY: Okay; maybe you could consider 

if there's any additional comments you'd like to make, the 

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difference being a bench purge just pulls through, there's some 

vapor being generated when you actually drive the vehicle, and 

how that would be considered in the tradeoff. 

The last question I had is to better 

understand your concern about the constant purge requirement. 

To be concerned about a constant purge requirement seems to 

suggest a desire to vary the purge from trip to trip in some 

way. What do you have in mind in this area? 

MR. KEVNICK: Charles, can you restate the 

question or let me restate it to make sure that we confirm an 

understanding. You're interested in understanding how Toyota 

might vary the purge rate from trip to trip in order to 

accomplish what we've suggested here? 

MR. GRAY: You suggested that the purge 

may not be consistent from trip to trip and that's why you're 

concerned about a constant purge requirement. It could be rate 

or it could be the time during which you purge. Right after a 

start of the trip, you might not want to purge at all. So I'm 

just trying to understand, are you envisioning different purge 

strategies as a function of trip characteristics and could you 

elaborate a little bit on a delayed purge if the vehicle is 

cold? Is it something beyond that that you're thinking about 

here that we need to consider? 

MR. TAKEUCHI We understand your 

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question. This is only just an idea, so we believe now we don't 

have technology to reduce the purge according to the urban 

driving cycle. But we would like to express, we do not 

eliminate future technology at this stage, only we would like 

to express that issue. So we don't know today, we cannot expect 

what kind of technology we use in this case, is that okay? 

MR. GRAY: Perhaps it wasn't clear to me 

in your testimony. This concern applies only to a nonintegrated 

system? 

MR. KEVNICK: That's correct. 

MR. FRANCE: Just a couple, three questions; on the last point Charles mentioned and it raised a 

question in my mind, since all the other testifiers clearly left 

us with the impression that integrated systems were their 

preferred choice, do you share that same perspective? 

MR. KEVNICK: I think it would be fair to 

say that we would like to leave some flexibility as to how we 

proceed with that. We are investigating both types of designs 

and really our future direction depends upon how the final rule 

is promulgated. We are trying to keep as much flexibility, all 

the doors open, as possible. 

MR. FRANCE: I understand. We've heard 

safety concerns expressed with respect to complexity with 

nonintegrated systems and what's your perspective on those 

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concerns? 

MR. TAKEUCHI: That is a very difficult 

question. As Matt said, now we are looking for the regulation 

and we are waiting for that result. Under the current regulation, I'm sorry, current proposal, we prefer integrated system, 

but that question and that answer depends on the result of the 

final rule. That is our answer. 

MR. FRANCE: That's fine. Just going back 

to the question on your suggestion on bench purging, how might 

you verify with respect to in-use testing, verifying purge 

performance on in-use vehicles, how would we do that? 

MR. KEVNICK: The idea, I guess, to 

suggest here would be that the Agency certainly would have the 

option to drive the vehicle if they would, since the purge rate 

would be representative of what would occur during the actual 

vehicle operation. So in-use testing probably could — 

MR. FRANCE: The purge would be just an 

option for the manufacturers to use but EPA would have the 

discretion to use whatever it decided to use? 

MR. KEVNICK: We think so, yes. Certainly 

bench purging allows us some time savings as well. 

MR. PASSAVANT: That time savings though 

would be in the context of certification or development? 

MR. KEVNICK: Probably all of the above, 

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certainly certification; we're not sure how we would approach 

this from a development aspect, where we would start. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Well, it seems to me that 

conceptually you're going to be doing a whole lot more testing 

during your developmental time than you will in your final cert 

test, and we have no constraints on what you do for development. 

You know, if you decide that you can simulate vehicle drive with 

a bench purge, you can do that at your own pleasure and risk 

until the time you come to certification. We're really right 

on the margin there in terms of saying what time could be saved 

by going to a bench purge. 

MR. KEVNICK: I understand. The other key 

thing to keep in mind also is that it does free up some of our 

other resources in terms of facilities, test facilities, as 

wel 1 . 

MR. PASSAVANT: But it would do that 

during development as well as during certification, I guess is 

my point. 

The final thing I wanted to ask you about 

was regarding liquid versus mechanical seals and in your previous testimony of a few years ago, you talked about both of 

those and I was wondering if you had any further development 

work or any further thoughts along those lines? 

MR. KEVNICK: I guess we would offer to 

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respond to that in our written comment, if that would be 

acceptable. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Keep in mind if you do 

that, is that part of the technical discussions that we had in 

the last month or so with the AAMA folks was to allow the 

consideration of a liquid seal as part of the overall integrated 

system process and that from a sizing perspective, that was one 

of the things that we considered. So the liquid seal was 

clearly a point of discussion in that process when you begin 

looking at the emission rates and the size of canister, when you 

take that and compare it to an evaporative system. 

MR. FREED: Is the basis for your statement that SEA would be unnecessary, that the evap test procedure 

is a more rigorous procedure, and if it passes that, the 

canister has a fitting capacity to withstand a refueling? 

MR. KEVNICK: I guess at this point that 

would be a fair assessment. Of course, we don't have the final 

refueling test procedure to actually make that kind of assessment. 

MR. FREED: Actually, it was less an 

assessment than my trying to understand what was the basis for 

your point. Would it make any difference if the seal was 

mechanical versus liquid? In any case, perhaps you could 

address that in your comments. Thank you. 

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MR. KEVNICK: Sure. 

MR. HOTT: One quick question; you state 

that the safety issue remains, that the ORVR regulation should 

be developed to minimize this concern. Do the changes proposed 

today handle those safety issues and, if not, what are the 

safety issues and how do you expect to handle these? 

MR. KEVNICK: I think we've addressed a 

lot of the changes or the recommendations we'd like to see that 

could address those. Key to our concerns regarding safety are 

available time for development and the impact we'd have on our 

resources as well. We tried to consider all of those as they 

reflect on the safety of ORVR system design. I'm not comfortable that we've covered everything, but certainly it 

addresses the major ORVR system design issues, we think. 

MR. SILVERMAN: I was curious what the 

legal basis for your idea of exempting small sales volume 

vehicle models would be? 

MR. KEVNICK: I don't think I can provide 

you with the legal basis for that. From our point of view, we 

see with Stage II control and the fact that the complicated 

systems and cost that would be incurred on a relatively low 

volume sales vehicle, it would become very expensive to actually 

implement this type of system on something that does not sell 

more than 5,000 vehicles. 

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MR. SILVERMAN: I can understand that as 

a policy matter, but we have a statute that says a hundred 

percent. So if in your comments you see some legal basis for 

doing that, we would like to see that. 

MR. KEVNICK: Okay. 

MR. PASSAVANT: One final point on that, 

Matt, if you would; it seems to me that if we go the direction 

of our discussion this morning about test procedure where you're 

sizing canisters, et cetera, to be compatible with evap and evap 

has a hundred percent requirement as well, that we're getting 

pretty close to this basically being a timing issue. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Just one other question; 

is it also your view that if an onboard requirement were 

promulgate in January, 1994, that would be the 1994 model year 

for purposes of leadtime? 

MR. KEVNICK: So the first affected model 

would be 1998? 

MR. SILVERMAN: Yes. 

MR. KEVNICK: Yes. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Thank you. 

MR. WILSON: I think that's all the 

questions; thank you. 

It's 20 after 12. We've got probably, I 

guess, roughly two hours more of testimony. I'm going to do a 

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little audience participation here. Option A would be to just 

take a regular lunch break for roughly an hour and then come 

back and do the rest of the hearing. Option B would be to take 

a 15, 20 minute break now and then come back and finish the 

testimony and get out a little sooner. All those in favor of 

the short break raise your hand. All those who want an hour 

lunch break now raise your hand. Okay, let's try and be back 

at 20 after one. 

(Proceedings recessed.) 

MR. WILSON: Let's get started with the 

rest of the witnesses. The next witness is the Natural 

Resources Defense Counci1. 

MS. SHEIMAN: Good afternoon; I'm Deborah 

Sheiman. I'm a Senior Resource Specialist with the Air and 

Energy Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council and I'm 

very pleased to be here today testifying on behalf of both NRDC 

and the American Lung Association in support of EPA's onboard 

refueling vapor recovery proposal. We have eagerly awaited this 

rulemaking for many, many years and believe that its final 

promulgation in accordance with the Court ordered schedule will 

be an urgently needed step forward in pollution control. 

My message to you today is wery simple. 

EPA should move quickly to issue comprehensive standards for 

onboard vapor recovery control that will apply equally to all 

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vehicle classes, all fuel types and on a nationwide basis. 

I think, just to put this rulemaking in 

perspective, it's useful to look at the history of this issue 

a little bit and the many years that we have labored to try to 

address this very serious environmental problem. In 1977, 

Congress first directed EPA to investigate the feasibility of 

onboard vapor recovery controls, and after many fits and starts 

stretching over a ten year period, EPA finally issued a proposed 

standard in 1987 that would require onboard controls on cars, 

minivans, pickup trucks, in short, on the three vehicle classes 

that are under consideration today. At that time, six years 

ago, EPA concluded that the systems were feasible, economical 

and safe and would provide important emission control benefits 

for all vehicle classes. 

Unfortunately, the proposal was never 

finalized. Congress intervened in 1990 by directing that 

onboard standards be promulgated within one year of enactment, 

that is November 15, 1991. That date passed without EPA action. 

Litigation ensued. In April, '92, EPA issued a decision not to 

promulgate onboard standards, citing alleged safety concern. 

Further litigation led to the D.C. Circuit Court's January, '93 

ruling that, quote, the text of Section 202(1)(6) clearly 

manifests a congressional intent that EPA promulgate ORVR 

standard. The requirement that EPA consult with DOT prior to 

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the promulgating the standards does not derogate from that 

mandatory duty. The Court further directed that EPA's final 

decision be set aside and that the standards be promulgated and 

EPA is now soliciting comment on settlement providing for 

promulgation by January 22, 1994. 

We just want to take this opportunity to 

emphasize that there can be no delay beyond that date. We're 

talking 16 years after Congress first directed an investigation 

of onboard control, six years after EPA's proposal and two years 

after the mandatory promulgation date established by Congress. 

We believe that it's high time to bring this rulemaking to its 

long overdue conclusion. Furthermore, we think it's important 

that EPA make clear that promulgation by this date will be 

sufficient to establish requirements to begin phasing in the 

onboard requirement for the 1998 model year. 

The public needs additional protection 

that onboard controls will provide. The EPA estimates show that 

looking at cars alone, onboard controls would produce 40 percent 

greater emissions reductions than will be occurring under the 

Stage II regime. In addition to offering important benefits 

against ozone pollution, onboard controls, as has been pointed 

out, are also important to protect the breathing public from the 

gasoline vapors and the benzene in the gasoline which is carcinogenic. In fact, if you look at most areas of the country, 

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onboard is really the only promise that we have for protection 

against refueling emissions. 

The record shows that onboard controls 

are eminently cost-effective because manufacturers are already 

going to be required to install improved evaporative control 

systems. The incremental cost of adding the refueling recovery, 

vapor recovery capability, is really trivial, and moreover, 

there have been advances in the design of these systems that 

have been made to further reduce the cost. The bottom 1 ine that 

we're talking about now is 90 cents added to the cost of a new 

car or $1.50 for a light-duty truck or $5.20 for a heavy-duty 

vehicle. That's not even the whole story because you'd have to 

factor in the additional money that you'd save by conserving the 

fuel that no longer dissipates into the air as vapor and instead 

is recovered to help power the vehicle. So when you consider 

the conservation impact of the onboard vapor recovery control, 

you actual have a net savings to consumers. We certainly urge 

you to move forward and take advantage of this opportunity to 

clean the air and save consumers money at the same time. 

The auto industry clearly has a capacity 

to design onboard systems that will be safe. The D.C. Circuit 

found that, quote, the record as a whole does not substantiate 

a finding that ORVR systems present inherent and unreasonable 

safety risks. Indeed, the Court pointed to important safety 

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benefits of onboard systems that were substantiated by the 

record but ignored in EPA's April, '92 decision. Again, quoting 

from the decision, the number of service station fires will 

certainly be reduced by ORVR. Second,' repeated or prolonged 

dermal contact with liquid gasoline due to spillage can be 

reduced by ORVR, thus relieving resultant skin irritation and 

dermatitis. Perhaps most significantly, ORVR may help lower 

fuel tank pressures and these greater fuel tank pressures lead 

to, among other things, fuel dispersion and tank rupture in 

accidents. Finally, under operating conditions, vehicles sometimes create vapors that exceed the capacity of current evaporative canisters, leading to so-called breakthrough and seepage 

of vapors into the engine compartment. Larger canisters in ORVR 

systems would capture and contain these vapors, end of quote. 

The point here, I think, in terms of 

safety is that canisters are already on the vehicles for control 

of evaporative emissions that have not been shown to pose 

significant safety risks. EPA has observed that the Agency has 

in fact certified vehicles equipped with canisters for control 

of evaporative emissions for over 20 years. And given the 

improvements that are going to be made in these systems anyway, 

we believe that the ORVR system can be feasibly implemented as 

part of an integrated system that would combine the evaporative 

and refueling vapor recovery functions in a single canister. 

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And it cannot be seriously contended that the minor modifications required to transform an evaporative canister into an 

integrated canister create a safety risk. 

I just note that the D.C. Circuit held 

that safety issues that may exist have to be worked out during 

the four year leadtime that's provided by the statute and can't 

be used as an excuse to avoid promulgation of these standards. 

The good news is that the record gives us every reason to 

anticipate that those systems will pass certain conditions 

easily. So given all these factors, the safety, the minimal 

cost, the substantial environmental and public health benefits, 

the energy savings and sb on, we think that there's a very 

strong case that EPA needs to move forward and promulgate 

comprehensive regulations that deal with all of the classes of 

vehicles. 

We strongly support EPA's proposal with 

respect to this broader applicability and believe that this 

should all be done in a single rulemaking package. You don't 

need to promulgate a separate proposal. Indeed, you already 

proposed that six years ago and developed a substantial record 

at that time in support of onboard vapor recovery controls for 

a variety of different vehicles. We're not persuaded that, to 

the breathing public, there's a big distinction between a minivan or a pickup truck in terms of the vapors that are forced 

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into the breathing public when they're refueling their vehicles. 

The control ought to apply across the board to all the classes 

on gasoline engines and failure to do so would allow about a 

third of the total refueling emissions to slip through the 

cracks. 

So there's an enormous environmental 

benefit at stake here and just with respect to the leadtime 

issue for these other classes of vehicles where the schedule 

isn't classified in the statute, I'd point out that back in '87, 

I think you proposed a two year leadtime with an additional year 

for certification, so you were looking at three years out at 

that time, and I think that that was for full compliance, not 

a phased-in schedule. It's my understanding that improved 

evaporative control systems are going to apply to all these 

classes of vehicles anyway, so really what we're looking, at are 

fairly minor, additional modifications to ensure that we get the 

full benefits that we can achieve with ORVR systems. 

The second issue that I wanted to raise 

was the importance of applying the requirement to a variety of 

different fuel types so that we are ahead of the game in 

addressing potential refueling emissions and the vapors that 

they generate for alternative fuels or flexible fueled vehicles. 

Also, one of the issues raised in the 

proposal had to do with the geographic extent of the rule and 

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the point that we want to make here is that it's very important 

that this federal requirement applies in all 50 states, 

including in California, and we're going to be providing 

additional written comments on the appropriate legal issues 

here. But we believe that the requirement here is to establish 

a national standard and that the current waivers have no bearing 

on the onboard requirement and that this will be a new standard 

that will be issued and, especially given the trend that we're 

seeing with many states outside of California opting into 

California vehicle standards, it's important that we have the 

full benefit of those vapor recovery controls on the vehicle. 

Finally, I'd like to say that we support 

EPA's effort to examine the test procedure in ways that would 

facilitate integrated systems for refueling vapor recovery and 

evaporative control measures. The other issues raised in the 

proposal, we'd like to address in our written comments. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. 

Several of the witnesses this morning 

argued against applying onboard systems to trucks. At least one 

of the arguments was that the benefits would be there well past 

the attainment dates in the Clean Air Act, that Stage II systems 

would be there to capture those vapors, and there would be 

little benefit to installing the systems on trucks. What's your 

reaction? 

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MS. SHEIMAN: Well, I think that the EPA 

record provides strong support for applying the standard to all 

vehicle classes, both the light-duty trucks and the heavy-duty 

engines which are responsible for over a third of the fuel 

consumption in the country and Stage II controls only apply to 

a very limited number of areas. Where they do apply, the 

implementation doesn't affect all gas stations. Enforcement is 

wsry spotty. The only way to provide national public health and 

environmental benefits is to impose these national standards on 

vehicles and on all classes of vehicles. So I'll be very 

supportive of EPA moving forward to put its proposal in place 

on an aggressive implementation schedule. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

Next is the Society of Independent 

Gasoline Marketers of America, National Association of 

Convenience Stores and Petroleum Marketers Association of 

America. 

MR. AUSBROOK: Good afternoon; my name is 

Keith Ausbrook and I'm with the Washington, D.C. law firm of 

Collier, Shannon, Rill and Scott. I'm testifying today on 

behalf of the National Association of Convenience Stores, the 

Petroleum Marketers Association and the Society of Independent 

Gasoline Marketers of America. NACS, PMAA and SIGMA appreciate 

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this opportunity to provide their views on proposed onboard 

vapor recovery regulations. 

NACS is a national trade association of 

1,442 retail company members. Today, there are about 68,000 

convenience stores in the United States, and gasoline is sold 

at more than two-thirds of those. 

PMAA is a federation of state and regional 

trade associations. PMAA member associations represent some 

11,000 independent petroleum marketers, including gasoline and 

diesel fuel wholesalers, commissioned distributors of gasoline, 

gasoline resellers and retailers, and thousands of retail fuel 

oil dealers, as well as independent marketers serving the 

industry by storing and supplying petroleum products. 

SIGMA is a national trade association of 

approximately 251 chain retailers and private brand marketers 

of motor fuels. 

NACS, PMAA and SIGMA are pleased that EPA 

is proceeding with this rulemaking. Gasoline marketers have two 

important objectives in the promulgation of these standards. 

First, once EPA promulgates standards requiring onboard systems 

for light-duty vehicles, the federal requirement that they 

install and maintain Stage II equipment in areas designated as 

moderate for ozone non-attainment would be waived. Nothing 

should be permitted to delay further EPA's promulgation of the 

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standards, and hence, the waiver of federal Stage II requirements, beyond January 22, 1994, the date on which EPA has agreed 

to promulgate the standards. 

A secondary, but extremely important, goal 

of gasoline marketers is to maximize the emission control 

benefits from onboard systems. The contribution of onboard 

systems to emission reductions will assist ozone non-attainment 

areas in reaching attainment. The more areas there are that 

reach attainment, the less likely it will be that states will 

require Stage II independent of the federal requirement. In 

addition, once onboard systems are in widespread use, the 

Administrator, under the authority of Section 202(a)(6) of the 

Clean Air Act may waive the Stage II requirements in serious, 

severe and extreme ozone non-attainment areas. Therefore, 

gasoline marketers have a great interest in EPA's proposals 

relating to extending the standards to light-duty trucks and 

heavy-duty vehicles, applying the standards to the California 

car, and requiring that onboard systems meet a 98 percent 

recapture rate. 

However, let me emphasize that none of 

these proposals must interfere with EPA's promulgation of the 

standards on or before January 22, 1994. As it is, the 

standards will be promulgated more than two years after the date 

on which the Clean Air Act required that they be promulgated. 

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If complications concerning EPA's proposals relating to the 

extension to LDTs or HDVs or the recapture efficiency arise 

during the remainder of the rulemaking and these concern 

threaten to delay the promulgation of onboard standards, NACS, 

PMAA and SIGMA would urge EPA to set those issues aside and 

proceed with the promulgation of standards that satisfy the 

minimum requirements of the Clean Air Act. 

Thus, NACS, PMAA and SIGMA urge EPA to 

promulgate standards applicable to light-duty trucks and heavyduty vehicles, in addition to promulgating the standards for 

light-duty vehicles, consistent with our concerns over meeting 

the January deadline. EPA's August 1987 Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking proposed applying the standards to LDTs and HDVs. 

The analysis contained in the record of this rulemaking suggests 

many similarities between the systems for LDVs and LDTs and 

HDVs, which would justify promulgating standards for LDTs and 

HDVs. The promulgation of standards for these vehicles would 

generally enhance emission reductions of refueling vapors. Such 

further emission reductions will help moderate ozone nonattainment areas reach attainment and allow the Administrator 

to exercise his discretion earlier to waive the Stage II 

requirements in serious, severe and extreme ozone non-attainment 

areas. 

However, we urge EPA to establish a 

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separate implementation schedule for equipping vehicles other 

than light-duty vehicles with onboard systems. Section 

202(a)(6) of the Clean Air Act requires promulgation of onboard 

standards requiring that 40 percent of light-duty vehicles 

manufactured beginning in the fourth model year after the model 

year in which the standards are promulgated. The standards then 

apply to 80 percent of the light-duty vehicles in the fifth 

model year, and 100 percent of light-duty vehicles manufactured 

beginning in the sixth model year. This is the absolute minimum 

that EPA must do. 

Although we support the promulgation of 

standards applicable to light-duty trucks and heavy-duty 

vehicles, we urge EPA not to promulgate a rule that will permit 

the calculation of the percentages as percentages of all 

vehicles. EPA's Notice specifically recognizes that light-duty 

trucks and heavy-duty vehicles account for only approximately 

38 percent of refueling emissions. Spreading the percentages 

over all vehicles could reduce the emissions reductions achieved 

from onboard systems in the first two years because auto 

manufacturers could equip more vehicles that account for less 

emissions. EPA should promulgate a standard requiring that the 

statutory percentages apply only to light-duty vehicles. 

NACS, PMAA and SIGMA would like to see the 

standards applicable to the California motor vehicles. 

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Obviously, requiring California cars to be equipped would 

eliminate the need for Stage II equipment in California. Therefore, NACS, PMAA and SIGMA are considering whether to petition 

for a rulemaking under Section 209 of the Clean Air Act to apply 

the standards to the California car or to take whatever steps 

are necessary to assure that those standards are applicable to 

the California car. 

NACS, PMAA and SIGNA support imposing a 

standard of 98 percent efficiency, providing the record can 

support such a standard. As with promulgation of standards 

applicable to light-duty trucks and heavy-duty vehicles, 

promulgation of a 98 percent efficiency standard exceeds the 

minimum efficiency of 95 percent required by the statute. We 

note that the August, '87 proposal proposed a 98 percent 

efficiency, and we believe that the record includes material 

that demonstrates the technology's capacity to meet the 98 

percent efficiency. To the extent that the record reflects any 

uncertainty about meeting the 98 percent efficiency standard, 

EPA should withdraw consideration of that standard and promulgate the rules with 95 percent efficiency. EPA should not delay 

this rulemaking for the additional three percent. 

Finally, NACS, PMAA and SIGMA support 

EPA's conclusion regarding the procedures for addressing safety 

issues. Such issues must be addressed through the design and 

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development phases and ultimately at vehicle engine certification. NACS, PMAA and SIGMA have never sought the promulgation 

of standards that could result in unreasonable risks to safety. 

We have always believed that these risks could be addressed 

during the leadtime and that vehicles would ultimately be 

equipped with onboard systems that do not pose such risks. If 

no such systems could be developed, then the certification 

process would prevent the public from being exposed to unreasonable risks. Once the standards are promulgated, this process 

will be fully underway. 

Thank you for this opportunity to testify 

and I'd be happy to answer any question you may have. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for 

coming. 

MR. FREED: Would you, as I've asked 

others to do, all present your argument for a petition under 209 

if this rule is not applicable to Cal ifornia, including whatever 

analysis that you can do as to why a finding could be made that 

California standards would not be as protective unless this were 

adopted by the feds or by California? 

MR. AUSBROOK: We would probably like to 

put that in our formal written comments that we submit later. 

MR. FRANCE: I have just one brief 

question. I'm not sure I understood what you were saying when 

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you were talking about the phase-in schedule for LDVs and light 

trucks. We had a provision in there and asked for comments on 

the desirability of counting either or light-duty vehicles or 

light-duty trucks in calculating the percentage phase-in. I 

wasn't sure what you were saying about it? 

MR. AUSBROOK: What we're concerned about 

there is that unless you know, unless you analyze it by looking 

at the emissions of a specific class of vehicle, by allowing it 

to be spread over all vehicles, you could end up with lower 

emission reductions from the manufacturers' equipment. 

MR. FRANCE: I could understand how it 

might be the same. How might it be lower? Our assumption is 

that LDVs and light-duty trucks have about the same comparable 

air quality impact on a per vehicle basis. 

MR. AUSBROOK: Well, if you think the 

record supports that, but I'm just saying, I think you need to 

make sure that that analysis is clear. I don't think it is in 

the proposal. It just sort of announces that, I believe the 

statements say, that there's a conclusion there that may not be 

supported in the proposal. 

MR. FRANCE: Okay, fair enough. 

MR. GRAY: I'd like to also request that 

you see if any of your member companies or members of your 

association would have estimates of the maintenance cost of 

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retaining Stage II equipment once the capital charge has been 

written up. 

MR. AUSBROOK: We've discussed that with 

our member companies and I think we'll discuss it with them some 

more. Their reports are consistent with the American Petroleum 

Institute's reports. But I would like to emphasize that for our 

members who are independent marketers, that's an even greater 

burden than for major integrated oil companies, that the independent marketer is a smaller entity and has a lot more trouble 

making ends meet. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Just one question; do you 

have any view on the legal authority to promulgate HDT, HDT 

standards under the general authority in Section 202(a)? 

MR. AUSBROOK: No, we fully recognize that 

EPA has the discretionary authority to do that, and again, I 

can't emphasize it enough that we support that, being that it 

will expand the use of onboards and reduce the pressure for 

Stage II for our members, but we don't support it at the expense 

of the rulemaking for the light-duty vehicles. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

Next is the Insurance Institute for 

Highway Safety. 

MR. OESCH: Good afternoon; my name is 

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Steve Oesch. I'm with the Insurance Institute for Highway 

Safety. As I hope that many of you know, the Insurance 

Institute is a non-profit research and communications organization that works to develop ways to reduce losses on our 

nation's highways. We are sponsored by the nation's property 

and casualty insurers and I will thank you for the opportunity 

to present the Institute's views on the safety of onboard 

refueling vapor recovery systems. I ask that my entire 

statement be put in the record. I'd like to briefly summarize 

some of the major points. 

The Institute has been long involved in 

reducing risks to the public posed by vehicle fires. For 

example, Institute research and crash testing in the early 1970s 

led to the strengthening of the federal motor vehicle safety 

standard on fuel system integrity. It was because of our 

concern about any action that can increase the risk of fire that 

the Institute entered the debate on the safety implications of 

controlling refueling emissions back in 1986, when EPA began 

considering two alternative approaches to trapping those 

emissions. The Institute was the first vehicle safety organization to oppose the onboard approach because of increased risk 

of fire in motor vehicle crashes. 

As we all know, since 1986 the National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National 

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Transportation Safety Board and others have also opposed the use 

of onboard systems because of their potential to increase the 

number of vehicle crash fires, especially those fires fed by 

leaking gasoline vapor or gasoline itself. The safety concerns 

expressed by the Institute and others are summarized in the 

attached issue of our newsletter, "Status Report," that I have 

included with the testimony. Based on the evidence gathered 

during the extensive rulemaking process concerning onboard 

systems, EPA, in the Institute's view, correctly concluded that 

those systems posed an increased risk of fire crash deaths. 

EPA's conclusions about the increased 

safety risks posed by onboard systems are still valid, and there 

is nothing in the Agency's current Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

that reverses any of EPA's prior findings regarding safety. 

EPA's conclusions highlight the need to ensure that the 

increased risk to the driving public is minimized, and we 

believe the key to this is by providing manufacturers with the 

flexibility to install simple systems with small canisters. Any 

requirement in the final rule that would push the designs to be 

more complex would only increase the risk of fire. 

Also, I'd like to address specifically 

several points that were made in the Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking and in particular in your May Notice, EPA referred 

to NHTSA's current effort to upgrade the existing Federal Motor 

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Vehicle Safety Standard Number 301 on Fuel System Integrity. 

You cited that as one solution to the crashworthiness problem 

posed by onboard systems. In the Notice, EPA stated, onboard 

vehicles would have to meet the applicable FMVSSs, including 

FMVSS 301 related to Fuel System Integrity which, as noted 

above, NHTSA is considering amending to provide protection for 

onboard systems. EPA expects that this would address many of 

the potential concerns regarding crashworthiness. In the same 

Notice, EPA also said that its independent authority under 

Section 206(a)(3)(B) would allow it to require manufacturers to 

conduct tests or provide other information as may be needed to 

determine if an onboard system meets the vehicle safety requirements in Section 202(a)(4) of the Act. 

EPA's statement, I unfortunately feel, 

reflects a lack of understanding of what can be accomplished 

even with more stringent safety system requirements. Neither 

Standard 301 nor tests prescribed by EPA can completely 

eliminate the risk to motor vehicle safety posed by onboard 

systems. For example, Standard 301 is a limited series of tests 

and, even if other tests are added to the test sequence to 

address onboard systems, the series still cannot possibly 

address the wide range of crash configurations and speeds that 

occur in real world crashes. That is why current fuel systems, 

which already have to meet Standard 301, still sometimes fail. 

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There would be more crash-related failures with onboard systems 

because, as currently designed, the added valves, pipes, clamps, 

increased canister size of these systems would increase fuel 

system vulnerability. 

I'd like to particularly address the issue 

of extension of the standard to light and heavy trucks. I had 

the pleasure at lunch of sitting with Eric Stork, and during the 

course of the conversation, we were talking about the Clean Air 

Act and I revealed my lack of in-depth knowledge of one of the 

EPA regulations in the Clean Air Act itself and he wondered why 

someone that didn't live and dream about the Clean Air Act would 

be here to pose issues before this panel. The reason I'm doing 

it is that I think that we can give a new perspective to this 

issue. 

The thing that has troubled me in much of 

the conversation that we've heard today concerning the extension 

of these standards to light and heavy trucks is there has been 

an emphasis on the goal is applying onboard, and I thought the 

goal was clean air and what's the best way to achieve clean air 

that poses no risk to the public or minimum risk to the public, 

that can be implemented quickly and that EPA already has the 

authority to do either by regulation or by persuasion and the 

answer to that is Stage II. Stage II does not pose a safety 

risk. Stage II can be implemented on a much quicker schedule, 

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providing the breathing public with much greater protection at 

a quicker rate. 

I was particularly disturbed that there 

hasn't been any thought or discussion today of non-regulatory 

approaches as well. Here we have an example of already one 

gasoline marketer, Amoco, has already taken a leadership role 

in implementing Stage II, and I might add, a much more convenient design, a much more improved design Stage II device on 

all of its stations throughout the country, regardless of 

whether they're in a non-attainment area or others. I think 

there should be more attention given to ways to persuade other 

marketers to follow that approach as well, as well as to discuss 

with states that are trying to meet their Clean Air Act goals 

that they should also pursue via the Stage II alterative. 

Now I'd like to specifically address our 

safety concerns concerning applying the standard to light and 

heavy trucks. Given our safety concerns that we expressed about 

passenger cars, it's troubling that EPA has again proposed 

applying the onboard requirement to light and heavy trucks. 

Applying the standard to these vehicles, we believe, is contrary 

to rational public policy. EPA has acknowledged the increased 

risk of fire-related crash deaths resulting from the use of 

onboard technology in passenger cars. The question that we pose 

is, why needlessly increase the risk for driver of light and 

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heavy trucks when neither the Clean Air Act nor the Court 

decision in NRDC v. Reilly requires that result? 

We note that there's no discussion in the 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking of the adverse safety consequence 

of applying onboard standards to light and heavy trucks. Yet, 

we know from existing data on fire-related deaths in fatal 

crashes that full-size pickup trucks generally have a higher 

death rate than passenger cars. For example, in an April, 1993 

NHTSA report, they analyzed fires in full-size pickups and other 

vehicles. NHTSA found that the pickups consistently have a 

higher fire-related death rate than passenger cars. Why increase the risk for light and heavy truck occupants by requiring 

those vehicles be equipped with onboard refueling vapor recovery 

systems? 

If I could quickly address some of the 

issues you posed to some of the manufacturers earlier today when 

you've asked in the context of the light truck rule, what about 

issues such as leadtime, what about incomplete versus complete 

vehicles, what about light versus heavy? My response to that 

is if it's a bad idea, which we believe it is, and if the goal 

of the Clean Air Act, the goal of clean air for the breathing 

public, can be achieved by alternative means, Stage II, which 

doesn't pose a risk to vehicle safety, it doesn't matter if you 

provide more leadtime. It doesn't matter if you only apply it 

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to one class of vehicles versus another class of vehicles. It 

doesn't matter if you apply it to only incomplete versus 

complete. It's still a bad idea and we can accomplish the goals 

that we are all interested in accomplishing by other means that 

don't pose safety risks. 

EPA's March, 1993 conclusion that onboard 

recovery systems pose an increased and unreasonable risk of fire 

in motor vehicle crashes is still valid. Although EPA is under 

a court mandate to implement an onboard rule for passenger cars, 

there is no justification, as I've just explained, for imposing 

this hazard on other motorists by extending the rule to light 

trucks and vans. In addition, EPA should fashion a rule for 

passenger cars with requirements that will allow manufacturers 

to use simple, integrated onboard systems that minimize the risk 

to the motoring public. The safety risk cannot be eliminated. 

However, it can be minimized, but that risk is still going to 

be there. 

I'd like to conclude and I know by 

tradition I should say, thank you very much for listening and 

I'll be glad to answer questions, which I will, but I'd like to 

pose a question to the panel, if I could. The issue I'd like 

to ask about is, what is going to be the role of the National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the promulgation of 

this final rule? 

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We think that the Act was quite correct 

in its original direction that EPA consult with NHTSA concerning 

the safety impacts, and I notice that we have a member of NHTSA 

on the panel today, but there's not a clear discussion in the 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that explains the process. Are 

we going to have an independent safety analysis by NHTSA before 

this final rule is promulgated? The Institute would clearly 

urge that in fact such an independent analysis be done and be 

considered by EPA before doing that. 

So my question to you, and as I say, I'd 

be delighted to answer your questions, but my question to you 

is, what is going to be NHTSA's role in the promulgation of the 

final rule with regard to passenger cars? 

MR. HOTT: Well, first, Steve, I'd like 

to say that I'm here to ask the questions and not answer them. 

Second, I don't create policy for the Agency. The Agency's role 

with EPA right now is to help them promulgate a safe final rule 

for onboard vapor recovery systems. 

MR. OESCH: My question was actually 

directed more towards EPA, since it's EPA that will have to 

finalize a rule. 

MR. WILSON: Well, obviously NHTSA is 

represented here today. They have been involved in developing 

the proposals. We intend to involve them fully as we develop 

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the final rule so they'll be full partners in putting that rule 

together. 

MR. OESCH: Thank you, and thank you for 

your indulgence in allowing me to pose the question. 

MR. WILSON: I just had one question which 

was, I don't know if you're familiar with the test procedure 

changes that were discussed this morning, maybe you need some 

time, but the question either now or for the record is, with 

those changes, and assuming they allow for simpler systems as 

some manufacturers were describing, that at least they feel deal 

substantially with the safety issues of concern, do you have a 

reaction to that? 

MR. OESCH: I'm certainly not an expert 

on the issues of the test procedures themselves. However, 

clearly our position would be that if there are changes in the 

procedures that would give the manufacturers the flexibility 

and the ability to produce systems that would minimize the risk 

by making them simpler, integrated, if possible, with the existing evaporative emission systems, we clearly would support that. 

MR. GRAY: A clarification question; I 

think you made a comment that Amoco, who manufacturers one of 

the newer generation Stage II equipment systems, has installed 

those systems on their stations nationwide? 

MR. OESCH: My understanding was that they 

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L.J 

were talking of doing that nationwide. 

MR. GRAY: If you have any more 

information regarding that, I'd be interested since they have 

a few stations in Michigan and I haven't personally noticed it. 

MR. OESCH: I'd be delighted, okay. I 

hope I have not misrepresented their position, but clearly they 

are implementing improved Stage II systems and are featuring 

them in advertisements. On a plane on the way up here, I was 

flipping through a magazine where they were talking about their 

reformulated gasoline that they're introducing and there at the 

top of the advertisement was a photo of the pump with the 

improved Stage II which was a far more easier to use system. 

And as I say, I'll be glad to go back and if I have been mistaken about their position, I'll be glad to correct that for 

the record. 

MR. GRAY: And for all due credit, it's 

certain for the areas that are required to use Stage II equipment, the Amoco system does represent — 

MR. OESCH: And that's why, if I can just 

elaborate a little further, that's why I think there's also — 

I mean, we've all been talking in the regulatory context, that 

is you have certain authorities to impose Stage II, depending 

on whether the states have met their various Clean Air Act 

requirements. 

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,But I think there's also, we've seen it, 

if I can use an example from something which I'm much more 

familiar with and that is from vehicle safety. We've seen in 

the area of vehicle safety a dramatic change and that what we 

have is a real competition in the marketplace on the issue of 

vehicle safety. We have manufacturers that are proclaiming in 

all of their advertisements the various safety features that 

they have in vehicles, which we think is wonderful because this 

is driving the market and it's meeting the demands of their 

purchasers who are looking for more safety in vehicles. 

And I think what we've seen in the safety 

is that many times, because of this competition, the safety 

efforts of the manufacturers are outpacing the safety efforts 

mandated by NHTSA. In fact, they're getting ahead of the 

schedule. Use the example of anti-lock brakes; there is no 

requirement in Standard 105 for anti-lock brakes and the Agency 

has been talking about this for a number of years. By the time 

the Agency gets around to promulgating a rule, if it does, it's 

already going to be in virtually the entire fleet. 

And why I raised this is that it seems to 

me there could be that same type or there should be that same 

type of pressure for that same type of competition in the area 

of the marketing of gasoline, which you're talking about. Your 

stations are more environmentally friendly, your stations have 

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the Stage II, your stations are providing the protection to the 

breathing public of having those systems where they're refueling 

the vehicle and you're doing this and not imposing any increased 

risk to motor vehicle safety. 

MR. GRAY: One last question; I would be 

interested in your perspective on the relative risk issue of 

it's hard in the real world to have a zero risk environment, 

whether crossing a road or sometimes even eating certain foods. 

We've heard recently, and we appreciate your reaction to our 

recent efforts to try to accommodate other people's concerns 

about our previously proposed test procedure in trying to 

consider adjustments that would allow manufacturers more 

flexibility, allow manufacturers to use simpler seal systems as 

well as the same size canister and integrated systems. 

So we would appreciate your investigation 

of all those efforts in moving directionally in the way you 

encouraged and then some sense of this final relative risk 

issue. Certainly, we're not anticipating at this stage nationwide Stage II. I acknowledge you suggested that it should be 

considered and there's some risk associated with breathing 

gasoline vapors, even in areas that probably won't have Stage 

II. So if everything else happened to be equal, that would be 

some degree of benefit for the motoring public, breathing 

public, to not breath those vapors. 

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And just how close are we with the test 

procedure modifications toward accommodating concerns about 

increased fire risk and now trying to accommodate that with the 

test procedures versus the benefits to avoiding breathing vapors 

in areas where there might not be Stage II, just give us some 

sense of, have our efforts been reasonable with respect to 

trying to get as close as we can to sort of a reasonable balance 

in that regard? 

MR. OESCH: Again, we're not experts in 

the emissions area certainly, but from the testimony I was 

hearing this morning, it certainly sounds as if the proposed 

changes that you are considering in this Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking are directionally correct, that they are going 

towards minimizing the risk. And the only point I would add to 

that is, well, we recognize clearly you're under a mandate and 

you have to issue the rule for passenger cars. Your goal there 

is to minimize the risk, but since you're not under a mandate 

to do such for light trucks and heavy-duty vehicles and there 

would be an increased risk, I would urge you to strongly 

consider other alternatives to the use of onboard because, 

again, I think that the goal is not onboard versus not onboard. 

The goal is, what are the things that can be done to improve the 

quality of the air. 

MR. PASSAVANT: If we make the kind of 

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test procedure changes that were suggested here this morning and 

we get systems that look like each other, why do you feel that 

there is or continues to be an inherent risk involved here? It 

seems to be a presumption on your part that there is or will be 

in the future a risk and, therefore, any step that we might take 

to resolve that will not fully resolve it. 

MR. OESCH: That's correct. 

MR. PASSAVANT: And fundamentally, you've 

been involved in this issue for six years and we're back here 

on page three saying, we still can't quantify the risk. I'm 

certainly at a loss to understand, after we've taken these kinds 

of steps to try to get at what's been identified as concerns in 

terms of size of the components, locations of components and so 

on, that we can't seem to get to the point of saying, we think 

we've got a system that looks like the other systems are going 

to look. 

MR. OESCH: Two points; in the written 

testimony, we do have information which we have provided EPA 

before. The difficulty in quantifying, the difficulty in 

quantifying it is because in the absence of data that while for 

motor vehicle fires, that is generally almost always reported 

on the accident report. However, the police, even in those 

cases where there are motor vehicle fires, don't do the types 

of in-depth investigations that would be able to identify what 

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were the component failures that led to that fire. In addition, 

there's also the problem of if there were, let's say, vapor 

released from the existing evaporative canisters, that wouldn't 

even be identified and even now if there's fuel system spillage 

from the fuel tank but no fire, while there would have been a 

risk of fire, that isn't identified on the reports. 

MR. PASSAVANT: I understand all that and 

back in your previous testimony you said that a larger canister 

or a more complicated system leads to, your claim, of an 

inherently unsafe system. If we make the kind of changes we're 

talking about here in the test procedure that would size the 

canisters the same as where the evap would be, that it would 

eliminate the need for some of the other connections and so on, 

why is the presumption still going to be that it's less safe? 

It seems to me that the presumption would shift to the other 

direction to say, all other things being equal, it should be the 

same. 

MR. OESCH: I would argue that what it is, 

is you've elevated the risk for everybody. So it's a uniform 

elevation for everybody, but it's still a greater risk than the 

other. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Elevated it — 

MR. OESCH: While you are doing things, 

it sounds like, based on what I've heard in the other testimony 

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this morning, you are doing things quite correctly to move to 

make it directionally more — to minimize the risk. Nevertheless, the fact is because of the complexity of the systems 

anyhow, the sensors, the new sensors that have to be put in, the 

fact that the canisters themselves, while you may be taking 

actions through your changes in your test procedure to reduce 

the increase in size, they still will increase in size and, 

because of that increase, there's the greater potential. And 

our point, and I keep coming back to this, our point from the 

very beginning has been, we can achieve these same goals, the 

goal of getting cleaner air through a way that doesn't have any 

of these drawbacks. 

MR. PASSAVANT: I would ask you to examine 

the validity of a presumption that things will be unsafe based 

upon lack of data, and if we've made steps toward trying to 

resolve that, your being the only testifier coming to the record 

today saying that there's inherently still a problem, I think 

concerns me. 

I could. 

Let me come back to one final point, if 

MR. OESCH: Sure; I don't think I was the 

only one today. I believe others said that the rulemaking was 

moving, particularly given the — 

MR. PASSAVANT: Yes, they need to see the 

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final rules too, I understand, but you still drew a pretty 

strong conclusion. 

Finally, you made a statement here about 

NHTSA's fuel system standards not solving the problem. 

MR. OESCH: Yes. 

MR. PASSAVANT: What would be your views 

on whether or not such a standard is needed for a 301 modification — 

MR. OESCH: Well, I think that it does 

make sense because we are going to put onboard systems on 

because, in our view, there is a risk, that certainly 301 should 

do whatever's possible to address that. But the point I was 

trying to make is that is difficult because we're talking about 

vehicles that have to work, that are going to be traveling the 

real world where they're going to be exposed to a wide variety 

of different configurations or crashes at different speeds. 

A standard, any standard, can only measure 

the performance of the vehicle and set a minimum of level of 

performance in a prescribed test. You have to have an objective 

test procedure. You can't say, no fuel spillage in any crash 

that you get in the real world. You have to have defined, 

objective test procedures that manufacturers have to meet. 

Clearly, we would support anything that could be done to 

Standard 301 that might also help minimize the risks. The point 

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that I was trying to make was that even those changes will not 

eliminate the risk. 

MR. PASSAVANT: I know, but the point is 

that I was asking you, do you think that NHTSA should directionally examine that and see if there's something that should 

be done? 

MR. OESCH: Yes, the direct answer is yes. 

MR. PASSAVANT: I want to come to one 

final point. Of course the audience doesn't have this picture, 

but there's a picture in here of a vehicle and a crash test that 

shows a canister fire. We've had these vehicles, evaporative 

vehicles, in use for 20 years and over a 20 year period, I don't 

know how many of these, if ever, any of these types of fires 

have ever happened. But why hasn't there been a move on the 

part of the insurance industry to shore up canisters, if that 

really presents a safety risk? Canisters today are made of a 

nylon or plastic type composite that will break open upon a 

strong impact and could easily be reinforced to solve that 

problem or to relocate it and solve that problem, either way you 

want to look at it. 

MR. OESCH: Well, the answer to that is 

maybe we should have been addressing this earlier. But clearly, 

we are trying to address what we saw was with a growth, certainly under the original proposal, with a growth in the size 

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of the canister, the growth in the tubing and other elements of 

the design that would be used in these systems, we did clearly. 

It clearly dawned upon us the safety problem then and we wanted 

to address it, which we have been trying to address since 1986. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Would you suggest or would 

you agree that are directions that lead to engineering solutions 

that are available to solve some of these kinds of concerns that 

were raised in your little flyer here? 

MR. OESCH: I'm sure that there are, I'm 

sure that there are. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Thank you. 

MR. SILVERMAN: I just wanted to clarify 

two points. Did I hear correctly that you said you would 

support a rule if it could be implemented using a simpler system 

with something where the canister could serve a dual purpose for 

evap and for onboard? 

MR. OESCH: Yes, the answer is that, 

because you are under the mandate from the court to do that, 

that if the risk can be minimized and consistent with your 

obligations under, I hate code speak, but I think it's 

202(a)(4), you have to make the determination that these systems 

will not pose an unreasonable risk to the public health, welfare 

and safety, and consistent with that, if there can be changes 

to the rule that will enable you both to make that determina146 
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tion, yes, we would clearly support, because you're under the 

obligation to do it. I hate to keep going back to this, if we 

are clear that we would have preferred the other alternative 

that didn't pose any of these risks, that is Stage II. 

MR. SILVERMAN: But you don't think that's 

equally an answer with respect to light-duty trucks and heavyduty trucks, even though you're going to have the same canister 

being used for evap? 

MR. OESCH: No, and the reason, again, is 

that I said you're under an obligation. You have basically no 

choice but to promulgate a rule and make the determination under 

202(a)(4) that these vehicles are safe, but I'm saying -- I'm 

sorry, go on. 

MR. SILVERMAN: I'm just wondering if the 

canister is going to be the same and it's going to be there for 

evap purposes anyway. You still see some safety risks being 

posed if it — 

MR. OESCH: There's still, again, it 

depends on what the final rule, but I still, from what I'm 

hearing, there still would be, the risk would be minimized but 

there would still be a risk there with light trucks and the 

point I would make is, why pose that risk anyhow? 

/ 

MR. SILVERMAN: I'm asking/you though, if 

/ 

the risk will be there because the canister has to be there for 

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purposes of the evap rule, what incremental risk is being 

created then? 

MR. OESCH: Well, the incremental risk is 

the risk of having to add on the additional size and/or components in order to handle the refueling vapor. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Okay, so you're saying 

there might be a few additional components other than the 

canister? 

MR. OESCH: Or the size of the canister. 

MR. SILVERMAN: Well, let's say the size 

is the same though. 

MR. OESCH: Well, again, even with, if I 

can draw back to the passenger cars, even with those, we would 

still say that there is an increased risk and I keep going back 

to the point, our point is, why go to any increased risk when 

there are risk-free ways of addressing the same problem, that 

is addressing the problem of improving the air quality. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. 

The next witness is the Recreation Vehicle 

Industry Association. 

MR. CONWAY: Good afternoon; I'm Edward 

F. Conway, Jr. , Assistant General Counsel of the Recreation 

Vehicle Industry Association, headquartered in Reston, Virginia. 

RVIA is the national trade association 

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representing over 450 manufacturers of recreation vehicles and 

their related suppliers. Its 175 manufacturer members produce 

approximately 95 percent of all recreation vehicles purchased 

in the United States. RVIA's 58 motor home manufacturer 

members, many of which are small business entities, produce 

approximately 99 percent of motor homes purchased in the United 

States. 

RVIA's 82 custom van conversion members, 

most of whom are small business entities, produce approximately 

80 percent of the custom van conversions purchased in the United 

States. The remaining 20 percent of custom van conversions are 

produced by more than 1,600 non-member manufacturers, most of 

whom presumably are also small business entities. 

RVIA supports the testimony previously 

given by AAMA and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. 

RVIA strongly urges EPA to exclude lightduty trucks and heavy-duty vehicles from the ORVR standards. 

We agree with previous witnesses that these vehicles are not 

within the scope of the congressional and court mandates which 

are limited to light-duty vehicles, or in other words, passenger 

cars. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety 

Administration report on onboard systems concluded that these 

systems will result in an increase in safety risk and will have 

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a negative impact on safety. This increase in safety risk and 

negative impact on safety will be significantly greater for 

light-duty trucks and heavy-duty vehicles than for passenger 

cars because their larger onboard systems will pose a much 

greater fire hazard. 

Before proceeding to require ORVR systems 

on light-duty trucks and heavy-duty vehicles, EPA should closely 

monitor and analyze the in-service safety performance of onboard 

systems in passenger cars. Lessons learned from this might 

ultimately lead to the development of improved systems that 

reduce their inherent safety risk and negative impact on safety 

sufficiently to make them suitable for light-duty trucks and 

heavy-duty vehicles. 

If light-duty trucks and heavy-duty 

vehicles are nevertheless not to be excluded from the ORVR 

standards, RVIA strongly urges EPA to exclude all recreation 

light-duty trucks and heavy-duty vehicles. In other words, 

motor homes and custom van conversions should be excluded. 

It should be noted that these recreation 

vehicles are operated mostly in remote rural areas that are not 

within ozone non-attainment zones. Moreover, they constitute 

only a small segment of the light-duty trucks and heavy-duty 

vehicles produced each year. 

Recreation light-duty trucks and heavy150 
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duty vehicles are much more complex vehicles than passenger 

cars. For example, motor homes provide temporary living 

quarters for camping, recreation and travel use. They are 

manufactured on chassis supplied by the automotive companies. 

They are, in fact, motorized houses on wheels with living 

facilities powered by 12 volt and 120 volt electrical systems 

and by LP-gas systems. Motor home living facilities include 

cooking stoves and microwave ovens, refrigerators, television 

sets and VCRs, stereos and compact disc players, self-contained 

toilets, water heaters, showers, heating and air conditioning 

and potable water supply systems that have sinks with faucets 

and holding tanks for fresh and waste wateri Many motor homes 

also have electric generators and fuel tanks with a capacity of 

more than 75 gallons. 

Custom van conversions are light-duty 

trucks and heavy-duty vehicle vans that have been modified to 

provide minimum living facilities, such as an LP-gas fueled 

refrigerator and stove and 120 volt electrical systems. They 

also provide sleeping or other temporary living quarters for 

recreation and travel. 

Recreation light-duty trucks and heavyduty vehicles are complex vehicles that must be carefully 

designed to minimize the risk of fire in the event of a 

collision or other accidents. In recent years, manufacturers 

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of motor homes and custom van conversions have, with considerable effort and expense, devised protective measures to 

safeguard the electrical and LP-gas systems and the house 

furnishings of their vehicles from high temperatures generated 

by the currently required air pollution control devices. These 

house furnishings include beds, sofas, carpeting, wooden 

cabinets and accessories. 

To require a large, complex ORVR system 

in these already complex vehicles that are used to provide 

sleeping and/or temporary living quarters would greatly increase 

the danger of disastrous fires that could result in numerous 

fatalities. For example, pilot lights or sparks from circuit 

breakers, automatic ignition devices or electric generators 

could ignite leaking fuel vapors while the vehicle's occupants 

are sleeping. 

Because chassis manufacturers are now 

focusing on developing systems for passenger cars, RVIA really 

does not have a handle on or any detailed knowledge on the 

configuration of ORVR systems for light-duty trucks and heavyduty vehicles that would be used for motor homes or custom van 

conversions. However, based on our 1imited knowledge, it is our 

understanding that the ORVR system would require additional 

valves, including nozzle-actuated tank vent valve assembly, a 

vapor-liquid separator and a vent/rollover valve. It would also 

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require a large canister or a series of canisters which, depending on the size of the fuel tank, would have three to 12 times 

the capacity of the currently required canister. Moreover, its 

vapor recovery lines would be much larger than those currently 

in use. 

An ORVR system would severely reduce the 

already limited availability of adequate and safe space for 

motor home and custom van conversion manufacturers to install 

LP-gas, electrical and other vital systems. The proximity of 

those systems to a required ORVR system would greatly increase 

the danger of disastrous fires when that system malfunctions or 

the vehicle is involved in an accident. For example, an outwardly undetectable impairment of that system's mechanical 

nozzle seals, vapor-liquid discriminators or pressure relief 

valves could result in loss of fuel system integrity during 

vehicle impact. 

Each recreation vehicle manufacturer 

develops its own floor plans and production methods. Consequently, both the permanent installation of an ORVR system by 

the chassis manufacturer and the installation of an ORVR system 

by the final stage manufacturer pose severe problems for which 

there is no apparent solution. 

There is very little, if any, free space 

available on a recreation vehicle to accommodate the permanent 

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installation of large ORVR systems by the chassis manufacturer 

that will not seriously impair the ability of the final stage 

manufacturer to produce the wide variety of floor plans 

necessary to meet consumer needs. Moreover, the absence of 

experience with newly developed ORVR systems and with their 

impact on other systems and components of recreation vehicles 

would hamstring the efforts of both chassis and final stage 

manufacturers to assure the safety of these vehicles. Consequently, their product liability exposure will be greatly 

increased. 

The alternative of having manufacturers 

of motor homes and custom van conversions develop, install and 

certify their own ORVR systems on vehicles that have a wide 

variety of floor plans desired by consumers would be inordinately time-consuming, cost prohibitive and beyond the expertise 

of most, if not all, of these manufacturers. 

The alternative of having manufacturers 

of motor homes and custom van conversions complete the 

installation of ORVR systems developed and partially installed 

by chassis manufacturers would likewise be inordinately timeconsuming, cost prohibitive and beyond the expertise of most, 

if not all, of these manufacturers. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present 

the concerns of the members of our association. 

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MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for that 

testimony. I just had one request; one of your themes is the 

concern about space on a recreational vehicle for an onboard 

system. I think you probably heard other testimony today that 

suggests that with some changes to the test procedure, the 

systems may look just like the evaporative systems that are 

going on the vehicles. I mean, it's not clear if that happens 

what the extra space requirement would in fact be, if any, and 

maybe you could — 

MR. CONWAY: That is hard to evaluate, 

not knowing what is going to come out, but in any event, we're 

going to have a larger capacity container there. We're going 

to have a larger amount of vapor storage and a larger system 

that could fail. Murphy's law, everything that can go wrong, 

usually does and at the worst possible moment, and we've had 

problems in other areas with motor homes that have been in 

service for 20 years. These vehicles are around for a long 

time. You're developing, I believe, a lifetime standard of ten 

years. I think you're proposing something like that in your 

standard. I don't want to get into the technical aspect of 

this. Lord knows I'm not an engineer, so if you ask me any 

engineering questions, I'll decline to answer them on the 

grounds that I don't know the answer. 

MR. GRAY: One question on the last part 

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of your testimony when you were discussing various alternatives 

for the installation of an onboard system. The last alternative 

you mentioned of having manufacturers of the recreation vehicles 

complete the installation of the system developed by the 

original chassis manufacturer, would be time-consuming, costprohibitive, and you say beyond the expertise of most, if not 

all of these manufacturers. I thought I remember this morning 

some of those chassis manufacturers testifying that in many 

cases you do already install various fuel system components 

including the evaporative canister and the purge lines and the 

various hardware and plumbing that's already required. 

MR. CONWAY: I believe that is correct. 

However, we have to do it within the parameters of their 

limitations and conditions and those limitations and conditions 

will severely reduce the flexibility our people have. They can 

basically do it precisely the way and precisely the location and 

what have you that the chassis manufacturer prescribed, but if 

they want to make a slight change in the floor plan or move it 

here or make this adjustment, they're on their own. They're 

outside the chassis manufacturer's certification. 

MR. GRAY: Then they would be taking on 

some liability, I would think. 

MR. CONWAY: They sure would be. They 

would have to retest. If they depart significantly from the 

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conditions and limitations, then they can no longer ride on the 

chassis manufacturer's certification. They're going to have to 

do it themselves, with all that's involved. We do everything, 

and as I mentioned, these are small business entities and that's 

beyond their technical expertise and it's probably, in many 

cases, beyond their financial resources as well to hire somebody 

to do it for them. 

MR. GRAY: You mentioned several times, 

your testimony had emphasis on the concern about the large 

canister associated with onboard refueling as an increment, 

finding space for it, the difficulty of the recreation vehicle 

manufacturers having the expertise of installing it. Hopefully, 

also today you obtained a grasp for the efforts that we've been 

expending to try to be responsive to many of the concerns like 

yours with respect to considering a test procedure which would 

allow an integrated system, a system with the same canister that 

would otherwise be required for evaporative emissions. 

In light of all that discussion, in light 

of the objective of accommodating designs that would not require 

a different canister than you would be otherwise installing, 

what would be our remaining concerns that you would have us 

consider? 

MR. CONWAY: Well, my principal concern 

is you, as an Agency, are taking a risk or imposing a risk, you 

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might say, on our manufacturers, that you don't have to take. 

You're under a court mandate and under a legislative mandate, 

so you've got good cover if things go wrong. There's an axiom, 

you did what you were told to do in the best manner according 

to the state of the art at the time. But in extending this to 

areas where you have complete discretion, you no longer have 

that cover and you're out on a limb and it's a risk you don't 

have to take and we don't think you should impose on our 

manufacturers or on the public. 

MR. GRAY: I think that's why we're 

pursuing an understanding because we have been addressing or 

trying to address the concerns of others with regard to these 

issues. I think we would particularly be interested in your 

specific response to, if it's the same size canister, if that's 

accommodated, it's the same canister, not another one of the 

same size, that accommodates the refueling vapors, that's 

already required for evaporative vapors, what is this additional 

risk that you suggest we would be assuming? 

MR. CONWAY: Well, I'm assuming that 

somehow or another it's going to be larger capacity. It might 

not be larger in size. There's going to be more gases. The 

tubing will be larger. I mean, I'm no engineer, but you're 

going to have to come up with some kind of a technological 

breakthrough where you can get accommodations, where you can 

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triple or quadruple or whatever, the capacity of the system 

without enlarging it, 

MR. GRAY: Perhaps it would be most 

instructive if engineers within your companies could consider 

the revisions that we're contemplating that are focused exactly 

on some of the, it seems like, major concerns you've raised and 

give us by the close of the comment period any revised perspectives you might have in a technical vein as to what still would 

remain or what concerns remain. That would be helpful to us. 

MR. CONWAY: One other thing, if I might 

interject, is that, as you're well aware, you're not the only 

agency that's closing in on these manufacturers. We're getting 

more and more NHTSA requirements that — as a result of which 

the chassis manufacturers increasingly impose more stringent 

conditions and limitations, which further limit the discretion 

or the possibilities that our people can put into these motor 

homes and conversion vehicles. They're really being pressed in. 

I think the ultimate someday is they're going to be able to 

change the hubcaps and put trim paint on them and that will be 

about the size of it. 

MR. GRAY: I had one question; you gave 

examples of pilot lights, sparks from circuit breakers, automatic ignition devices, electric generators, et cetera, sources 

of ignition that might ignite vapors from a leaking canister. 

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I'm just curious. It seems like that list of examples, those 

examples might be present when an owner or operator of the 

recreation vehicle was refueling the vehicle at a service 

station producing a large quantify of vapors, perhaps very 

frequently, into the ignition zones of these igniters. 

MR. CONWAY: If I might address that, the 

owner manuals that go with them instruct them to turn off all 

those systems while they're refueling the vehicle for just that 

reason. 

MR. GRAY: Do you think that happens very 

often? I mean, pilot lights, since I've had some experience 

with a recreation vehicle myself, turning off pilot lights on 

these units could take considerable time for water heaters to 

furnaces to refrigerators. Has that ever happened? 

MR. CONWAY: I can't tell you. I imagine 

it does, but you're assuming the risk if you don't. 

MR. GRAY: Well, do you have any information? Certainly, maybe it's somewhere in an owner's manual, 

but I don't think they're labeled on the devices, Danger, turn 

the pilot lights out, every time you refuel your vehicle with 

gasoline. So it's not an obvious warning for sure. 

MR. CONWAY: It may depend too on the 

proximity. Now if they're in close proximity to the refueling, 

to the nozzle, obviously you're going to have to do it, but that 

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would be one of the design constraints too. Another way you 

could get around it would be by relocating it and set it at the 

other end of the vehicle. 

MR. GRAY: True, but if you're dispensing 

gasoline into a large tank at ten gallons a minute or so and 

you've got a large tank, you've got a lot of gallons of vapors 

that are concentrated around this vehicle compared to a leak of 

absorbed vapors on a canister which in a flow rate sense has to 

be orders of magnitude smaller, more time for the heavier vapors 

to settle away from the ignition source. I'm just trying, since 

you raised it as an obscure example, I'm trying to put it in 

some relative perspective. Do you have data on how often these 

things catch on fire when people are refueling the vehicles? 

MR. CONWAY: We did have a problem. I 

mean, some of our manufacturers, I believe, had a problem. 

Again, I'm not an engineer, but I remember reading about 

spitting gas tanks, how they would spit back, spit out at them 

when they refueled. That's been a problem in some instances. 

But these are complex systems. 

MR. GRAY: Do you survey things like fires 

during refueling to find out even with the very large amounts 

of vapors that are available in those zones, whether or not 

there's frequent --

MR. CONWAY: Do I survey what, I'm sorry? 

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MR. GRAY: Your manufacturers to find out 

if they — I assume that someone refueling their vehicle and it 

caught fire from an ignition source in the vehicle, that that 

manufacturer would probably hear about it. 

MR. CONWAY: I imagine he would. 

MR. GRAY: Is there any data available on 

the real world occurrence of vapor ignition even at the high 

volumes that are present during refueling, just to get a handle, 

a baseline handle, on the severity of risk associated with those 

ignition sources? 

MR. CONWAY: I think the primary vehicle 

for developing something like that would probably be NHTSA, 

would get involved with investigations and recall and what have 

you, but most or our manufacturers are relatively small organizations. They don't have a large engineering staff. They range 

in all sizes from practically mom-and-pop van converters all the 

way up to major manufacturers such as, I don't want to give any 

commercials, but you know who they are. 

MR. GRAY: So you're not aware of any data 

that your members might obtain? 

MR. CONWAY: No, I'm not. In fact, I 

review a lot, on occasion, of government data on collisions if 

they're being used as justification for imposing standards, 

motor vehicle safety standards, and one of the things I find 

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frustrating is that we're lumped in with something called lightduty vehicles or light-duty trucks or some abbreviation which 

covers pickup trucks. It covers when you're talking about rollovers, it covers the jeep type vehicles that have a propensity 

to roll over and we're lumped in with them and we get caught in 

the same standard. There's really no statistical breakout that 

I've ever been able to find that addresses our particular 

vehicles because we are such a small segment of the fleet. 

MR. GRAY: Thank you. 

MR. FRANCE: You single out van conversions. How often are the fuel systems on van conversions 

altered? I'm just curious. My understanding of van conversions 

is you buy the shell of the van and you add the interior for the 

most part. I'm just curious how often you're asking for an 

exemption for van conversions, how often do you get in and 

actually — 

MR. CONWAY: Mess with the fuel — 

MR. FRANCE: That's with the fuel system 

that comes from the manufacturer. 

MR. CONWAY: Last year when I was here, 

I think Mr. Passavant or somebody chided me, and I sent out a 

memo to our members about when they expand the fuel capacity, 

they're supposed to — there's some regulatory filings they're 

supposed to make with EPA and apparently that hasn't — some of 

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them have been remiss in doing that. So it does occur. Our 

van, when I use the term, van conversion, you've got a lot of 

terminology problems here. Now you think of a van, we do have 

what we call a Class B van which outwardly looks like just an 

ordinary van, but it basically is a small motor home, has all 

of those components I listed. 

MR. FRANCE: I understand. What I'm 

trying to get at, this not only applies to van conversions, but 

it also gets at all your other types of motor home platforms. 

My understanding, and it may be incorrect, is that because of 

the liability associated with fuel systems, it behooves converters and motor home builders to follow the manufacturer's 

recommendations and they ought to think twice before they go in 

and alter the system because they take on a whole new set of 

liability burdens and you also pointed out that the engineering 

may be lacking. 

MR. CONWAY: That's correct. They have 

that choice. They have two choices. They either do precisely 

what the chassis manufacturer tells them to do in completing 

that vehicle, you don't mess with that system, or if they do 

mess with it, then they're on their own. I think as a result, 

all the small fellows don't have any alternative. They've just 

got to follow the manufacturer's recommendation, not recommendation, I should say mandate. 

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MR. FRANCE: But if they follow the 

manufacturer's recommendations, then the liability is on the 

manufacturer, correct, if they installed it correctly. I'm just 

trying to figure out where the liability concern is in terms of 

the risk and stuff like that. 

MR. CONWAY: Well, if there's an accident, 

they'll both be sued. The chassis manufacturer will be sued 

because he's got the deeper pockets, but our manufacturer will 

be too. 

MR. FRANCE: I understand, but if you're 

modifying a van, you're asking for an exemption, but if the 

manufacturer already took the burden on to design an onboard 

system — 

MR. CONWAY: He's already put it on? 

MR. FRANCE: Yes. 

MR. CONWAY: Well, then that would limit 

— the one example I gave of the type B motor home, they would 

probably have to make some modifications to get all the things 

they have to put in for a type B motor home or people will get 

out of the business of making a type B motor home with that 

chassis. 

MR. FRANCE: That leads me to the next 

question. Our goal was to get refueling systems similar in size 

and complexity to the evap system. They must be encountering 

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these problems with evap system, correct? 

MR. CONWAY: I'm sorry, they must what? 

MR. FRANCE: I said, some of the concerns 

you're raising have to apply to current evap systems and the new 

evap systems that are coming, the new requirements coming down 

the road. It strikes me that a lot these concerns aren't unique 

to onboard. 

MR. CONWAY: It's just a further 

magnification of the problems coming down the road. I mean, 

it's piling on, it's a pile-on syndrome. You have problems 

already and this is going to magnify them and make them greater. 

MR. FRANCE: To the extent directionally 

we have a refueling requirement which minimizes the differences 

between evap and refueling systems, in fact, that they're 

integrated, that would go a long way towards addressing a lot 

of your concerns. 

MR. CONWAY: I think it would reduce the 

risk, but I don't think it would eliminate the concerns. We 

would still have the constraints. You're saying basically 

you're going to come up with a refueling vapor recovery system 

that outwardly looks like an identical twin? 

MR. FRANCE: Yes, I mean, if we end up 

with canisters that are the same as evap — 

MR. CONWAY: The same tubing, the same 

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everything? 

MR. FRANCE: Yes. 

MR. CONWAY: And not holding any more 

vapors? 

MR. FRANCE: Well, there's some tubing 

differences, but the level of complexity is in orders of magnitude over what you've been experiencing or will be experiencing 

with evap. That, it seems to me, should go a long ways towards 

addressing that. 

MR. CONWAY: I think you're getting into 

technical areas that are way beyond my expertise. Any answer 

I give you probably won't be worth the paper it's written on. 

MR. FRANCE: That all right; thanks. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Just one point of 

clarification; identical means the same. It doesn't mean a 

pair. It means the same. We would be talking about one system 

to do the same function. 

MR. CONWAY: Yes, I realize it would be 

integrated, you're talking about, I picked up that makes a 

difference between an integrated and nonintegrated system. It 

would be one. I just don't understand how you're going to get 

a dual purpose system, you know, how you're going to expand this 

to a dual fuel purpose system with a larger capacity and it's 

outwardly going to look the same and be identical. You 

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engineers can do wonderful things, so I'm waiting to see it. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

Next is Heat Technology. 

Let me just double check. We have one 

more witness that I'm aware of, Hundai. Does anybody else want 

to testify that we don't know about? 

Okay, thank you. 

MR. HELLER: I'm relieved to know I'm not 

the last speaker between the technical filled day and a 

beautiful day within sight. By way of introduction, my name is 

Fred Heller. I'm with a consulting firm called Easton 

Consultants out of Stamford, Connecticut. We're assisting a 

smaller firm called Heat Technology, Incorporated, and after my 

comments, if you have any desire to get in touch with us, you'll 

have to really see me through the card. We're not exactly a 

household name like most of the other entities up here today. 

The reduction of refueling vapor emissions 

is a worthy goal for the Congress and the EPA to address. 

However, the safety of all that use the road is also very 

important. None of us cherish the prospect of trading off 

health and safety in air pollution with health and safety in 

transportation. However, the reality is that these tradeoffs 

must be confronted and dealt with regularly. 

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Onboard vapor recovery canisters have been 

characterized as an unreasonable risk to public safety. We 

disagree. We feel the safety issues regarding onboard vapor 

recovery canisters can be addressed through creative engineering 

and the right combination of existing technology and new 

materials, as well as some of the new things that you're talking 

about this morning. 

By way of example, consider that in the 

home, a common appliance spins razor sharp blades at speeds that 

would severely harm anyone coming in contact with them. We 

protect ourselves from these deadly blades with plastic no 

thicker than a drinking glass and use our food processors without a thought of the danger within. Proper packaging is the 

key, 

The onboard vapor recovery canister is 

very different, but similar attention to detail will render them 

safe. 

The onboard vapor recovery canister may 

present several different safety risks, but we feel they can all 

be addressed with intelligent application of new technology. 

Specifically, our client has a patented 

material in development that shows great promise toward the safe 

implementation of onboard refueling vapor recovery canisters. 

Our client has funded extensive testing at a major independent 

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testing lab that is, as we speak, characterizing the material 

for this specific application. 

We wish to share our view of the risk 

areas and invite knowledgeable experts in this room and 

elsewhere to contact us to expand our test parameters and 

understanding of the problem. 

We are current testing the materials' 

suitability among the following four dimensions: 

First, the canister vapor-fed fire; there 

is a common perception that should a canister rupture in a 

crash, friction or electrostatic sparks may ignite the vapors. 

If the canister was in a vapor-rich state at the time of the 

impact, the fear is such vapors will continue to feed an 

ignition unti1 other combustibles ignite. The preliminary tests 

of our client's material indicates that should this sequence of 

events begin to occur, the material can passively and automatically extinguish such ignitions, preventing the flash from 

sustaining to a point where other combustibles ignite. We 

believe this is a significant and unique capability. 

Secondly, canister explosion; while the 

canister is expected to be both packed with charcoal and contain 

little actual vapor, we've heard that some people can imagine 

a possible scenario where appropriate impacts, pressures, fires 

started elsewhere on the car, and even weather conditions might 

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combine to create a condition where a canister could explode. 

While canister design criteria may eliminate this by other 

means, the testing of our client's material indicated it can 

prevent the explosion of such a container even in such severe 

cases. Testing done for military applications indicates that 

the canister explosive risk can be nullified. 

Third, secondary containment; the new, 

larger canister geometries possible with the new onboard vapor 

recovery process, if they're used, raise the concern that 

canister structural integrity will be more difficult to control 

during an impact than existing canisters. Further, there is 

concern that even extraordinary construction will not assure 

structural integrity in.severe impact. If a canister breaks and 

spills fuel-saturated charcoal, this potentially adds fuel to 

an already high fire risk situation. Our client is performing 

tests to implement secondary charcoal containment even in the 

event of a catastrophic canister structural failure. We believe 

it is possible to use the same material that is performing the 

other safety functions outlined above to do this as well. 

Lastly, shock absorption; to avoid rupture 

of the canister and reduce the risk that it emits any vapors, 

much less any charcoal, the client is testing the ability of the 

same material doing the same things to act as an integrated 

shock absorber as well. 

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Clearly, this patented material holds 

interesting promise toward the goal of implementing safe onboard 

vapor recovery canisters. And, to be fair, other materials and 

approaches from other firms likely exhibit positive performance 

capabilities too. 

What does seem clear is that some combination of materials and technology will effectively address 

concerns stemming from even severe scenarios. 

We feel two things are needed to move this 

process forward: first, safety test parameters; the ability to 

engineer a solution, test it and refine it, presupposes that 

there are safety tests and performance criteria to shoot for. 

While preliminary testing that is underway is a necessary first 

step to characterize the material's use in this application, we 

soon will need to have an approval target. Without such a 

target, any further development funds are at risk of being 

entirely wasted. 

Now there are important vested interests 

that wish to influence the test and approval benchmarks for 

worthwhile reasons; the balance between effectiveness, safety 

and economics is always challenging and nearly always demands 

difficult compromises among many interested parties. However, 

the analysis and tradeoffs can continue beyond the point of 

diminishing returns and, we feel, can do so rather quickly. In 

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our opinion, it is most important to get a solid test requirement, safety test requirement, in the short term rather than a 

precise one in the long term. We feel it is possible to err on 

the side of safety and still end up with a reasonable product 

at reasonable cost in a reasonable time frame. Endless cycles 

of test requirement refinement make the subsequent development 

process shorter and serves no one. 

Second, cooperation; the new recovery 

process capabilities require careful integration of many issues. 

The onboard vapor recovery safety issue is wrapped in competitive issues, public controversy, unknown liability issues and 

daunting engineering requirements bounded by regulations and 

deadlines. These issues can lead to an environment that 

inhibits sharing of information with outside firms. 

Our client is a small firm that has taken 

the initiative to fund development work in this area but clearly 

cannot explore every risk factor and development requirement 

alone. Though new technology is important here, so are the 

lessons learned through years of real ' world automotive parts 

design and analysis. We look forward to working with auto 

makers in developing this new technology in a shared environment 

of integrated system engineering. Without cooperation, 

promising technologies cannot make a contribution and onboard 

vapor recovery is one area where this should not happen. 

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Earlier in this presentation, I mentioned 

how the application of a thin bowl of plastic allows cooks to 

use food processors and regard the appliance as a useful tool 

rather than a dangerous and unpredictable menace. 

Likewise, we feel intelligent application 

of new technology, cooperation in development and an early, 

unambiguous safety design target will lead to onboard vapor 

recovery canister solutions that will make this new requirement 

a safe, dependable component of our daily lives. Thank you. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much. 

MR. PASSAVANT: Can you tell us what type 

of material you could provide us in the written record on your 

technology and do you have a brochure or any kind of material, 

a copy of the patent, for example, that you could provide us? 

MR. HELLER: I'd be happy to supply some 

materials and samples. There is no sales material at this point 

in time. The material is still in development. It is not something currently on the market. It is really just now emerging. 

MR. PASSAVANT: But there is a patent? 

MR. HELLER: There is a patent. 

MR. PASSAVANT: You could provide that to 

us? 

MR. HELLER: It's not specific to this 

application, but it's a material with advanced fire 

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extinguishing capabilities and I'd be happy to supply it, yes. 

MR. PASSAVANT: If you'd like us to 

consider what you're talking about, we need to have something 

concrete to be able to work with, or plastic, whatever it is. 

MR. HELLER: Very good. 

MR. WILSON: Thank you very much for 

coming. 

Apparently, Hundai is not testifying. 

Unless somebody else wants to testify, I think that concludes 

the hearing. Thank you all for being here today. 

(Proceedings concluded at 3:00 p.m.) 

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STATE OF MICHIGAN ) 

COUNTY OF WASHTENAW) 

I, Susan Beale, Court Reporter, do hereby certify that 

this transcript, consisting of 176 pages, is a complete, true 

and correct record of the Public Hearing of the Environmental 

Protection Agency, In the Matter of: Control of Air Pollution 

from New Motor Vehicles and New Motor Vehicle Engines; 

Refueling Emission Regulations for Light-Duty Vehicles and 

Trucks and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, EPA Docket #A-87-11, held at 

Domino's Farms Conference Center, 44 Frank Lloyd Wright Drive, 

Ann Arbor, Michigan, on July 22, 1993. 

Susan Beale, CSMR 2741 

Western Wayne Court Reporting Service 

Plymouth, Michigan 

(313) 453-7232 

176