EPA TOLD TO REQUIRE FUME DEVICE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993                   TAG: 9301230053
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short
EPA TOLD TO REQUIRE FUME DEVICE
A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to make auto manufacturers start installing special canisters on cars and light trucks to control gasoline fumes.
Congress, as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act, mandated that vehicles coming off the assembly lines beginning with the 1996 model year be equipped with the onboard refueling vapor recovery (ORVR) systems.
But four days before the Michigan primary last March, then-President Bush announced that the EPA was backing off implementing regulations as part of a regulatory relief package for the hard-pressed auto industry.
"EPA's decision not to promulgate ORVR standards was beyond the pale of its statutory authority," said a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
In an opinion written by Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards, the appeals court rejected the Bush administration's contention that EPA had the discretion under the 1990 law to reject the devices after the National Transportation Safety Board concluded they pose a fire hazard.
Hydrocarbon vapors that build up in gasoline tanks and escape into the atmosphere when motorists fill up are considered a major source of ozone smog in many metropolitan areas.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB