Transportation
Aug. 9, 2002
Judge Nudges U.S. on Clean Cars
SAN FRANCISCO - A U.S. District Court judge has ordered federal agencies to reveal how they will comply with a little-known law that could require the government to purchase tens of thousands of clean-fuel vehicles, although he stopped short of actually forcing the departments to buy the cars and trucks.
Judge William Alsup found that even the federal government agreed it had largely not complied with a 1992 law requiring government fleets to contain increasing numbers of alternative-fuel vehicles. By 1999 and beyond, 75 percent of new purchases were to fall in that category.
With an estimated 600,000 vehicles in the government's fleet, the mandate could provide a significant boost to the market for vehicles running on natural gas, electricity or other alternative power sources, environmentalists hope.
An attorney for the environmental groups, who filed their suit in January, said the government was at least 13,000 vehicles short of the law's goal, although he said the actual shortfall was probably much larger.
Alsup declined to order the agencies to come into compliance or accelerate their purchases to make up the deficit.
"The act's purposes would be extremely ill-served by funneling government purchasing decisions through a court," Alsup wrote in a ruling issued July 26. "Whatever Congress intended, it certainly did not intend for a court to become the de facto vehicle purchasing agent for the federal government," he wrote in Center for Biological Diversity v. Abraham, C02-00027WHA.
Even so, in finding that the environmental groups had standing to bring their case, the judge said the plaintiffs would be helped if the government increased its alternative fuel vehicle purchases. He said that was true in part because "the much larger private market would follow the government's lead, at least to a degree."
But instead of ordering the purchases outright, Alsup ordered the government to file compliance reports by Nov. 26. Environmentalists who brought the suit said the law requires those reports to spell out the agencies' past performance, as well as include a plan for complying with the purchasing requirements.
"These compliance plans, hopefully, will spur the action we're looking for," said Jay Tuchton, a Denver attorney with the nonprofit Earthjustice law office. Tuchton represented the environmental groups in the case. If the agencies were to fully comply, he said, within a few years the government would own as many as 400,000 alternative fuel cars and trucks.
While Tuchton said he was disappointed Alsup did not order the government to begin purchasing vehicles to make up for its past failure to comply, he said the ruling was a step in the right direction. He noted the law was signed by President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, and that it enjoys backing from farm states and natural gas interests.
"We're still optimistic," Tuchton said. "This is a law that was just gathering dust."
Alsup also ordered the Department of Energy to begin developing rules that could ultimately require local governments and large private fleets to comply with the law. First, he ordered the department to submit a timetable by Aug. 26 for developing those rules.
Energy Department officials could not be reached for comment.
Dennis Pfaff
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