Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.1...-&1 ~ E lr) r-... C"l ...... J ust a year ago, the California legislature gave th e California Air R e s o u r c e s Bo a r d (CA R B) authority to set e missions standards for both on-road and off-road motorcycles. Th is came in the wake of a controversial _ Motorcycle e • • ISSIOns: proposal by the Federal EPA wh ich wo uld have restrict ed sale and operati on of motorcycles in Californ ia, go ing so far as to to tally b an two-str o kes. Sin ce all the flap has died down, observe rs hav e been wai tin g for the various govern m en t agencies to drop th e ot he r shoe. No w, CARB has announced a publi c hearing July 15 in San Francisco on a proposed limit of 1;0 grams per kilometer (grn/km) of hydrocarbons ( H C) on all on-road motorcy cles By Lane Campbell beginning with the 197 8 model year. That's a heavy thump. You 'll see i n Table I how currentl y-o ffered motorcycles measure up in hydro carbon emissions with no UNCONTROLLED MOTORCYCLE EMISSION TEST DATA controls. There are some small four-stroke engines that could me et a 1.0 grn/km limit with no modifications Nomin'al Engine He Emissions - all Hondas. (Note : when EPA is the Tested by gm/k m , Size (eel Manufacturer test agency, they refuse to name the make of bike tested. In most cases, though. the source is pretty obvious.] Everyone in the industry concedes that. if adopted, a 1.0 gm/km limit would virtually eliminate two-stro kes from on-road use. This should explain the " up in the air" feeling you 're going to get at new model introductions this coming year. With production schedules NA having to be set a year or more in Yamaha advance and nobody able to guess what the government will finally slap us with. Suzuki everyone is grasping at straws. Except, Honda m aybe, Honda. The firms th at have NA built their road line around two-stro kes are scrambling hardest. Yamaha and NA: Suzuki are going to hurt th e worst, if it Kawasaki all comes to pass. Yamaha Just be cause the one gram limit has been proposed. however. it is not yet Yamaha cast in concrete. Some say the proposal Suzuki is a political ploy to stir the Federal Suzuki EPA into action. It comes at a time when CARB is skirmishing with EPA · Honda over pollution emergency planning, and Kawasaki with the Los Angeles Air Pollution Kawasaki Con trol District over stationary source monitoring and enforcement. It puts the Kawasaki issue of motorcycle emissions against a Yamifia visibly shifting ba ckground of Kawasaki bureaucratic position-fighting. . In order for the one gram limit to go Kawasaki in to effect, two things must happen. Suzuki First, CARB must hold a public Suzuki hearing on the proposal. Th at will be the one at the Un ified School District Building, 170 Fell St. in San Francisco on July 15. On ce public co mm en ts are in. and CARB still de cides to go ahead wit h the one gram standard, they must then obtain a waiver from the Federal EP A acco rding to an established procedure, since their standard will be in effect more stringent th an nationwide Federal standards (o f which there are none for motorcycles, at present.] In granting or denying such a waiver , the Feds have made it clear they will use only the legalistic guidelines from the Clean Air A ct of 1970. EPA Administrator Russell Train has stated, co ncerning a similar auto emissions Honda waiver that was granted: "I do not view the arguments of increased cost or fuel EPA economy penalties , or only marginal Kawasaki improvements in air quality, advanced SwRI by some as arguments again st the w a iver, as controlling in my EPA decision ... " In short, Mr. Train and the Feds are say ing, " We don't care how the y do it in California ". No matter that controls Th ese figures represent the best available test data on vario us 19 73·1 97 5 may waste money, waste fuel. or make models. Data sources ("Tested by") range f rom indust ry to go vemm ent to little difference in overall air quality. If it's done according to the letter of the private labs. "NA " means not available. as EPA refuses to reveal th e law, the Feds won't interfere. brands test ed. One ray of hope shines in the whole messy business. CARB's own st aff, in a report for the board, has recommended CARBdrops the other shoe 8 that the bo ard not adop t a motorcycle em ission st andard for California, but ins tead wait an d ad o pt pr oposed new EPA regu la tions when th ey are released. The draft EPA standards cal l for a Jan. I , 19 78 effective date, wo uld set 5. 0 grn /km fo r bikes under 170 cc. 14 grn/km fo r bikes over 750cc, and a slidi ng sca le between those figu res for bikes 171 -74 9cc. Off-road bi kes would rem ain uncontroll ed. Unde r t h is 5· 14 grn/km plan, fo ur-st rokes wo uld need no add it io nal co n t ro ls. Four o ut of t he 25 two-strokes in Table I co uld get by without co ntro ls, also. As fo r the rest, CARB's staff say s " simple engin e modifica tions" would bri ng most into co mp lian ce. They also sta te that with these unnamed modifications, " An improvement in fuel economy of 5- 10 percent (is) expected by most manufacturers . " Apparently they are looking toward general detuning, leaner mixtures, and higher overall gearing to achieve the desired result. Industry spokesmen are expected to lean heavily in favor of the CARB staff report. Cost of co mp liance is estimated at about one fourth that for bringing cars into compliance with the 1977 standards already on the books. At this poin t, the industry is ready to agree to anything that offers a way out. Going a bit deeper into the board's motivation, it helps to examine the CARB staff's " Em issio n inventories" for the SoCal Air Basin' ( S C A B) . .. (someho w th e acronym fits . . . Ed.) According to their figures, motor vehicles, all types, pump 599 tons/day of HC into the area. Of that, 17 tons/day . or 2.8 percent, is a t tri b u tab le to motorcycles. Sm all potatoes, huh ? CARB's justification for going a t this thing at all is, because all other sources are under control, motorcycles, as th e largest uncontrolled group. will acco un t for a greater percentage as time goes by. Their figures bear this out. As ever-tighter co ntrols on cars and trucks take hold, overall emissions will drop to 216 tons/day b y 1985 while uncontrolled motorcycle emissions rise to 24 tons/day, or 11 percent of the total. Eleven percent is still small potatoes, especially when you realize these figures don 't include the emissions from all stationary (industrial) sources. What it boils down to is the bureaucrat's standard jealousy of any thing or group not under bureaucratic con tro!. We happen to be the most visible " unc o n t ro lled" group left. The CARB staff has not figured the effe c ts of a on e gram/kilometer standard yet. but they have ca lcu lated th at the EPA co n tr o ls would, on a sales -wei ghted average, de crease per-bike emissio ns by 40 percen t an d hold the line at 17 tons/day overall in the face of rising motorcycle sales . The staff has con cluded that the costs / bene fits ' are favo ra ble for th e EPA plan, and the report (as stated earlier) recommends that CARB sit tight until EPA moves. . The one gram standard is th e board's way of signalling that they don 't trust the EPA to move. The sticky part. for all riders, is th e fact that what began as a political prod could, if unopposed. become a binding regulation through the efforts of conservationists and motorcycle-haters. Industry spo kesmen will be closeted with the board in a closed work session before the July I 5 hearing, and they also will make public statements at the hearing. Without input from motorcycle buyers, however, their presentations, though perfectly co rrec t, could ring hollow in the ears of the bureaucrats. If you have an interest in this issue, send your comments to California Air Resources Board, 9 528 Telstar Ave., El Monte, Calif. 91731. Better yet, try to sha ke loose o n July 15 and a tt e nd the hearing. The worst thing you co uld possibly do is sit silent. •

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