The new standards are intended to reduce air pollution, the Agency explains

Mar 4, 2014 09:36 GMT  ·  By

Just yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States announced new vehicle emission standards that it says will reduce the amount of pollutants hovering over the country and thus yield major benefits both financial- and health-wise.

On its website, the Agency details that its new car emission standards boil down to drastically reducing the sulfur content of fuel used to power vehicles.

Thus, the Agency expects that, by the year 2017, gasoline sulfur levels will drop by about 60% when compared to their current value. More precisely, they will be reduced from 30 parts per million to just 10 parts per million.

“Reducing sulfur in gasoline enables vehicle emission control technologies to perform more efficiently,” the Environmental Protection Agency writes in a press release on the matter at hand.

“New low-sulfur gas will provide significant and immediate health benefits because every gas-powered vehicle on the road built prior to these standards will run cleaner,” it adds.

Specialists working with the Agency expect that, thanks to these new standards, the amount of soot, smog, and toxic emissions that cars and trucks driven across the United States produce on a yearly basis will greatly be reduced.

It is expected that, once these so-called Tier 3 emissions standards for cars and light trucks come into effect in 2017, the overall health condition of people living in the United States will improve to a considerable extent.

More so given the fact that the Obama administration is also making progress towards promoting fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to the automotive industry.

Specifically, the Agency claims that, together with other cleaner cars programs, the new standards will annually prevent somewhere between 225 – 610 premature deaths and also cut ambient concentrations of ozone and nitrogen oxide emissions by about 260,000 tons by 2018.

By 2030, they will prevent some 2,000 premature deaths, 50,000 cases of respiratory problems in children, and 2,200 hospital admissions and asthma-related emergency room visits.

The Agency also expects that, by 2030, the health-related benefits resulting from the implementation of these new standards will amount to $6.7 –19 billion (€4.86 – 13.79 billion).

“These standards are a win for public health, a win for our environment, and a win for our pocketbooks,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement.

Furthermore, “By working with the auto industry, health groups, and other stakeholders, we're continuing to build on the Obama administration's broader clean fuels and vehicles efforts that cut carbon pollution, clean the air we breathe, and save families money at the pump.”