If Illinois is serious about cleaning up our air and turning back global warming, we must be serious about cars. Automobiles and light trucks are a primary source of smog, fine-particle soot and heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions. As long as we continue to drive vehicles that are designed and operate like today’s cars, we’re fighting a losing battle to improve our environment.

States around the country have recognized that they can’t wait for the federal government to take action on auto emissions linked to global warming. Led by groundbreaking legislation in California, 13 states have now passed laws that will require auto manufacturers to sell only “clean cars.” The California regulations will achieve a 23 percent reduction in global warming emissions from new vehicles by 2012 and a 30 percent reduction by 2016. Currently, the states are fighting with the U.S. EPA to allow the rules to be put into effect.

What’s a Clean Car?

Clean car standards require that vehicles create less carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions. The California clean cars program has three components: a Low-Emission Vehicle program, which sets strong standards for emissions of smog-forming and toxic air pollutants; a Zero-Emission Vehicle program, which promotes advanced-technology vehicles such as hybrids, fuel-cell vehicles and electric vehicles; and Global Warming Emission Standards, which limit emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming.

Automakers don’t have to spend billions in research creating an unimaginably futuristic car to achieve these goals. With current technologies, automakers could lighten vehicles, improve the performance of engine components such as the ignitions system, and reconfigure the air conditioning systems. Hybrid electrics are just one option to create a cleaner car.

Clean cars help the environment primarily by using less gasoline. So while it is true that significantly greener clean cars are projected to cost about $1,000 more than current models, they also cost less to operate. The California Clean Cars Campaign calculates that a driver will recoup the extra cost of a clean car in less than three years, and save more than $3,000 in fuel over the lifetime of the car—and that estimate was made for gas at $2.30 a gallon.

The Role of Illinois

Here in Illinois, policymakers have been moving toward a clean car law of our own (read more in Issues). That’s a huge step, because Illinois is one of only two Midwestern states with more than 10 million registered vehicles, according to the Environmental Law and Policy Center, and nearly 40 percent of the nation’s cars would be covered by clean car legislation if Illinois joins the states that have already passed similar laws.

Illinois won’t be the first state to initiate clean car legislation. But due to its size and location in the country’s heartland, it could be the tipping point on this issue. If Illinois requires automakers to provide clean cars, the industry may decide it’s just more efficient to only build clean models. Please join us in advocating for clean cars here in Illinois—it’s an opportunity to make a huge impact on the health of citizens and habitat here in the state and around the country.