Another for  the "Let's Hear It For Bureaucracy" file:

The state of Ohio is refusing to license a three-wheel electric vehicle distributed by Northern California's Zap because it has a car seat instead of a motorcycle-type saddle for the driver to straddle.

As a three-wheeler, the Zap Xebra pickup is considered to be a motorcycle instead of a passenger car – almost every state says vehicles with three wheels or fewer are motorcycles.

But in Ohio a motorcycle has to have a saddle.

 That means thata three-wheeler with a regular car seat -- bucket or bench -- is neither car nor 'cycle per Ohio law and can't be registered in that state, according to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

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Governors of 12 states that want the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using an ambitious criteria established by California have threatened to sue the federal government to block what they call a Bush administration bid to preempt their efforts.

Led by California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governors earlier this week sent a letter to Bush expressing "disappointment" in language, buried deep in a 417-page proposal for a new federal corporate average fuel economy – CAFE -- standard, that would prohibit individual states from setting automotive tailpipe emissions limits that would impact fuel economy.

Efforts to control automotive greenhouse gases inevitably require improvements in fuel economy because the major automotive greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide chief among them – are a direct result of the amount of gasoline or other carbon-based fuels burned per mile traveled.

California wants to require a 30 percent cut in automotive greenhouse gases, which would require new cars and trucks sold in the state to be averaging 42 miles per gallon by 2020.

Federal law now requires automakers' fleets to average 35 mpg nationally by 2020.

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Ford is among the companies working on plug-in gas-electric hybrids.

In a bid to promote plug-in hybrid development, the University of California's Davis campus is cosponsoring what it calls the world's first international conference on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

The confab, to be held July 22-24 in San Jose, California, appears to be in response to California's recent endorsement of plug-in technology in the revision of its controversial Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) Mandate.

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The nation's automobile manufacturers would have to raise fleet-wide fuel economy standards by 25 percent – to 31.6 miles per gallon – by model year 2015 under a proposal announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.

The standards mark the Transportation Department's initial response to the energy bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last year that requires the nation's new cars and trucks to collectively average 35 mpg by 2020.

Peters' proposal would move the industry halfway there. Because the department is limited by federal law to setting the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standard for only five years at a time, a new proposal will be needed  for the 2015-2020 period to bring the fleet up to the 35 miles per gallon level.

Today's interim rule would raise the CAFE standard for new passenger cars to 35.7 mpg by model year 2015 and increase the standard for new light trucks to 28.6 mpg for the same model year.

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Amid growing concern that super-quiet hybrid and electric vehicles can be dangerous for sight-impaired pedestrians, a bipartisan bill aimed at setting a minimum sound level for cars and trucks sold in the U.S. was introduced in Congress Wednesday.

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2008 would require the federal Transportation Department to determine whether a minimum sound level is needed and, if so, to set one.

The bill was prompted by concerns that blind pedestrians could not hear electric vehicles or hybrids at intersections and crosswalks.

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By John O’Dell, Senior Editor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Well, California’s Air Resources Board has spoken, and if we understand what it said, the state’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate now requires three times as many “pure” ZEVs as its staff was recommending, but 70 percent fewer than were required when the board’s monthly meeting was called to order this morning.

The board also voted to have its staff take the next 18 months or so to completely revise the historic mandate to create a more streamlined and easier-to-follow set of regulations.

The ZEV Mandate has guided alternative vehicle development in the U.S. since it was first approved in 1990. The board wants to tackle the revision, which would take effect in 2015, in a series of meetings that will begin late next year.

Meantime, it set new ZEV requirements for automakers to meet over the three-year stretch from 2012 through 2014.

If the numbers sound even a little confusing, then thank your stars you didn’'t have to sit through the roughly 7-hour meeting that was required to get there.

The short version is that after more than a year of hearings and staff reports aimed at updating the mandate for the first time since 2003, the board decided to override the staff recommendation for the number of zero emission vehicles the state will require major automakers to produce for sale in California for the three year-period until a revised law would take effect.

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ZEV Mandate's goal of clean vehicles such as EV1 hasn't been realized.

While our colleague Nick K is sipping champagne in Monaco (see item below) we'll be up in lovely Sacramento, capital of California and the place where former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger now holds down a day job, to monitor a hearing on proposed updates to the state's historic and controversial Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate.

Thursday's all-day session will pit supporters of the battery-powered electric vehicle against automakers and, it appears, the staff of the California Air Resources Board, as the first significant ZEV Mandate updates since 2003 are considered by the board.

The big issue is that while present regulations call for the nation's major automakers to collectively build a minimum of 25,000 zero emissions vehicles for sale in the state between 2012 and 2014 and 50,000 between 2015 and 2017, the air board's staff is recommending the numbers be cut by 90 percent, to just 2,500, in the first period and by 50 percent, to 25,000, in the second phase.

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California's campaign to allow it and other states to set greenhouse gas tailpipe standards has come under attack from an unlikely source: Minnesota's ethanol industry.

Ethanol producers have sided with automakers in Minnesota to fight legislation by state lawmakers there that would require Minnesota to adopt California's greenhouse gas emissions standards should California prevail in its lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency and wins the right to do so.
 
The ethanol producers and other locally powerful groups including Minnesota's corn growers fear California's emissions regulations could stymie the state's booming ethanol business.

Environmentalists say their fears are totally unfounded and the legislation could in fact actually help the ethanol market.

Read about the battle, and learn from an informative point-counterpoint feature on ethanol issues, in this report by Minnpost.com.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

California's clean air regulators are updating the state's controversial zero emissions vehicle, or ZEV, mandate and are holding a public hearing in Sacramento next week to hear comment on the proposed revisions.

In advance of that, the Plug In America advocacy group today sent a lengthy letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, urging him to influence the panel to protect present rules calling for automakers to collectively build 25,000 zero emissions vehicles for sale in the state between 2012 and 2014 and 50,000 between 2015 and 2017.

One of the proposed changes would cut the number of ZEVs to just 2,500 in the first stage of the build-up and to 25,000 in the second stage.

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House Democrats introduced legislation Thursday that would overturn an EPA decision barring California from setting greenhouse gas emissions standards for automobiles sold in the state.

The issue is important far beyond California's borders, because 18 other states have adopted or have signaled intent to adopt the regulations California wants to impose.

That process is permitted by the federal Clean Air Act, which gives California the sole right among states to set its own air quality standards, but permits other states to use California's rules if they want regulations that are more stringent than federal. Before enforcing its own regulations, though, California must first obtain an EPA waiver.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson last week formally rejected the California waiver after sitting on the state's request for two years.

"The EPA has a history of stonewalling on this issue," Rep. Peter Welch, the Vermont Democrat who introduced the bill with California Democrat Brad Sherman and 58 cosponsors, told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will take up the bill, but there's no guarantee it will leave the committee. Its chairman, Michigan Democrat John Dingell, supported the EPA's decision to block the waiver.

Regardless, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer has already introduced an equivalent Senate bill, and as chair of the committee that oversees the EPA, has repeatedly criticized Johnson over the waiver denial since he informally announced his decision on December 19.