Car dealers in New Mexico last November filed suit in federal court to prevent the state and the city of Albuquerque from enacting stricter pollution controls on new cars. Now a coalition of New Mexico environmental, consumer protection and health groups has intervened in the case, siding with the two governments.



The issue revolves around the clean-cars program originally adopted by California in 2002 that holds car manufacturers to tough, new standards as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Federal judges have upheld the state’s right to require automakers to provide their state with cleaner cars, provided California gets a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So far the EPA has denied the waiver.



Meantime more than a dozen states have taken advantage of a provision in the federal Clean Air Act that allows other states to adopt the California standards. New Mexico joined that group in November, through parallel votes by the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo Air Quality Control Board.



The New Mexico move was quickly challenged at both the state and federal levels by more than a dozen car dealers statewide, including Zangara Dodge in Albuquerque and Jack Key Motors of Alamogordo, Deming and Las Cruces, along with the National Automobile Dealers Association. Four New Mexico legislators signed onto the state-court lawsuit, too, though that one was dismissed by a Las Cruces judge on technical grounds. It is being appealed.



But the federal court case continues to move forward, and late last week a coalition of 13 groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the American Lung Association of New Mexico filed to intervene. Lauren Ketcham, representing the lead organization in the coalition, Environment New Mexico, called the car dealers’ lawsuit "frivolous," since federal judges in California and Vermont have ruled against the car industry in similar cases. In a statement, Ketcham added:

"We’re confident that the court will uphold New Mexico’s program. It’s unfortunate that the auto industry continues to fight innovation, rather than rolling up their sleeves and working to deliver the cleaner vehicles drivers want."

Cars built to the new standards could cost slightly more — up to $300, Ketcham says — but one provision of the California standards is that their gas savings would exceed those costs. At $3.10 a gallon, Ketcham said, New Mexicans could save 213 million gallons of gas, worth about $623 million, over the average lifetime of the cars purchased here.



The plaintiffs argue that the added cost of building cars to the tougher standards will drive customers to neighboring states to buy new cars and trucks. They also contend that only a state can adopt the California standards, and that the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Air Quality Board does not have that authority.



The Natural Resources Defense Council is representing the coalition, which also includes Environmental Defense, Southwest Environmental Center, 1000 Friends of New Mexico, New Mexico Physicians for Social Responsibility, Southwest Energy Alliance, Consumer Federation of America, New Mexico Public Interest Research Group, Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy, and New Energy Economy.