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Wednesday, June 16,
2004
Parliamentary committees to discuss return to
diesel
Public buses may once again be allowed to use cheaper fuel
By Nada Raad
Daily Star staff
BEIRUT : Five Parliament committees will meet jointly on Thursday to discuss an urgent draft law proposed by Kesrouan MP Farid Khazen and Marjayoun-Hasbaya MP Nazih Mansour that would allow 16 and 24-seat buses to run on diesel outside major cities.
The committee meetings come nearly two years after the government banned the use of diesel for most vehicles, in a move that reduced air pollution but which some critics now say was a measure balanced on the backs of those least able to pay.
Government-owned buses above 24 seats are still allowed to run on diesel, but 16-24 seat buses are banned from doing so.
According to Mansour, the proposed law allowing smaller buses to operate outside of smog-clogged cities will have to be accompanied by strict regulations stipulating the use of environmentally friendly diesel fuel as well as pollution-reducing engines.
"The government should not allow cars originally running on fuel engines to switch their engines into ones running on diesel," he said.
However, according to Tammam Nakkash, managing partner of Team International, an engineering consultancy, "if amended, the law would not be practical."
"How would they implement the new law?" he asked. "Would they stop buses running on diesel at the door of every city and switch them into buses running on fuel. ... They are really messing up. Let the government stop issuing laws that they never implement."
In response, Mansour said that there would have to be bus stations at the entrance of cities for dropping off passengers.
More than just the usual questions surround implementation, some observers also take issue with the original law banning diesel use.
"The government's decision to ban 16 and 24-seats buses from running on diesel was political more then environmental," Aley MP Akram Chehayeb told The Daily Star.
Chehayeb, who is also chairman of Parliament's Environment Committee, said he had not had a chance to review Mansour and Khazen's proposal.
According to environmental activist and Green Line Campaigner Firas Abi Ghanem, the government's original decision to ban diesel "was made at the expense of taxi drivers and mini-buses."
"Although air pollution decreased after the government's decision to ban diesel, it only did so at the expense of the poorer sectors, and was made in the absence of a transportation strategy," Abi Ghanem said.
Furthermore, he said, when the Transportation Ministry presented a transportation strategy to Cabinet in August 2003, it failed to even mention the impact of transportation policies on the environment.
Meanwhile, in a meeting Tuesday, land transport unions called on the five committees that will meet Thursday to approve a draft law allowing taxis to run on diesel according to certain environmental conditions.
However, as with the proposal regarding buses, Abi Ghanem, for one, argued that monitoring new engines running on diesel in a country where regulations are sometimes disregarded could end up undercutting the original purposes of the legislation.
As it currently stands, it is unclear whether the five committees set to meet on Thursday will approve the proposal.
The committees include: The Finance and Budget Committee, the Public Works, Transport, Energy and Water Committee, the Defense, Interior and Municipalities Committee, the Economy, Trade, Industry and Oil Committee, and the Environment Committee.
cheated at the pump?
According to some Lebanese consumers, "fill it up" doesn't quite mean what it used to. That's because, according to a new study from Consumer's Lebanon , some gas stations mix different fuels or simply skimp on what should be a 20-liter tank of gasoline.
Whatever the scheme, the result is that consumers are being cheated.
"We decided to start the study after we received several complaints from consumers who noticed a more rapid than usual consumption of fuel and some technical problems with their cars," Consumers' Lebanon president Zuhair Berro told The Daily Star.
According to the two-month study of 160 gas stations across Lebanon , 22 were found to be selling sub-par fuel - often mixing diesel and kerosene with regular unleaded. Some were also found to be filling cars with 18-liters of fuel instead of 20-liters, a practice that has apparently accelerated in the last two months following price increases.
For Berro, gas stations are simply "cheating" their customers by mixing fuels, since it reduces the normal distance a car can cover with the same amount of fuel, and can result in major technical problems.