The Obama administration on Monday announced new fuel and automobile rules to cut soot, smog and toxic emissions, which it says will reduce asthma and heart attacks in the United States.

 

The so-called Tier 3 rules unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency have been under development since President Barack Obama issued a memorandum instructing the agency to develop them in 2010.

 

The rules, the third tier in a series of standards, will cut gasoline sulfur levels by more than 60 percent and should also reduce tailpipe and evaporative emissions from cars, light and medium-duty trucks and some heavy-duty vehicles.

 

Health advocates praised the move, while a petroleum refiners' group called the compliance schedule "unrealistic" and warned of potential supply disruptions.

 

The rules will be phased in under schedules that vary by vehicle class, generally starting between model years 2017 and 2025, the EPA said.

 

Once fully in place, the standards will help avoid up to 2,000 premature deaths per year and 50,000 cases of respiratory ailments in children while adding only an average of 1 cent per gallon to the cost of gasoline, the agency estimated.

 

Total health benefits in 2030 will be between $6.7 billion and $19 billion annually, the EPA said.

 

The standards are an attempt to cut the sulfur content of gasoline to 10 parts per million from 30 ppm currently. This would boost efficiency for new emission control technologies that automakers will use to help achieve the administration's wider clean car standards, the agency said.

 

Every gasoline-powered vehicle on the road built prior to the Tier 3 standards will run cleaner, cutting smog-forming nitrous oxide emissions by 260,000 tons in 2018.

 

Industry groups complained that the new standards were not based on a timetable that is achievable by refiners.