You may have heard by now the Pres. Clinton has signed in to law a bill that
will tighten the pollution laws for cars, light trucks, & SUV's.  Included in
the law is a mandate to Big Oil that allowable sulphur levels in gasoline must
fall from 300ppm presently to 30ppm somewhere around 2006.

Now, I'm not an expert on this law.  Don't know the details, etc., but I have
heard the following two points and it has me concerned:

1)  A spokesperson for some anti-pollution group stated that this is "tremendous
legislation...it will take 54 million vehicles off American roads almost
overnight when fully enacted..."  Huh?  Does this mean that any vehicle over X
years old can not be driven?  Isn't there some kind of grandfather clause?

2)  The auto industry and the oil refining industry are not fightin this tough
new law as they previously have other pollution and safety legislation.  If 54
million vehicles are made obsolete over night, I wouldn't fight it either, for
one simple reason - $$$$$ - and a lot of them.

(Here's the required Vanagon content)

Is the lower sulphur levels is the next generation of gasoline going to do
terrible things to our WBX engines?  I seem to recall that there was a lowering
of sulphur levels in Diesel fuel some years ago.  It supposedly played hell on
VW, Volvo, MB, and other automotive Diesel engines because the sulphur was
acting as a fuel system lubricant (?) and the lack thereof caused injector and
injector pump failure (at least that's how I remember it).

Alan Bosch
& Phred ('88 Wolfsburg)
Rochester, NY