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This paper summarizes current work in the Environmental Science & Health Effects (ES&HE) Program being sponsored by DOE's Office of Heavy Vehicle Technologies (OHVT) through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The program is regulatory-driven, and focuses on ozone, airborne particles, visibility and regional haze, air toxics, and health effects of air pollutants. The goal of the ES&HE Program is to understand atmospheric impacts and potential health effects that may be caused by the use of petroleum-based and alternative transportation fuels. Each project in the program is designed to address policy-relevant objectives. Studies in the ES&HE Program have four areas of focus: improving technology for emissions measurements; vehicle emissions measurements, emission inventory development/improvement; and ambient impacts, including health effects.

In-use, light-duty vehicles were recruited in Cary, North Carolina for emissions testing on a transportable dynamometer in 1999. Two hundred forty-eight vehicles were tested in as received condition using the IM240 driving cycle. The study was conducted in two phases, a summer and winter phase, with half of the vehicles recruited during each phase. Regulated emissions, PM10, carbonaceous PM, aldehydes and ketones were measured for every test. PM2.5, individual volatile hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, sterane and hopane emissions were measured from a subset of the vehicles. Average light-duty gasoline PM10 emission rates increased from 6.5 mg/mi for 1993-97 vehicles to 53.8 mg/mi for the pre-1985 vehicles. The recruited fleet average, hot-stabilized IM240 PM10 emission rate for gasoline vehicles was 19.0 mg/mi.