The California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP) announced July 12 that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has joined the OEMs, fuel cell companies, energy providers, and government agencies supporting the organization. CaFCP, a public-private venture to demonstrate and promote fuel cell vehicles, works with its member organizations to provide testing and evaluation of technologies, components and platforms related to fuel cell vehicles.

The CaFCP is testing vehicles supplied by major automakers, as well as power and energy stor-age technology and fueling systems. The EPA and its Office of Transportation and Air Quality is responsible for the national air pollution program, including developing national standards for re-ducing tailpipe emissions, testing procedures for measuring tailpipe pollution, and evaluating envi-ronmental performance and costs of cleaner vehicles. The CaFCP says it plans to place more than 60 fuel cell passenger cars and buses on the road by the end of 2003. For more information on the Cali-fornia Fuel Cell Partnership, visit the Web site at www.fuelcellpartnership.org.