美国就虚报油耗案处现代和起亚高额罚款

WASHINGTON — The Korean automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors will pay the federal government a combined $300 million in penalties as part of a settlement for overstating vehicle fuel-economy standards on 1.2 million vehicles, the Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday.

华盛顿——美国司法部(Justice Department)和国家环境保护局（Environmental Protection Agency，简称EPA）周一宣布，韩国汽车制造商现代汽车(Hyundai Motor)和起亚汽车(Kia Motors)将向联邦政府支付总计3亿美元（约合18亿元人民币）罚款。这是就两家制造商夸大120万辆车的节油标准所达成和解的部分内容。

The penalty is the largest ever for a violation of the Clean Air Act, government officials said.

政府官员称，这是有史以来因违反《清洁空气法》(Clean Air Act)而开出的最高罚单。

Under the agreement, the automakers will pay $100 million in fines and forfeit an estimated $200 million in greenhouse gas emissions credits, which auto companies earn by building vehicles with lower emissions than are required by law.

相关协议规定，两家汽车制造商将支付1亿美元罚款，并且估计会失去价值2亿美元的温室气体排放许可。汽车公司通过生产低于法定排放标准的车辆，才能获得温室气体排放许可。

“This type of conduct quite simply will not be tolerated,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., said at a joint news conference at the Justice Department with Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A. administrator. The Justice Department, he added, “will never rest or waver in our determination to take action against any company that engages in such activities."

“决不能姑息这种行为，”司法部长小埃里克·H·霍尔德(Eric H. Holder Jr.)在司法部与EPA局长吉娜·麦卡锡(Gina McCarthy)举行联合新闻发布会时说。他接着说，司法部“誓要打击从事这类活动的公司，我们的决心绝不会松懈或动摇”。

Ms. McCarthy said that the action reinforced her agency’s determination to uphold the Clean Air Act. “Businesses that play by the rules shouldn’t have to compete with those breaking the law,” she said.

麦卡锡表示，这件事坚定了她领导的EPA捍卫《清洁空气法》的决心。“不应该让那些违法乱纪的企业，和遵纪守法的企业竞争，”她说。

In 2012, Hyundai and Kia, which are both owned by the Hyundai Motor Group, admitted that they had overstated the fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States over the previous two years. The admission came after an E.P.A. investigation into consumer complaints that their cars were underperforming the official mileage estimates on the window stickers of new cars. Although few drivers achieve the mileage claimed on the stickers, the government requires automakers to conduct standardized tests to calculate the figures so that buyers can more easily compare the fuel efficiency of different models.

2012年，同属现代汽车集团(Hyundai Motor Group)的现代汽车和起亚汽车，承认夸大了之前两年在美销售的车辆的节油能力。此前EPA接到消费者投诉，称自己所购车辆的节油性能，低于新车车窗标签上给出的官方节油估值，EPA随即展开调查。尽管几乎没有驾驶员能达到标签上宣称的里程数，政府还是要求汽车制造商进行标准化测试，以计算出相关数据，这样消费者就能更容易地比较不同车型的燃油效率。

At the time, both Hyundai and Kia apologized for what they called “procedural errors” in testing that resulted in incorrect mileage stickers on some of their most popular models, including the Hyundai Elantra and Kia Rio. The companies continue to say that the misstatement of fuel mileage was inadvertent and that they did not intentionally mislead customers.

当时，现代和起亚均表示道歉，称测试过程中的“程序上的差错”，导致现代伊兰特(Elantra)和起亚锐欧(Rio)等部分最受欢迎的车型上出现了不正确的里程标签。这两家公司接着表示，错误的燃油里程信息是无意之举，公司并非故意误导消费者。

In an emailed statement on Monday, Chris Hosford, a spokesman for Hyundai, wrote: “To be clear, Hyundai’s view is that this was an honest mistake and there was a lack of clarity/broad latitude in E.P.A. rules and guidance that resulted in the issues outlined by the government.”

周一，现代汽车发言人克里斯·霍斯福德(Chris Hosford)在一份邮件声明中写道，“必须说明，现代汽车认为这是无心之过，EPA的规定和指导并不明确，缺少足够的回旋余地，导致了政府提出的那些问题。”

The settlement comes as the Obama administration has used the Clean Air Act to create and enforce new regulations aimed at reining in planet-warming pollution. In 2009, the E.P.A. released new fuel economy standards requiring automakers to aggressively increase average fuel mileage of passenger vehicles in order to cut carbon emissions from tailpipes.

达成和解时，奥巴马政府已经利用《清洁空气法》制定并实施了一些新的监管措施，旨在控制导致全球变暖的污染。2009年，EPA公布了新的节油标准，要求汽车制造商大幅提高客运车辆的平均燃油里程，以减少碳排放量。

On Monday environmentalists praised the penalties on the two automakers.

周一，环保人士对处罚两家汽车制造商一事表示赞扬。

“For many years, E.P.A. has enforced the Clean Air Act to make sure cars are as clean as they are advertised,'’ said Frank O’Donnell, president of the Group Clean Air Watch. “It is very encouraging to see that E.P.A. plans to make sure that climate-related emissions must also be as advertised.”

“多年来，EPA实施了《清洁空气法》，确保车辆像广告说的一样清洁，”洁净空气观察组织(Group Clean Air Watch)主席弗兰克·奥多尼尔(Frank O’Donnell)说。“EPA计划确保与气候有关的排放行为也必须达到广告水平，这让人倍受鼓舞。”

E.P.A. officials said they discovered the problems with the Hyundai and Kia vehicles in the course of auditing fuel-economy manufacturing programs. They concluded that the Korean automakers’ testing of fuel economy technologies included procedures that led to inaccurately high fuel-economy ratings for vehicles including Hyundai’s Accent, Elantra, Veloster and Santa Fe vehicles and Kia’s Rio and Soul vehicles.

EPA官员表示，他们在审计节油型汽车生产项目的过程中发现了现代及起亚汽车的问题。他们断定，韩国汽车制造商节油技术测试中的一些程序导致汽车的节油性能评级偏高，出现不准确的数据，比如现代的雅绅特(Accent)、伊兰特、飞思(Veloster)和圣达菲(Santa Fe)，以及起亚的锐欧和秀尔(Soul)车型。

That testing was done entirely in laboratories in Korea, government officials said. They said that as part of the settlement, the companies would pay to build a separate, American-based center for testing vehicle fuel economy.

政府官员称，这些测试全部在韩国的实验室完成。他们表示，作为和解的一部分，两家公司将出资在美国建立测试中心，检测汽车的节油性能。