California air board to vote on plan to slash emissions

California air board to vote on plan to slash emissions
By Chris Bowman - Sacramento Bee
Published: Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008

Today and Friday are expected to be monumental in California's fight against global warming and air pollution.

The state Air Resources Board is set to vote today on a sweeping 12-year strategy for slashing climate-altering emissions that would affect the type of cars Californians drive, the electricity they use to light their homes and even the location of future homes and jobs.

Then on Friday, the governor-appointed air board is expected to approve regulations requiring owners of nearly 1 million heavy-duty trucks to thoroughly clean up diesel exhaust, which is believed responsible for as many as 9,000 deaths a year statewide.

"It is probably the most significant board meeting we have had in decades," said Thomas Cackette, the board's deputy executive officer.

The voting comes at a politically good time from the view of state regulators, public health advocates and others seeking to influence a national response to global warming.

President-elect Barack Obama has said he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California authority to curb heat-trapping carbon emissions from automobiles.

Obama on Wednesday reportedly was ready to name two officials from California " Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment " to top energy and environmental posts. Those appointments would add to California's growing clout in crafting federal climate change regulations.

Continuing business as usual in other states and nations would overwhelm any progress California makes in cutting global warming gases.

The California air board's impending actions also come at an economically bad time, with heavy opposition from the trucking industry, which is struggling under the slowdown in movement of goods.

Independent truckers and owners of small fleets are among the louder opponents.

"What gives you the authority to tell me that not only do I have to junk my truck, but that I also lose the capital investment that I already have in it?" Mark Binkley, a Southern California trucker, said in an e-mail to the board.

"If you want to purchase my truck for what I paid for it, then fine," said Binkley, who bought a 1989 Peterbilt rig two years ago for $75,000.

State air regulators point out that the requirements to install soot traps on older rigs or switch to cleaner-burning engines don't take effect until 2010 and allow up to 13 more years for compliance, depending on the model year and size of the fleet.

A coalition of truck owners, grocers and construction contractors has proposed an alternative that phases in the requirements over a longer period at less cost.

Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said the truckers' plan would put Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley in violation of federal clean-air standards by 2014, resulting in more heart attacks, lung disease and deaths.

"The health impacts are so staggering," Nichols said, pointing out the estimated 9,000 deaths that would occur under business as usual.

"The numbers are just hard to argue with, and nobody is arguing with them," Nichols said. "The only argument is that we shouldn't be doing this in hard economic times."

Exhaust filters cost $10,000 or more, new engines several times that, and a new truck well over $100,000. Trucks built since 2005 already are equipped with the soot traps.

The big-rig trucks, large delivery trucks and airport shuttle buses are the last of the diesel-powered vehicles and equipment to come under the soot-cutting knife of the air board, following similar rules for garbage trucks, municipal buses and off-road construction and farming vehicles and equipment.

But the number of these heavy-duty vehicles, along with their heavy weight, high mileage and longevity, makes them the single-largest source of toxic air pollution in California, air board officials said.

The regulations would dramatically cut emissions of tiny diesel exhaust particles and smog-forming nitrogen oxides from more than 400,000 diesel vehicles registered in the state and another 500,000 out-of-state trucks that pass through California each year.

In 1998, the board declared the particles in diesel exhaust a "toxic air contaminant" because of their potential to cause cancer and premature heart- and lung-related deaths in adults.

The particles are small enough to evade the lung's defenses and enter the bloodstream, raising the risk of heart disease as well as respiratory illness.

Numerous studies since then have strengthened the link between lung cancer and heart disease and diesel exhaust, particularly among truckers and dock workers.