Board delays diesel rules
The California Air Resources Board gave truckers a break Wednesday on the state's tough diesel emissions rules, acknowledging that the bad economy has both improved the state's air quality and made anti-pollution upgrades unaffordable.
After a nearly seven-hour public hearing in Sacramento that featured more than 80 speakers including truckers, health and environmental advocates and even high school students from Oakland, the air board ordered modifications to the rules drawn up for consideration in April.
Those changes could include significant delays in enforcement of the rules, depending on how quickly the economy recovers. The board also could add new exemptions for small trucking fleets in rural areas and additional financial incentives for truckers to install exhaust filters or buy newer rigs.
The board, however, did not concede to demands Wednesday from some truckers who urged the agency to abandon the rules altogether or postpone them for many years. Such a move stands to put the state in violation of key 2014 federal air quality targets, which the state is bound to meet.
"We have to get the tons (of pollutants) out of the air somehow," board chairwoman Mary Nichols said.
The air board also voted Wednesday to throw out a tainted health-impact report that had become a rallying point for opponents of the diesel rules and brought the agency widespread criticism.
The board ordered the study redone, drawing praise from the trucking industry.
"That … certainly went a long way to restoring faith in the process," said Julie Sauls, spokeswoman for the Sacramento-based California Trucking Association.
The controversy over the report also was the impetus for a lengthy apology delivered by Nichols at the beginning of Wednesday's hearing.
Nichols said she had erred last December in not properly disclosing that the lead author of the report had lied about his academic credentials.
The air board statistician, Hien Tran, claimed to hold a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. He had been a graduate student at the school, but had not completed his doctoral dissertation.
Nichols and several agency staff members knew about Tran's fraud before the board voted to adopt the diesel truck regulations last December. But Nichols opted not to disclose that information to the full board.
"The fact is that this was a mistake on my part," Nichols said Wednesday.
Last December, Nichols said, she thought the agency could effectively deal with Tran internally, and that the public-health case for the regulations was strong even without his report.
Tran's lack of credentials was reported by bloggers soon after the December 2008 vote, but there has yet to be a full public accounting of the episode from the agency.
The issue has opened the air board to harsh criticism from truckers, industry groups, bloggers and others, including two of agency's own board members, Fresno cardiologist John Telles and San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts.
"All I can say is, I apologize," Nichols said.
Tran was suspended for 60 days and demoted, but still works at the agency. Air board officials ordered his report reassessed by a peer review panel, which declared it sound.
Tran's main work on the diesel rules established the methods used to estimate the health benefits of reducing diesel pollution. A separate report calculated that the regulation would avert 9,400 premature deaths over 15 years.
Tran's report has no bearing on the main federal air quality targets that the regulations are designed to meet. Those targets were established by Congress, and the state faces serious penalties, such as blocks on federal transportation funds, if it doesn't comply. An act of Congress could change those federal targets.
The diesel rules are currently set to take effect in 2011. By 2014, all older trucks would be required to have soot filters. Fleet operators also are required to phase in newer engines or trucks that have built-in pollution controls. By 2023, all vehicles must have a 2010 model year engine or equivalent.
Large trucking fleets have earlier compliance deadlines than small ones.