Calif. Idling Rule to Cause Cost Increases, Execs Say
By Andrea Fischer, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the April 23 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Trucking officials said a California regulation designed to drastically cut vehicle idling in the state next year and tighten emission standards for auxiliary power units will lead to higher costs for fleets with routes in California.
“Anyone with an origin or destination in California or a route through the state will end up raising their rates to cover the additional cost of this rule,” said Jeff McGuire, director of fuel procurement for C.R. England Trucking, a Salt Lake City truckload carrier with routes across the United States.
Carriers that regularly travel into California “will incur additional expense because of this rule, and we will have to raise our rates to compensate,” McGuire said. “That will raise rates for everyone in California and states near it, like Texas and New Mexico.”
“This is really a statewide law that impacts the entire nation. Anyone doing business in the state of California will have to adhere to these limits — it’s driver beware,” said Glen Kedzie, environmental counsel for American Trucking Associations. He added that the new idling limits may lead to fuel savings in the long term.
In 2005, the California Air Re-sources Board adopted the truck engine-idling regulation, which requires drivers resting in a truck’s cab or sleeper berth to shut off their engines after five minutes. It takes effect Jan. 1, 2008 (10-31, p. 4).
The new rule follows an earlier regulation that limited idling to five minutes but excluded trucks with sleeper berths. Before that, truck-idling limits in the state were set at 10 minutes.
The new rule also tightens emission standards for auxiliary power units, requiring a sharp cut in APUs’ particulate-matter emissions. Most APUs are powered by small engines.
CARB said, “New trucks sold in California will need to either be equipped with a five-minute, tamper-resistant, nonprogrammable primary engine shut-down device or meet a 30-gram-per-hour NOx standard for the truck engine . . . or be sold with an APU equipped with a particulate trap.”
No truck engine sold today meets a 30-gph NOx standard.
The APU standard is likely to pose the biggest problem for truckers operating in California because manufacturers have not yet developed an APU that can operate with a particulate trap, said Rex Greer, president of the Idle Elimination Manufacturers Association.
However, while most APUs are powered by small diesel engines, some use batteries to operate cab air conditioning and other appliances.
Paccar Inc., which manufactures Kenworth and Peterbilt, introduced such units this year, saying they could cool a truck cab for up to 10 hours on a single charge (4-2, p. 15).
“Nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen in California because truckers will have to rely on technology that doesn’t exist yet, and that is creating a problem for the rest of the nation,” Greer said. “APU engines do not currently have the high-tech electronics you see on truck engines these days. There is no known particulate trap that is tested and proven for APU engines.”
“Here we are, eight months away from the start of this regulation and we don’t have any way to use APUs to keep the sleeper berth comfortable while sleeping or resting in California,” said Mike Tunnel, director of environmental affairs for ATA.
C.R. England’s McGuire said his company is bracing for “the unknown” in 2008 and expects to make a large investment in California-compliant APUs once they are available.
“At this time, APUs are probably the most efficient — but costly — way to meet these regulations, depending on whether or not manufacturers can develop a compliant APU,” McGuire said.
California’s idle limit “might deter drivers from sleeping in California — and one course of action for carriers may be to change their operations,” ATA’s Tunnel said.
“We’re hoping they can come up with a technology that will get us ahead of this,” said McGuire, adding that “if it is operationally possible, we’ll avoid spending the night in California.”
Similarly, Tim Vander Pol, operations manager for Peninsula Truck Lines, an Auburn, Wash., less-than-truckload carrier, said California’s impending idling-limit regulation is “one more reason” the company will stay out of the state.
“We try to avoid California as much as possible,” said Vander Pol. “Specifically for trucking, it is not a very business-friendly environment. Regulations like this make it tough to do business down there.”
Tunnel said, “The capital cost and the technology-forcing mandate associated with this regulation will strain the resources of trucking companies. The choice may be to be in violation of the regulation or shut the engine off and be uncomfortable.”
Assuming APU manufacturers will be able to develop units that meet California’s regulation, carriers could expect to spend “up to $10,000 a truck” to put compliant APUs on their equipment, Tunnel said.
CARB spokesman Dimitri Stanich said truckers caught idling illegally in California could face hefty fines beginning next year.
The CARB rule states, “Violations subject the driver of a vehicle to a minimum civil penalty of $100 and to criminal penalties.”
Some 180,000 heavy trucks operate in California daily, with one-fourth of those registered outside the state, CARB said.
