CARB Adopts Emission Rules; Truckers Decry Added Costs

By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter

This story appears in the Dec. 22 & 29 print edition of Transport Topics.

The California Air Resources Board has adopted two new rules requiring carriers to add expensive emission-control devices to their trucks and to use fuel-saving equipment endorsed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay program.

The rules, which are to take effect in 2011, will apply to all trucks doing business in California, whether or not they are registered there. CARB said they would cover about 1 million trucks, fewer than half of which are registered in California.

CARB, which passed the rules on Dec. 12, estimated the rules will cost the trucking industry $5.5 billion, but others said the tab would be even higher.

Some truckers told board members at a two-day hearing that they fear the new rules would put them out of business.

“It was a little disheartening to listen to all eight of the board members each vote ‘yes’ to the new rule after they heard all those truckers tell their stories,” Angel Raposa, owner of Raposa Trucking, Livermore, Calif., told Transport Topics.

Raposa was among a group of 300 speakers who weighed in on the new rules at the hearings in Sacramento.

Carriers told the board that the recession has cut their revenue sharply, credit is hard to obtain, expenses have increased and their fleets have been devalued because of the “fear and uncertainty” caused by the new rules.

“We’ve been in business for 40 years, and 2007 was our worst year ever,” Raposa said. “2008 is even going to be worse.”

Under the new CARB fleet rule, most heavy-duty trucks operating in California must be outfitted with diesel soot filters between 2011 and 2014, and meet 2010 engine emission standards between 2013 and 2023.

The SmartWay rule, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, requires 53-foot or longer dry-van and refrigerated trailers and tractors pulling them to use fuel-saving gear ranging from low-rolling-resistance tires to trailer side skirts.

Those who spoke at the CARB Dec. 11-12 public hearings on the rule, in addition to truckers, included environmentalists, representatives of technology companies, and officials with industry trade groups.

“I thought the trucking companies that represented themselves did a great job telling the real situation — the financial and credit problems — and it just seemed to fall on deaf ears,” said Mike Tunnell, director of environmental affairs for American Trucking Associations. “In a sense, truckers are going to get hit with a balloon payment whenever the rule hits without the financial wherewithal to pay for it.”

The board rejected a plan endorsed by the California Trucking Association and a broad business and trucking industry coalition, Driving Toward a Cleaner California, that would have set later deadlines, used a different fleet averaging method, and altered mileage requirements for exemptions from the rules.

CARB said the new rules would save more than 9,400 premature deaths between 2011 and 2025 and that soot filters and aerodynamic technologies would allow California to improve the state’s air quality to 1990 levels by 2020.

Because California has some of the dirtiest air in the nation, CARB officials said they had to pass the two rules to comply with federal Clean Air Act mandates.

However, the board did add a credit allowance plan that would postpone some of the pain for carriers: For every truck a fleet retires between July 1, 2008 and Jan. 1, 2010, a carrier would be permitted to delay retrofit compliance of a corresponding active truck by one year.

CARB also voted to alter the new rule by giving smaller fleets — those with three or fewer trucks — an additional year to comply.

Compliance deadlines for low-mileage agriculture vehicles and specialty farm vehicles are later, but all must meet the standard by 2023.

As a part of the state’s effort to reduce pollution from heavy-duty trucks, carriers can apply for loans and grants to pay a portion of their cost of retrofitting or replacing older trucks to comply with the new rules.

Just prior to the unanimous CARB vote approving the new rules, Mary Nichols, CARB chairwoman, said that while the board needed to comply with federal and state clean-air standards, no one wanted to see carriers go out of business.

“We’re under a mandate from federal law, we’re under a mandate from state law requirements, and we have a mission to try and make the air better and to do so within a time frame that’s laid out,” Nichols said.

But Tunnell said, “In today’s economy, this is going to be a very difficult regulation to meet.”

“I think it’s a fact that some companies will go out of business because of this,” Tunnell said. “What’s really troubling is a lot of these folks have worked their entire lives to build what they have today.”