CARB Grants Smaller Carriers More Time to Comply With State’s New Regulations

This story appears in the May 12 print edition of Transport Topics.

The California Air Resources Board has adopted amendments to its truck and bus regulation that will give mostly small, rural and low-mileage motor carriers more time to achieve compliance, exasperating larger carriers.

It was the second change for the board since it adopted the nation’s toughest emissions-reduction requirements in 2008.

Ironically, the concessions for noncompliant carriers have left those fleets that have made huge investments to retrofit particulate matter filters and buy new diesel trucks at a competitive disadvantage, several dozen trucking executives told the board.

“We recognize the enormous investments that many businesses have already made to clean up their equipment and abide by the terms of the regulation,” CARB Chairman Mary Nichols said. “But we are also aware that, particularly for many rural areas of the state, economic recovery has been painfully slow and funding for improvements scarce.”

Nichols said the board was attempting to “strike a balance” by giving carriers lacking resources more time to secure loans and grants to upgrade their equipment, while giving those truckers already in compliance the option to stretch their equipment’s compliant life by a few years.

With only one dissenting vote, the board approved the amendments April 25 after hearing emotional appeals on both sides of the issue from more than 100 industry advocates — truckers, trade organizations, particulate matter filter manufacturers, health advocates and air pollution district officials.

Board member Hector De La Torre, who voted against the amendments, said many of those noncompliant carriers who testified cited ignorance as an excuse, while others seemed defiant.

“I understand how difficult it is, but at the end of the day we are a regulatory agency that has to set targets and follow through on them,” De La Torre said.

The truck and bus regulation was adopted in 2008, but the board extended some deadlines in 2010 due to the recession.

The new changes call for fleets that have invested in cleaner, compliant equipment and trucks to receive credits allowing their vehicles additional “useable life” for retrofit trucks and reducing near-term compliance requirements.

Despite pushing back several compliance deadlines, the amendments will still protect air quality, preserving 93% of the oxides of nitrogen and diesel particulate matter benefits of the original regulation, CARB officials said.

“By providing limited additional time for certain fleets to comply, we believe that we’ll have higher compliance rates overall,” Nichols said.

CARB estimates that so far roughly 80% of the one million affected carriers based or operating in the state have complied fully with all the emissions requirements.

Some of the amendments ap-proved included measures that would:

• Provide additional time for small fleets to meet the filter requirement on their second and third truck to 2016 and 2018, respectively.

• Spread out the filter phase-in requirements through 2018 for work trucks that travel less than 20,000 miles per year.

• Increase the low-use exemption threshold for all trucks operating fewer than 5,000 total miles per year until 2020.

• Allow truck owners who have been denied a loan until December 2016 to secure a loan or install particulate matter filters on their trucks.

While those truckers who said they have been unable to afford the nitrogen-oxide reduction equipment were in strong support of the amendments, those who made the most frequent trips to the podium were those who have already complied.

Tom Lanting, president of Gardner Trucking Inc. in Chino, California, said the carrier has spent $55 million to comply with state laws and emissions regulations. Gardner has 1,700 power units and 1,700 employees, Lanting said.

“We have done our job,” Lanting told the board. “We expect that you folks do your job and protect the well-being and health of the children in this state.”

Robert Ramorino, president of RoadStar Trucking Inc. in Hayward, California, said his company had to refinance some of its real estate holdings to spread cost over 25 years to bring the company’s 21 trucks into compliance adding assets that would last at most 10 years.

“From an economic standpoint, that not a good decision,” Ramorino said.

The board also heard from truckers, many of them owner-operators, who were struggling not only to clean up their equipment to comply, but also just to make ends meet.

Single-truck owner Patricia Barrett, who operates out of California’s San Joaquin Valley, fought back tears while telling the board that she could not afford to put a particulate matter filter on her truck.

Barrett said that without financial assistance she would be forced to leave the state, leaving all her relatives behind.

“I’m still trying to qualify for the money to add my filter,” she said. “And after many attempts through financial institutions, I have no funding.”