Our Issue: Diesel Rules

November 1, 2009
Despite our pleas that the Air Resources Board reconsider the diesel rules, they passed their package, which will take effect for the first wave on Jan 1, 2010. See http://www.arb.ca.gov/dieseltruck for the latest convolutions on the rules. Our latest letter is now online here, for all the good it did.

We are not the only group shellshocked by this draconian rule. There is a movement afoot to push for disbanding the ARB. See this website for more details.: http://killcarb.org/

Our latest letter: November 12, 2008

to: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Senator Leland Yee,
Senator Joe Simitian,
Senator Abel Maldonado,
Senator Ellen Corbett,
Senator Jeff Denham,
Assemblyman Fiona Ma,
Assemblyman Gene Mullin,
Assemblyman Ira Ruskin,
Assemblyman John Laird,
Assemblyman Sally Lieber,
Assemblyman Jim Beall Jr.

from: Central Coast Forest Association
PO Box 1670
Capitola, CA 95010

re: Impact of proposed diesel regulations on forestry and the state economy

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Air Resources Board (ARB) is in the process of generating a sweeping new set of rules concerning diesel emissions called the “proposed regulation to reduce emissions of diesel particulate matter and other pollutants from in-use heavy-duty diesel-fueled vehicles”. The Central Coast Forest Association (CCFA) firmly believes that this proposed regulation will cause the State of California more harm than benefit.

We sincerely believe the ARB has no real understanding of the costs their aggressive rule would impose on businesses throughout California. As it is currently structured, this proposed regulation would lead to the bankruptcy of a large number of businesses throughout the state, businesses that provide essential services at a time California can ill afford this.

CCFA is an organization of forest landowners and forestry professionals serving the Central Coast region of California. We are also in the business of cleaning air, as we grow the trees that filter a large number of pollutants from the air and serve as a carbon sink for greenhouse gases. Our particular concerns are the impact of these regulations on forestry and our ability to continue being effective in our part of the air quality equation. We know our industry and its limitations. The costs of doing forestry have become so prohibitive that most timber concerns, loggers and mills, are running on a shoestring. A great deal of diesel-powered heavy equipment is used in a timber harvest, including log trucks, bulldozers, excavators, water trucks, rock trucks and sky-line rigs. Between harvests, the landowners must continue to maintain their property and frequently use tractors, rock trucks, bulldozers and other vehicles to maintain their road systems, suppress exotic weeds, perform reforestation projects and prevent erosion. None of us have the means to replace or repower our fleets. On our shoestring budgets, we buy our equipment used, then operate it until it dies.

Many of our LTOs (Licensed Timber Operators) work over very wide areas. In the north part of the state, many of these contractors might be based in Oregon. When these rules get put in place, these contractors may well decide it is not in their interest to do business in California any longer. California already has a rampant wildfire problem. Imagine how bad it will get if there is no one available to reduce overstocking in our forests. Once that forest ignites, it is no longer a carbon sink; it becomes instead a very active source of greenhouse gases, and as this last summer’s fires demonstrate, the particulate matter put out by a large wildfire can easily destroy any gains made in air quality by new diesel emission standards. We manage our forests for many goals, one of which is to reduce the potential for forest fire by thinning and maintaining road access. We cannot manage these forests without diesel equipment.

We know we are not the only industry in a pinch. A great many businesses employing diesel vehicles work on tight margins. The reserves are simply not there to replace the equipment on the ARB’s proposed schedule, even in good times. People buy this equipment expecting it to last twenty to thirty years. A diesel engine is designed to last two million miles and can cost $50,000.00. The ARB discovered in their research that 55% of the businesses using this equipment have five vehicles or less. The ARB is pushing a set of schedules for a phased switch-over of this equipment. The special provisions for small fleets of one to three vehicles still requires that the first vehicle be upgraded by 2012. If you happen to be “lucky” enough to have a 2004 engine, you can go until 2017 before upgrading for particulate controls. When the owner of a truck was expecting to get thirty years of service out of that truck before replacement, this schedule is financially unsustainable. To make the matter even worse, the engines that meet the latest proposed standard have not even been developed yet. This will force people to retrofit twice: once with current technology engines and once again when the new engines finally roll out. What about the option that allows the vehicle to have an after market add-on device installed? The last time the state imposed retroactive pollution standards and add-ons were marketed for older vehicles was in the 1960’s during our first push for pollution control. The result was a fiasco. The add-ons did not work and many cars were damaged by them. More recently, when the ARB tried to “improve” things by changing the diesel fuel formulation, the new formula wound up destroying engine parts on a lot of trucks. The ARB does not have a good track record for researching the impacts of the technology supporting their standards.

If our businesses cannot manage to stay afloat, the dominoes will begin to fall. Each bankruptcy leads to the following:
more people collecting unemployment benefits as they get laid off
decreased income tax revenues as these people are between jobs
decreased business tax revenues from failed businesses
decreased highway taxes as less vehicles travel the roads
decreased sales tax revenues as unemployed people spend less
For a state that is essentially broke, this is unsupportable.

Even supposing the tax situation was not an issue, all of these businesses provide essential services that won’t get done if they go under. How is California to:
transport goods
build and repair buildings
maintain roads and bridges
farm
repair storm damage
with all of these businesses gone? Businesses that are not dependent on a California location will be looking to relocate, just to escape the new logistics hassles.

California may become shunned by interstate truckers. I know that if I were an interstate trucker, I’d run the figures carefully to see if continuing to work in California would remain in my best interest. How prepared are we for truckers to drop their loads in Reno or Las Vegas then tell us to come and get our goods?

The ARB may think it can regulate international truckers, but NAFTA probably trumps them. We may wind up with nothing but unregulated Mexican trucks on our interstate corridors as our truckers go bust. This will produce a giant step backward in pollution control.

The ARB says they are “exploring innovative financing” to assist vehicle owners with the costs. The state is broke. We know as well as you that this is frankly impossible.

All of this work is to prevent “up to 5000 premature deaths”. In a state with a population of 31 million, that calculates to 0.016% of the population. This does not seem to us to be a major public health crisis. The benefit of this regulation is not worth the cost.

The sad part is that none of this needs to happen. There is one very simple solution that would keep us all in business. Accept a more moderate approach and allow old equipment to be “grandfathered”, i.e. declare the older equipment will not be subject to the regulations if it was in operation in the state before the regulation was imposed. The regulation should merely require that any replacement equipment must meet the new standards. Those 5000 possible premature deaths are clustered primarily on the interstate corridors. The big high-mileage trucks driving those corridors will be the first to wear out and be replaced. All the equipment will break down in time, so the goals will be met eventually, but the economy of California will not be destroyed in the process.

We implore you to direct the Air Resource Board to reconsider their regulation and impose this one simple change of grandfathering in the old equipment. We will still get the better air quality we all desire, just without the extravagant costs to our economy.

Yours truly,

Catherine Moore
CCFA

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