Our Issue: Diesel Pollution Control Rules

Diesel Emission Regulation Updates - February 2010

Diesel issues remain active in a very mixed bag of developments.

The Farm Bureau relates the following information:

Your to-do list for 2010:

The California Air Resources Board is preparing to develop a rule to require the upgrade of many types of self-propelled agricultural field equipment of 25 horsepower or larger. The Farm Bureau is running a confidential survey to collect statistics about what off-road equipment the agricultural community is using. Sign into www.cfbf.com/agoffroadsurvey to submit your information. Only the accumulated statistics will go the the California Air Resources Board and this data will be used to influence how the rules are formulated. The original data will remain confidential and cannot be accessed by any private or public request.

For all diesel on-road vehicles in your agricultural fleets that use the low or limited mileage thresholds, keep an odometer reading from January 1, 2010.

Get the compliance forms for the truck and bus rule. They need to be completed and returned to the board by March 31, 2010. The forms are available at www.cfbf.com/issues/truckbus.cfm or www.arb.ca.gov/onrdiesel/documents/TBForm091217.pdf. The farm bureau’s page also has other pertinent information like labeling requirements for the truck, so the entire page is worth a perusal.

In the meantime, PLF is suing the California Air Resources Board in Brown vs Adams challenging CARB for practices that include members of the scientific advisory staff that stay on board beyond the legal limits of their terms of office.

The Port of Oakland is a proving ground for the workability of the new rules, and results have not been promising. Funding that was suppose to help truckers meet to costs of compliance ran out quickly, leaving over a thousand truckers without the funds to upgrade or replace their trucks. Under threat of a strike, new funding was pushed through and the time limits were extended, but even that may prove insufficient. It does not bode well for those of us lower on the diesel food-chain to get money for retrofitting our trucks.

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