Diesel-driven road users in other U.S. states on Wednesday hove their sighs of relief as California back-tracked its diesel emission rules by delaying implementation.
California, the only U.S. state having the right to adopt its own emission regulations, passed in December last year the toughest standards in the country and all the other states are allowed to follow suit or opt for federal standards.
The relieved ranged in many states from drivers of trucks and buses to operators of heavy-duty apparatuses like standby generators and construction rigs.
The Associated General Contractors of America estimated that as many as 32 states were closely following the footsteps of California in enforcing the first-time emission limits for in-use fleets of diesel-driven equipment.
But in an unexpected policy turn allegedly prompted by the ongoing recession, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has ordered
modifications to the emission rule specifics worked out in April.
If implemented without delay, around one million trucks and buses countrywide, will have to be retrofitted or replaced altogether, while some older models will have to be phased out in due time.
The initial ARB standards require retrofits with smog filters or cleaner engine technology beginning 2011 and with soot filters for all
trucks and buses beginning 2014.
These rules would also apply to out-of-state motor vehicles driven in California.
All tallied, the new rules would cost the trucking industry alone 5.5 billion U.S. dollars.
The ARB acknowledged: "The bad economy has both improved the state's air quality and made anti-pollution upgrades unaffordable."
The board also had other considerations behind its regression from the diesel emission rules that were alleged to be able to prevent 9,400 premature deaths if implemented.
The ARB questioned the death figure and ordered state researchers to redo the report that had concluded that 3,500 people prematurely die each year due to diesel emission-caused pollution.
The order was made Wednesday after a hearing on concerns over the cost
of retrofitting and replacing and after the finding of a report compiler who had lied about his academic credentials.
Christina Ramorino, who works for her family's Roadstar Trucking Company in Hayward, said past emission rules had cut the company's driving force already by 19 percent in the past two years.
"I'm 26 years old, starting my career, and concerned these regulations could very well put us out of business," Ramorino said at the ARB hearing. Her father Robert said the company could afford to comply with the new standards only if it cut all medical and dental benefits for its employees.
But environmental activists and public health advocates pushed to keep the regulations.
Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior policy director for the American Lung Association of California, quoted at the same hearing an asthma patient as
saying: "There are retrofit devices for trucks, but not for my lungs."
Public health advocates stressed that California, a state plagued by smoggy skies and rising asthma rates, just cannot afford to be lenient on pollution standards.
The new rules would otherwise be expected to help reduce ozone-eating nitrogen oxides and soot-forming carbon particulates that can become
embedded in human lungs.
"We're very aware of the economic problem. We're also very concerned about the hardship of those suffering daily from lung-health problems. We believe those voices need to be heard," said Holmes-Gen.
Almost all the 50 U.S. states have to write their clean air "state implementation plans" (SIP) to show how they will meet the tighter federal standards.
For the time being, 19 states are having air pollution problems similar to those found in California.
And any state that fails to develop an "approvable" SIP can be subject to numerous federal sanctions including emission caps limiting economic development and losses of federal highway transportation funds.