Sierra Club California, Others Fight For Tough Diesel Rule

Shouldn’t California’s trucks carry a fair share of California’s efforts to reduce pollution?

Sierra Club California Director Bill Magavern and other key figures in California’s environmental movement have banded together to ask the California Air Resources Board to do just that. The letter asks the regulators to improve enforcement and enaction of their proposed diesel truck rule, set for a Dec. 12 vote.

The rule would require trucks to lower the amount of harmful diesel emission particles they exhaust into California’s air. With diesel emissions expected to go up as much as 40 percent by 2020, it’s a good time to address these harmful pollutants. What’s more, with the fuel efficiency improvements brought on by changes to the truck rule, truckers will recoup their costs in about 2-3 years.

Cutting truck emissions will lessen the environmental health burden on California families. A November 2008 study found that air pollution in just the South Coast and San Joaquin Valley regions costs the California economy $28 billion annually.

A tight, responsive rule also will help the state reduce the pollution that causes global warming, the environmental experts say. Reducing heavy-duty vehicle emissions must be part of California’s efforts to take on those pollutants.

If you want to get involved, consider joining Breathe California’s Bus for Breath. This group will help send people to the air board meeting to advocate adoption of a protective, productive rule.

Click here to read the entire letter from California environmentalists and health advocates.

Make Polluters Pay for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

As California's Air Resources Board studies various options for reducing our state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, with an 80% reduction by 2050, Sierra Club California and 5 other environmental groups have offered our suggestions on how best to design a system that caps emissions and requires big polluters to pay a price, set by an auction, for their emissions.

You can read our Cap and Auction Design Position Paper.

On Sierra Club California's home page, national executive director Carl Pope explains cap-and-auction in 45 seconds.

Environmental Justice and Carbon Trading

Several of California's leading environmental justice advocates on February 19 released a Declaration Against Carbon Trading. The Los Angeles Times mistakenly reported that Sierra Club declined to comment on the announcement. Here is the letter we sent the LA Times correcting the mistake and making clear our position.

To the editor:

Re: “Groups to fight plan for trading carbon emissions,” Feb 20. Sierra Club California did provide a comment on the declaration by environmental justice groups against trading greenhouse gas emissions, but technological problems may have prevented it from reaching your reporter.

We share many of the concerns of the environmental justice groups regarding pollution trading, like possible hot spots, loopholes and windfall profits. For these reasons we worked with those groups to successfully keep mandatory trading out of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32. We have advocated that AB 32's implementation focus primarily on direct emission reductions, not trading, and we have repeatedly pushed California’s Air Resources Board to implement the community-protection provisions of the law. We are also open to using well-designed market compliance mechanisms to achieve some of the emission reductions necessary, as long as big polluters have to pay for their emissions and local air quality is protected.

Bill Magavern
Director, Sierra Club California

Plug-in Hybrids Can Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Transportation

Zack Subin spoke yesterday at the Air Resources Board’s seminar series of his efforts to catalogue and analyze the various opportunities to reduce air pollution in California transportation. A Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, Subin’s main work involved the collection and categorization of dozens of studies and their data sets. Subin presented his many conclusions about possible ways to reduce emissions from personal and commercial road travel.

Always keeping in mind the marketability of each technology, Subin thinks that Plug-in Hybrid Energy Vehicles offer the best available route to reduce our carbon emissions, eliminate our need for foreign oil, and save consumers money. What plug-ins offer now is the ability to drive an average sedan or SUV 15 to 40 miles on a single charge. After commuting to and from work the consumer would plug a hybrid into a normal electric socket and by the next morning have the vehicle fully charged and ready to drive. Even if you exhaust the battery there is still the gasoline available to power the engine and recharge the battery. This is what he thinks is applicable in the short-term only. After the year 2020 we will have even more technologies available to further reduce greenhouse gases and help alleviate global climate change.

Governor Appoints Outstanding Doctor to Air Board

Sierra Club California applauds the governor’s appointment of John Balmes, M.D. to fill the seat of the medical/health representative on the California Air Resources Board. Dr. Balmes is committed to reducing global warming pollution and achieving cleaner, healthier air for all Californians, and especially for children, the elderly, and the millions of Californians suffering from asthma and other lung diseases.

Dr. Balmes is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where he is the Chief of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), and an Attending Physician in Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine at SFGH. Dr. Balmes leads an active research program involving controlled human exposure studies of the respiratory effects of ambient air pollutants, and he has advised both CARB and the Department of Toxic Substances Control, among other governmental bodies.

As it grapples with the two vitally important tasks of protecting public health and stabilizing the climate, CARB will benefit enormously from the expertise and commitment of John Balmes.

In related news, a groundbreaking new study from Stanford University being released today identifies and quantifies that carbon dioxide is not just heating up the planet, it is making it harder to breathe.

Transportation Commission Turns Toward Clean Air

Yesterday I joined other clean-air advocates from around the state in asking the CA Transportation Commission to reinstate air quality as one of the key factors to consider when bond money to improve trade corridors is doled out. The CTC had previously removed air quality from the list of criteria compiled by its own staff, but after public testimony yesterday the commissioners restored it to the list. Breathers who live near busy ports and rail and truck routes now can have some hope that the public's money will be spent on transportation projects that make the air cleaner, not dirtier.

This decision may signal the beginning of a new and much-needed integration of transportation and air-quality policies at the state level. Dale Bonner, Secretary of Business, Transportation & Housing, kept an open mind and met with all the interested parties, including state and local air quality advocates. The Air Resources Board also deserves credit for speaking up at yesterday’s meeting.

Bill Magavern, Senior Representative, Sierra Club California

The Healthy Heart and Lung Act, AB 233 (Jones) awaits the Governor's Signature

Sierra Club California and the American Lung Association of California have sponsored AB 233, the Healthy Heart and Lung Act, because of the need to reduce emissions of hazardous diesel exhaust. Assemblymember Dave Jones, Democrat of Sacramento, continues his impressive record of clean-air advocacy by authoring the bill.

Soot from diesel-fueled engines is an extremely dangerous air pollutant that has been linked to lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, asthma episodes, heart attacks and strokes, hampered lung growth in children, and premature deaths. The California State Air Resources Board (CARB) has linked diesel particulates to approximately 3,000 premature deaths each year as well as thousands of hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses. Recent research in Southern California found pronounced deficits in attained lung function for children living within 500 meters of a freeway. A recent study of women’s health found that particulate pollution substantially increases the risk of heart disease in older women.

AB 233 would reduce public exposure to dangerous diesel emissions by improving enforcement of diesel control regulations, increasing penalties for violators, and increasing education and outreach to vehicle owners regarding state idling requirements. The bill would require CARB to develop a plan for consistent, comprehensive and fair enforcement of diesel control regulations, including education and outreach efforts. AB 233 would also raise the penalty for violation of CARB diesel idling limits to $300 per violation, in line with penalties for other diesel violations. In addition, operators of commercial motor vehicles would be required to clear their citations for violating emissions rules before having their registrations renewed.

CARB has recently adopted major new diesel control regulations affecting off-road diesel engines and idling limits on all diesel vehicles and sleeper cabs, and soon will adopt additional regulations for on-road diesel engines. Expanded enforcement staff is needed to ensure consistent enforcement and public health protection.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s signature on the Healthy Heart and Lung Act would add some necessary enforcement muscle to the state’s aggressive program of reducing Californians’ exposure to toxic diesel exhaust.

Bill Magavern
Sierra Club California