SACRAMENTO — From truckers to farmers to manufacturers, industry leaders descended Thursday on the California Air Resources Board in an effort to stop the board from declaring diesel exhaust a potent cancer-causing danger to the public.
The board heard six hours of public debate but delayed its long-awaited decision at the request of top-ranking state legislators until late August. A Senate hearing will be held next week on the economic and environmental ramifications of diesel fuel.
The delay comes after an independent panel of scientists and state environmental officials have spent nine years--an inordinate length of time--reviewing the health effects of diesel exhaust to judge whether it should be deemed a toxic air contaminant.
Despite the lobbying, the air board is still expected to declare diesel exhaust toxic. State officials would then need to consider strategies to ensure that Californians are protected from the hazards posed by trucks, buses, trains, farm machines and other equipment that burns diesel fuel. Air board officials say that they would not ban diesels, but they are likely to tighten standards for exhaust and fuel. That would include increased efforts to prompt trucking companies, bus fleets and others to remove their dirtiest diesel vehicles from the roads.
The issue has been one of the most contentious decisions before the Air Resources Board in recent years, largely because diesel plays such a central role in the state's economy.
On behalf of industry, 66 state legislators--more than half the Legislature--intervened and urged Gov. Pete Wilson's air quality chief, John Dunlap, to delay the board's decision. Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco) is holding a hearing Tuesday at the urging of the California Trucking Assn., a powerful lobby of trucking companies.
On Thursday, industry representatives, environmentalists and scientists spent the day debating the link between diesel exhaust and lung cancer and the implications for California's economy and public health.
Trucking companies and engine manufacturers worry that if the air board implicates diesel exhaust as a potent carcinogen, they could be held liable for paying massive damages for causing people's cancers. Even without an outright ban on diesel, the air board's decision would make it difficult to operate a wide variety of businesses that depend on the engines, from grocery stores to construction firms, industry officials say.
