State Air Rule Favors Diesel Transit Buses
25 February 2000
State Air Rule Favors Diesel Transit BusesRetreat From Natural Gas Buses Is a Setback for Cleaner Fuel And Urban Air Quality SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 24 -- A new State air pollution control rule originally intended to encourage wider use of natural gas fuel in urban bus fleets now appears likely to assure the continued use of diesel buses, despite concerns about diesel exhaust's health risks and the uncertain technologies proposed to reduce them. The California Air Resources Board (ARB) voted today in favor of new emission standards for transit buses to be phased in over ten years. The rules allow transit agencies to choose to continue buying diesel buses, if they agree to upgrade older buses with soot filters beginning in 2004 and to maintain a declining average pollution level across their entire fleet. Three large urban transit districts will also be required to demonstrate nine advanced fuel cell buses each beginning in 2003. Should transit fleets opt to acquire much cleaner natural gas buses under the rule, their upgrade requirements for older buses are postponed by two years, and fuel cell buses will not be required until 2010. However, some transit agencies are reluctant to undertake the retraining and fuel-switching costs associated with compressed natural gas (CNG). At a January hearing on the rule, air quality officials in the severely polluted Los Angeles Basin and San Joaquin Valley had asked ARB for specific recognition and authority to require the cleaner CNG buses in those regions. ARB declined to provide it today, citing separate authorities under state law that presumably allow local decision-making bodies to undertake such rules. The Engine Manufacturers Association, Western States Petroleum Association and California Chamber of Commerce all endorsed ARB's decision, while the natural gas vehicle industry, environmentalists, public health groups and some regional air quality officials believe that the public interest has been unnecessarily short-changed by the decision. "Over a thousand natural gas buses are proven pollution fighters in California transit," said Greg Vlasek, executive director of the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition. "It's disheartening that ARB is willing to bet the future on speculative reductions in toxic diesel exhaust, spread over ten years, when CNG buses are already making the grade." In August 1998, ARB officially resolved to encourage the use of CNG in transit and school bus fleets, based on emissions and performance data that still stands today. ARB also urged regional authorities to spend their federal transportation dollars on CNG buses and fueling infrastructure. Today's decision contained only traces of the strident commitment from that earlier Board resolution.