Opinion: Cleanest Possible Fuel - For All

By Pat Clay

resident

alifornia Trucking Association

Editor’s note: The following commentary is in response to the Transport Topics article, “California Agencies Duke it Out Over Sulfur” (7-31, p. 3). The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) proposed to require ultra-low-sulfur fuel for the four counties of the Los Angeles basin two years ahead of the timetable required by the California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, AQMD recently agreed to defer to CARB and EPA.

Until Sept. 16, the California trucker was the child caught between two warring parents. While the California Air Resources Board and Southern California’s regional South Coast Air Quality Management District argued about whether we truckers should have our porridge hot or cold, we just wanted to go out and play with the other kids.

We’re business people and we want to compete. We support clean air and clean fuels, but we are losing freight to truckers that don’t have to follow the same California environmental rules, rules that cost us up to 70 cents per gallon more for fuel when supply gets short.

We were facing a second, regional set of California rules proposed by the AQMD. Hot or cold, it was still porridge and we would still have lost business. Fortunately, on Sept. 16 the AQMD agreed to delay its regional fuel standard — unless CARB and the U.S. Environmental Protection EPA fail to advance cleaner diesel fuel by 2006.

The only true solution to continued regionalization of fuel standards is to adopt the cleanest possible fuel standard for all states at the federal level. On this point, CARB and the California Trucking Association are in agreement. The recent tussle with the AQMD, while favorable in its outcome, illustrates why it is in everyone’s interest to move to a nationwide ultra-low-sulfur diesel standard.

	Related Stories
	EPA Told More Work Needed on Sulfur Reduction in Fuel (Sept. 25) California Agencies Resolve Squabble Over ‘Separate’ Diesel Requirements (Sept. 25) Study Links Deaths to Diesel Exhaust (Sept. 11) EPA to Discuss Diesel Deadline With Justice (Sept. 4)

Ignorance of trucking operations knows no bounds, especially when combined with political aspirations. The spokesman for the AQMD stated that he did not think that a four-county regional fuel “would be a problem, since time is money to truckers.” Think of what your local government official might say. Many bureaucrats have no idea what it means to operate at a competitive disadvantage. Government, after all, is a legal monopoly. In California’s case, trucks can come into the AQMD and leave without fueling — about 70% of the trucks in the area are from out of the air quality district.

A typical bureaucratic answer? Build a wall around California. Have out-of-state truckers dump their federal fuel at the border and pick it up again on the way out. Ignorance of trucking operations knows no bounds, especially when combined with politics.

The AQMD is a political subdivision of our state government. At least three AQMD board members have used their credentials to run for the California Legislature. These board members are also county supervisors, city council members, and mayors of small cities, with local constituents to please. A political subdivision of a state, according to the Federal Clean Air Act, does not have the authority to set emission standards for diesel engines or create their own fuel standard. But the AQMD planned to do both because these public officials at first thought they had little to lose and plenty of political credit to gain.

Perhaps you have known of local officials who advanced their political careers on the backs of trucking. If AQMD had gone forward with its own fuel standard, there would have been five different on-road diesel standards in 2004 – federal, CARB, AQMD, Central Texas and Houston-Galveston. A different AQMD outcome and trucking might have seen even more Balkanization of fuel standards.

Think about the allure of regional environmental rules: a bigger bureaucratic budget, more government employees and a political platform for higher office. This appeal exists wherever there are regulatory agencies. AQMD made the right choice, but similar choices will confront other local and state agencies — unless a nationwide standard is adopted.

As a Californian, I do not wish bureaucratic in-fighting on anyone. As a trucker, I see us all potential victims where ignorance of our industry and politics combine. The only true solution, for us all, is a nationwide ultra-low-sulfur diesel standard.

Mr. Clay is president of C-Line Express, based in American Canyon, Calif.