The California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted late Thursday tough regulations to curb emissions from off-road diesel vehicles such as bulldozers, forklifts, airport service trucks, and other vehicles. The regulations, the first of their kind in the nation, will prevent thousands of premature deaths and reduce health costs for people with asthma and other respiratory disease, said Mary Nichols, chairman of CARB.

The rules will be phased in beginning in 2010 for fleets of large vehicles to 2015 for small fleets, and an estimated 180,000 vehicles would be replaced or retrofitted with diesel soot filters and other devices. By 2020, the regulations are expected to reduce diesel particulate matter emissions by 5.2 tons per day and smog-forming nitrogen oxides by 48 tons per day.

Construction industry representatives fought the new standards, saying they will cost more than $13 billion to comply. Erik White, a CARB diesel expert, said the regulation would cost industry $3.5 billion. CARB also estimated the rules will prevent at least 4,000 premature deaths in California and avoid $18 billion to $26 billion in health costs.

The regulations also would allow stricter local measures for areas that are unable to meet clean air standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Those areas are the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The new CARB standards are separate from California's landmark global warming law passed last year to reduce greenhouse gases.
(By Leonard Anderson, Planet Ark, 30/07/2007)