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California crackdown

May 10, 2010 |

Selected transcriptions from CARB’S April 22 public hearing

Just before we went to press with the May issue of Equipment World the California Air Resources Board and staff held a public hearing in Sacremento to present it’s plan for addressing the criticisms brought up in February by the Associated General Contractors of America.

As we reported in the May issue under the subhead “Get your numbers right,” AGC had argued that California’s contractors were already meeting CARB’s required emission levels – and will do so for years to come because the recession has idled many machines and CARB overestimated the state’s construction fleet and the amount of diesel used in construction machines. CARB staff presented their plan for accommodating these changes and admitted their models for off-road diesel emissions may have been off by a factor of 1.4 to 2 (40 to 100 percent.)

But CARB’s proposed modifications to the plan seemed like so much weak tea considering the magnitude of their error. Contractors and industry spokespeople were hardly satisfied. After the staff presentation, the public comment period was strongly critical of both the proposed plan and the failure of CARB to get it’s calculations for diesel emissions anywhere near accurate. Space and deadline considerations for the magazine did not allow us to to publish much of the lengthy testimony that followed, however below we cite selected quotes from members of the public who spoke out at the meeting:

Rental: National chains will survive, California-based stores will not:

Michael Graboski, American Rental Association

We’ve been honest with you, the board and the staff, and we’ve been supportive of the regulations. But I’m here to tell you that the rental businesses today are hurting just like everybody else. We see a storm ahead because both the on and off-road rules impose requirements that few rental businesses are going to be able to satisfy going forward, and I’m going to explain to you why.