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Rescuing California from Diesel Pollution
California sets national public health standard, but state funding is scarce
 For the past few years, California has funded programs to clean up diesel pollution from the state’s school buses, transit buses, garbage trucks, and other heavy-duty diesel engines. These programs have proven to be a huge success in cost effectively reducing air pollution, protecting public health, and providing children with safe, healthy transportation to school. Unless a dedicated source of funding is found, however, these successful public health initiatives face the budget axe.
California's Diesel Pollution Crisis
There are more than 1.2 million diesel engines in operation in California powering cars, trucks, buses, off-road construction and agriculture equipment, trains, and ships. Each of these engines is responsible for producing tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) and toxic soot (particulate matter or PM) over their lifetime. In fact, while heavy-duty engines account for only 5% of California’s vehicles, they produce approximately 40% of the state’s NOx emissions.1 The health risks from diesel exhaust are severe. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates that 70% of the airborne cancer risk in the state is attributable to diesel PM, prompting CARB to identify diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant. CARB also determined that the year 2000 statewide concentration of diesel PM and NOx is responsible for an average of 2,880 premature deaths per year in CA, more than seven premature deaths per day.2 Diesel PM and NOx are also linked to increased asthma hospitalizations, pneumonia, heart disease, and chronic bronchitis.
California’s Diesel Clean-up Efforts
As a result of various studies showing the health risks associated with diesel exhaust exposure, CARB adopted a comprehensive Diesel Risk Reduction Plan with the goal of reducing diesel PM emissions 75% by 2010 and 85% by 2020. The plan calls for regulations requiring lower emissions standards for new engines and requirements to add emission controls to existing diesel engines. Cleaning up existing engines is extremely important in achieving near term pollution reductions because older, high polluting heavy-duty diesel engines are expected to remain in operation for many years.
In addition to implementing tighter emissions regulations, California has also implemented two landmark incentive programs to provide funding for replacing older, dirtier engines with cleaner alternatives. Since 1999, the Carl Moyer Memorial Program and the Low Emission School Bus Program have resulted in significant reductions of diesel PM and NOx pollution. These programs provide a model for the country, and other states are following California’s lead in providing incentive funding for cleaning up diesel exhaust.
Going the Extra Mile: Carl Moyer
The Carl Moyer Program has proven to be a great success in achieving both reductions in NOx and PM pollution from heavy-duty diesel engines, ranging from locomotives and marine engines to refuse trucks and urban transit buses. The Carl Moyer Program, begun in 1999, has made significant near term reductions in diesel NOx emissions by providing funds to diesel engine owners who clean up their engines above and beyond what is required by law. The projects funded in the first three years of the program are expected to reduce NOx by more than 22,000 tons over their lifetime.3 That’s equivalent to the lifetime NOx emissions from over 300,000 new gasoline cars.4 Although this program has targeted NOx emissions from diesel engines, a significant reduction in PM has also been achieved as an ancillary benefit. Over 1,100 tons of PM emissions will be avoided through the engine projects funded in the first three years. The combined reductions of PM and NOx are expected to prevent 116 premature deaths in California as well as reduce other ailments attributed to these pollutants (See Figure 1).5 The associated cost savings due to avoided health incidents is estimated to be $800 million, while less than $90 million has been spent on this program.6 The benefits of the Carl Moyer Program overwhelm the costs by a near ten to one ratio.
What’s left to clean up?
After three years of funding, the Moyer Program has provided reductions of 14 tons per day (tpd) of NOx and 800 pounds per day of PM. However, heavy-duty engines are pumping out more than 1,462 tpd of NOx and 66 tpd of PM. There are many more engines out there that need to be cleaned up, and continued funding for the Moyer program will ensure that it continues to happen.
Protecting the Most Precious Cargo: The Clean School Bus Program
A 2002 UCS study found that California’s school bus fleet ranks worst in the country for air pollution emissions.7 There are over 24,000 school buses operating in California and 50% of the fleet is ten years old or older. Hundreds of these buses predate 1977, when there were neither emissions standards for soot nor sufficient safety standards for school buses.
The health implications of having an outdated and dirty school bus fleet are significant. CARB released a new study in October 2003 that found that children riding in conventional diesel school buses are exposed to two to five times more air pollution than those riding in cleaner natural gas powered buses or low emission diesel buses.8 The researchers concluded that children riding these buses for 13 school years would have a four percent higher risk of contracting cancer from diesel exhaust, as well as higher risks for respiratory ailments and hospitalizations for asthma.
 California started the Low Emission School Bus Program in 2001 to help school districts pay for some of the cost of replacing the oldest, most polluting school buses. This program has been extremely successful and is expected to have replaced more than 450 old, dirty diesel buses with cleaner natural gas powered bus or new low emission diesel buses by 2004. It has also helped fund the retrofit of diesel buses with more than 3,000 particulate traps, reducing the PM emissions on these buses 25 to 85%.
What’s left to clean up?
There are still hundreds of pre-1977 buses delivering children to school each day in California and thousands more that are emitting more than six times the PM allowed from today’s new buses. California still falls well behind the curve when it comes to clean school buses. It is essential to continue funding the Low Emission School Bus Program to help school districts clean up their fleets and keep our children safe.
How can we fund these programs in a budget crisis?
Past funding for these programs has come from the state’s General Fund, as well as Proposition 40 passed by voters in 2002. Current funding for both programs will run out in 2004, and there is no guaranteed future funding. There is currently a bill in the state assembly, AB1500, which would provide a funding source for these programs and others like them by placing a fee on petroleum that is refined or imported into the state. The revenue generated from this fee would provide a stable, long-term funding mechanism for programs designed to reduce the impacts of diesel and petroleum use.
Notes
(1) California Air Resources Board. The Carl Moyer Program Annual Status Report, Sacramento, CA March 2002.
(2) Lloyd, A.;Cackette, T.A. Diesel Engines: Environmental Impact and Control; Journal of Air and Waste Management Assoc. 2001, 51: 809-847
(3) Both lifetime NOx and PM emissions were calculated on an average project lifetime of 5.5 years and data provided in [see note 1].
(4) UCS calculations based on NLEV NOx standards and useful vehicle life of 150,000 miles for model year 2003 vehicles.
(5) UCS calculations applying ARB’s method of calculating avoided premature deaths as described in CARB, Proposed Diesel Particulate Matter Control Measure for On-Road Heavy-Duty Residential and Commercial Solid Waste Collection Vehicles, CA August 2003
(6) Cost per incidence avoided were derived from A.D.Little, Benefits for Reducing Demand of Gasoline and Diesel Volume 3,Task 1 Report, CA March 2002.
(7) UCS, Pollution Report Card Grading America’s School Bus Fleets, MA February 2002
(8) CARB, Characterizing the Range of Children’s Pollutant Exposure during School Bus Commutes, June 2003
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