California Lists Diesel Fumes
Among Cancer-Causing Agents

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Ranchers from the rest of the world planning a trip to California might want to think twice about taking their Ford Powerstroke or Dodge Cummins diesel pickup. They’re liable to find themselves as unwelcome as cigarette smokers, who’ve been thrown out of both public and private buildings and are now prohibited from some public streets as well.

The diesel engine, say regulators from The Land of Fruits and Nuts, is a cancer-causing agent.

The California Air Resources Board, capping years of controversy, last Thursday ordered 40 chemicals found in diesel fumes to be listed as toxic air pollutants.

"This issue is as simple as cigarette smoking and cancer — the issue is diesel and lung damage," said Bonnie Holmes-Gen of the Sierra Club, which lauded the ruling.

The decision by California's powerful anti-pollution board forces local and state regulators to come up with a plan to limit human exposure to the listed chemicals.

The 11-member panel is one of the most influential environmental regulatory agencies in the country. Its decisions often serve as a bellwether for stricter standards at the federal level, where regulators also are drafting standards for diesel emissions.

"The EPA is going to be giving increased scrutiny to diesel emissions from heavy-duty trucks," said Daniel Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, an independent air pollution research group. "People at the EPA and in Europe will be following this very closely."

The trucking industry, which supported the board's decision, says the decision could force aging, less efficient trucks spewing black soot off the roads.

"When the public sees big, black smoke coming out of a truck, that's a reality," said Allen Shaeffer, vice president of the American Trucking Association. "We have to deal with that reality."

It doesn’t hurt ATA, made up mostly of large trucking companies, that the older trucks which will be forced off the road belong mostly to small, independent truckers who themselves may thus be forced off the road and out of the way.

And, of course, the old trucks must be replaced with new ones, which won’t hurt the feelings of truck manufacturers and dealers.

Engine makers say advances in design and cleaner fuel have yielded a "smokeless" truck and significant reductions in toxic emissions.

The Air Resources Board, in promoting its decision, claimed more than 14,000 people in California will contract cancer from diesel fumes next year. Where it came up with that figure is unclear.

Board Chairman John Dunlap said the decision was even more significant than the 1964 surgeon general's report on tobacco since it represented a consensus among industry, environmentalists and scientists.

The listing garnered the support of industry after it was amended to target the toxic chemicals in the exhaust, not the exhaust itself. Engine makers were worried that listing the exhaust could deal a huge blow to business.

"The only thing you can do to get rid of diesel exhaust is get rid of a diesel engine," said William Bunn, of Navistar International Transportation Corp., the largest truck maker in the nation.

The trucking industry says there is no alternative to diesel fuel that can efficiently and cheaply power 18-wheelers across the nation's highways.