An earlier study from the same research team, The Climate Gap, illustrated how low-income communities and those of color are so much more vulnerable to the impacts of global warming as they have far more adverse health impacts and they suffer economically. This latest research further demonstrates the disparities, revealing that “people of color experience over 70% more particulate pollution from large greenhouse gas emitting facilities within two and a half miles than non-Hispanic whites.” Generally, of the twelve largest greenhouse gas emitters in California, eight are also the worst actors in terms of their pollution burdens on surrounding communities disproportionately impacting people of color. Who are those bad actors?
Almost all of the bad actors are refineries in the Los Angeles Harbor area. In these maps you can get a better understanding of how disproportionately impacted this area is. Two of these bad actors, Valero and Tesoro, are Texas oil companies that are currently financing an effort to repeal AB 32 that would allow them to continue to emit greater amounts of pollution where enough of it already exists.
Now consider the tremendous air quality, health and economic benefits that these communities could receive if global warming policies were designed in a manner that guaranteed improvements from the largest greenhouse gas emitters. Several years ago, NRDC’s report Boosting the Benefits showed that even through conservative estimates, AB 32 policies could save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of other negative health impacts annually – saving billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
However, incorporating some of the public health safeguards recommended by the Minding the Climate Gap report could vastly expand these benefits particularly in the communities that need them the most. Policy makers ought to visit the communities of Wilmington, Carson, Paramount, Torrance, Richmond and Colton and then fully consider the following system safeguards:
Further, this report focused on three prominent industrial sectors: Power generation, Refining and Cement, yet the policy safeguards that are recommended would have benefits far beyond those sectors, likely reaching impacted communities in the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere. As the California Air Resources Board (CARB) forms protocols for market mechanisms to reduce global warming pollution, they are at a critical juncture to build in public health safeguards in the system that can produce considerable improvements to communities throughout California while meeting climate goals. The choice seems easy yet not without political interference courtesy of the ever powerful industries that dish out those health impacts. We hope CARB can slip out of that oily grip to choose the path that secures additional public health benefits and protects our future.
]]>It is true that the CARB staffer who managed the review of dozens of studies showing mortality impacts of fine particulate matter (PM) exposure faked his personal credentials, and that is most unfortunate. That has nothing to do though, with the robust and extensive body of science, showing strong links between increased mortality and fine PM exposure. The peer reviewed literature is full of scores of these studies from internationally recognized experts in the field with unassailable credentials (see this summary from US EPA).
The fact is that you’ll never see “small particles” written on a death certificate, but we know that it kills tens of thousands in the US alone. In fact, even the World Health Organization recognizes PM as a major global killer, estimating about two million deaths from air pollution worldwide each year. Diesel exhaust is notoriously full of fine PM; there’s no doubt about it. And these particles actually discriminate who they kill, because it’s the poorest communities with the largest minority populations who are most exposed to high diesel traffic corridors and transportation hubs.
The powerful industries that rely on polluting diesel engines continue to promote the false choice between jobs and health. They are used to receiving subsidies in the form of millions of impacted lungs and lives so that they can continue to run dirty, old engines without controls. Now, CARB regulations forcing trucks and construction equipment to clean up their act have provoked attacks on the science of pollution-driven health impacts. These attacks are no surprise, but hopefully decisionmakers can stay focused on the fact that thousands of Californians are dying each year waiting for these engines to be cleaned up.
These industries continue to try to sue, legislate, obstruct and do everything they can to delay the relief to stifling diesel pollution that everyone is waiting for. CARB made the right decision to reexamine the link between fine PM pollution and mortality, despite the overwhelming evidence and scientific community’s conclusions that diesel pollution is bad for your health. In fact, reports abound showing stronger links between fine PM and mortality than previously thought. We are confident that science will prevail, allowing California to continue on our path to crack down on deadly diesel pollution. We expect CARB to release their newest report soon, bringing the agency in line with other esteemed institutions like US EPA, the World Health Organization and the Health Effects Institute, confirming the link between inhaling particulate matter and premature death.
]]>A separate poll shows that in response to news of potential rollbacks to core environmental protections through the budget process, California voters assert that decisions about environmental protections should be made separately from the budget process. Voters are opposed most to allowing increased pollution from diesel engines. It's that simple. Californians know that they can have a strong economy and a clean environment at the same time and they expect it.
Message to Republican leaders in Sacramento: Stop monkeying around with our state's budget trying to dismantle environmental protections that have nothing to do with California's urgent fiscal matters.
]]>Included on the chopping block is the Off-road diesel regulation, a bedrock clean-up measure that will bring major relief to communities throughout California that are suffering from air pollution and public health impacts. The construction industry is demanding massive delays to diesel clean-up that will translate to an additional 360 premature deaths and almost 10,000 additional cases of asthma and respiratory illness, according to CARB.
These proposals are literally bargaining away the lives of Californians, and they do nothing to improve our budget situation. In fact, the off-road diesel clean-up regulation is projected to save California $26 billion in health costs. What's more, diesel clean-up technologies, including those that will be used for construction equipment, actually boost the economy, adding thousands of new jobs dealing with diesel engines. A number of California companies, like Cleaire, are thriving at the forefront of diesel control technology.
It is profoundly undemocratic for a handful of legislators to go behind closed doors to secretly reverse landmark environmental and public health protections that have already undergone thorough legal, administrative and public processes. Protecting public health and safety is good for the economy and we cannot afford to lose these protections in the budget process.
]]>What wasn't clear at the hearing was whether any of the companies that claim they are going out of business were considered "big fleets" triggering early clean-up requirements by the rule. All other fleets get much more time to comply with the diesel rule and that means better access to public funds to help them clean up. Fleets also have the choice of complying with the rule based on the hours that their equipment is used, in the unfortunate event that their business is down. The ace CARB staff on this rule had the foresight to build this kind of flexibility into the rule, so that they wouldn't have to keep reopening the rule to fix it, which would only cause more delays in implemention.
Just this week, researchers announced findings that confirmed cleaner air could prolong your life by five months. This study reiterates what we already know in California, that air pollution negatively affects your health and can dramatically shorten your life. The CARB diesel rules reduce life-shortening air pollution, and are designed to allow financial assistance for those companies or individuals particularly hit by the economic downturn. Still, we should be looking beyond our economic state and realize that if we don't work to clean up air pollution from some of the dirtiest mobile polluters, we will be facing a costlier battle for our public health.
As I write this, the budget crisis continues with the Republicans demanding that any budget include provisions to water down environmental protections that are unique to California in that they are some of the strongest environmental laws in the nation. Unfortunately, the Off-road diesel regulation is one of those initiatives at risk. Honest budget negotiation should not play politics with our health, safety, and common heritage.
]]>Four years ago, NRDC cosponsored clean construction legislation for California (SB 497, Simitian), designed to retrofit off-road construction equipment and reduce the massive health toll that pollution from the construction industry has taken on millions of Californians. Instead of binding legislation, industry groups indicated support and even a preference for a CARB regulation to clean up off-road equipment, suggesting that CARB is better equipped to form diesel clean up policies than the legislature (and isn't that ironic given the latest onslaught against diesel regulations through the budget process?).
A year later, after successfully blocking the Clean Construction bill, the same opposition turned their battle against diesel clean up to the CARB off-road rule that was under development - the one they supported in concept. It took almost three years for CARB to adopt the off-road rule because the industry contested every aspect of the rule at every step of the way, submitting bogus "alternative" proposals that did little if anything more than the status quo. In July 2007, the board under the leadership of a new Chair adopted a strong, health protective off-road diesel clean up measure that was estimated to save 4,000 lives in addition to avoiding hundreds of thousands of cases of asthma and respiratory illness.
Even now, more than a year after CARB passed the off-road rule, the construction industry is up to their usual tricks, doing anything necessary to roll back the off-road clean up measure. The Associated General Contractors of California (AGC of CA) petitioned CalOSHA to adopt safety standards for retrofit devices that would seriously undermine the off-road diesel rule and allow them to renege on making required fleet upgrades. We agree with industry's safety concerns, but that's no excuse not to clean up the equipment. In further acts of desperation at the end of last year, the AGC petitioned CARB to reconsider or repeal the off-road rule, and then put pressure on EPA to interfere by denying California the right to regulate pollution from off-road equipment. The latter attempt to deny California's right to clean up pollution is especially bizarre, since California already adopted its own tailpipe standards for off-road equipment in 2004.
Roughly 180,000 off-road vehicles cause nearly as much pollution as the one million diesel big rigs operating in California. Each year, thousands of Californians die prematurely from this lethal exhaust and it's mind-numbing to think the construction industry is still pushing back on the equipment upgrades, especially when there has been so much public funding to help pay for it.
We hope the board will stick to its guns on the off-road diesel rule, and weigh on the side of public health and reduced costs to the state. And we hope the legislature and Governor will refrain from using these critical diesel clean up regulations to pay ransom to a small minority of Republican legislators, who are holding the state hostage over demands to strip California's most important health and environmental protections in exchange for their votes on a final budget. Nine out of ten Californians already breathe unhealthy air. Clean air for our golden state has nothing to do with the budget; it's not for sale.
]]>The Board was heroic in its adoption of one of the more powerful measures to protect public health in tough economic times. And the state has backed up these landmark truck clean-up rules with $1 billion in funding to help out truck owners. If more funding is needed to keep small businesses afloat with clean trucks, I know I speak for all supporters of this rule in saying that we'll be there to help raise these funds.
The Air Board took a giant step towards our climate goals and towards clean air goals, bringing relief to millions of Californians whose health has been negatively affected by diesel truck pollution. Every Board Member should feel proud that they had a hand in saving, literally, thousands of lives.
It's a different scene here in Oakland however, where the Port has been overcome by financial misfortune, using that as an excuse to dismantle every environmental program. For the last minute withdrawal of a critical port truck clean up program, I debated giving the Port Commissioners gas masks, but instead gave them lumps of coal for the holidays. I hope they hang on to their black lumps to remind them of all the extra soot that drivers and impacted residents are exposed to due to their delay in cleaning up port trucks.
In a community where lives are on average ten years shorter and one in five children suffers from asthma, the stalled truck clean up program is an expense too great to bear. With two newly appointed port commissioners, who may be well aware that we cannot continue to sacrifice lives for money or vice versa, I'm optimistic that the Port of Oakland will reverse course in 2009 by moving forward with life-saving clean truck programs. As the Port counts down one year until the Clean Port Truck Standards phase in, I hope the Commissioners have the mettle and courage to take responsibility for the broken port trucking system and fix it.
]]>Why do we need to overhaul the trucking fleet now? The millions of Californians living close to freeways, warehousing operations, railyards or port terminals have an intimate sense of just how bad pollution and health impacts are from trucks. And the data bears that out: Half of the smog-forming gases and about 40 percent of soot from diesel engines comes from trucks. The proposed clean up regs would save 9,400 lives and avoid thousands of cases of asthma and other illnesses, reducing health care costs by up to $69 billion. The proposed regs also make efficiency improvement that will save $4 billion in fuel, which is pretty good considering that trucks contribute about seven percent of global warming pollution in California. That's a combined savings of nearly $73 billion for Californians.
However, the trucking industry is opposed to these important regulations and calling on delays during this tough economic time, though they've had more than a decade to tap into public funds to help prepare for these overhauls and they'll have another decade to fully clean up the fleet. The trucking industry fails to see that they've had a free pass up until now with residents of California subsidizing trucking business with their lungs and health. The long-term financial benefits to the people of California are at least ten times the cost of this rule. And the state has even pledged $1 billion in grants and loans to offset some of the costs of these rules for the businesses that need help most.
And no one has calculated the additional green jobs benefits. Thousands of local workers will likely be needed to install the pollution controls and aerodynamic retrofits that these regs call for, and perform additional maintenance. Manufacturing will also get a big bump through production of retrofits and new, clean trucks. These regs could very well serve as a mini stimulus package for California, spurring business growth for a slate of companies specializing in clean and efficient transport.
Still, many are arguing that we should simply wait to adopt sweeping truck clean-up regs. Families impacted by truck pollution in California, however, have been digging deep in their pocketbooks for years to deal with asthma and a passel of other air pollution related illnesses. Impacted communities will likely be well represented at the CARB hearing, travelling from distant corners of the state to testify that there's no better time than now to clean up trucks. With children living in truck-choked areas like Mira Loma, Commerce, or the Bayview, and asthma and cancer rates in those areas through the roof, they're depending on these clean up measures to offer the relief from pollution that challenges their every breath.
On Friday, the Air Board has the tough job of balancing the grave health needs of California residents with the business needs. In addition to the strong commitment to supporting health and air quality improvements traditionally espoused by CARB, the $1 billion in incentives and loans, billions of dollars of health cost and fuel savings, and incentive for green jobs should weigh heavily in favor of adopting these landmark truck clean up regulations now.
]]>It's no secret that diesel pollution kills people and that there's plenty of diesel pollution coming from the Port of Oakland operations. Scores of studies have documented a long list of health ailments and even premature death caused by or related to diesel pollution. According to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), pollution from ports and freight transport was responsible for 3,700 premature deaths in 2005. The health risks are especially high in West Oakland, where a recent study showed greatly elevated cancer risks from port pollution. And residents aren't the only ones suffering from port pollution, workers at the port, and particularly truck drivers, face high health risks as well.
As the Port of Oakland stalls action on this pressing issue and rolls back truck clean up programs that are spurred by public funding from the state and region, public health suffers. Every week that the Port delays clean up efforts, community members and workers impacted by port pollution likely experience an additional 100 or more asthma attacks and other severe illnesses. And as the port talks about financial hardship, the health costs associated with all this extra pollution run up to $50 million every week the Port refuses to take action to reform the trucking system.
So, why does the port continue to fumble and bumble truck clean up programs that have already been successfully adopted by the Port's neighbors to South? We have been working with the Port of Oakland for the past two years to come up with solutions for the broken port trucking system that currently fails to provide a safe work environment or healthy air quality for the community. As port staff have dithered over the details and waffled on commitments, the ports in Southern California have moved forward with comprehensive truck programs addressing these issues. In fact, the ban on dirty, old trucks at these ports that went into action last month produced a fifty percent reduction in toxic diesel soot pollution overnight. Air monitoring data near those ports indicates a substantial reduction of pollution on average comparing pre- and post-truck ban dates.
This latest move to pull funding from a truck clean up program spearheaded by the air district is shocking, yet tracks with the Port's record on environmental programs. Without the $5 million pledged by the port, the $10 million of public funds secured from the state and region may disappear, never to be spent on port truck clean up programs in Oakland. Alternatively, if the air district chooses to continue with the program, drivers will be forced to cover much greater expenses to modernize their trucks, creating an unfair and unsustainable burden on low-income workers.
Good jobs and clean air can and must coexist at our port. If the Port doesn't get its act together and reform the system, it will continue to be plagued with inefficiencies and potentially face massive disruptions to service without enough clean trucks to meet the CARB Port Truck regulation on time. The Port of LA provides a great example of a smart, sustainable and cost-effective approach. The Port of Oakland needs to end the foot dragging by reinstating the truck clean up program and adopting a sustainable comprehensive truck program immediately.
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