1 2 BOARD MEETING 3 STATE OF CALIFORNIA 4 AIR RESOURCES BOARD 5 6 7 SAN DIEGO COUNTY ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER SUPERVISORS CHAMBERS, ROOM 310 8 1600 PACIFIC HIGHWAY SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 9 10 11 12 13 14 THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2002 9:12 A.M. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Reported by: NEALY KENDRICK, CSR No. 11265 25 Job No.: 02-23180 1 1 APPEARANCES 2 BOARD MEMBERS Alan C. Lloyd, Ph.D., Chair 3 Dr. William A. Burke Joseph C. Calhoun, P.E. 4 Dorene D'Adamo Dr. C. Hugh Friedman 5 William F. Friedman, M.D. Matthew R. McKinnon 6 Barbara Patrick Barbara Riordan 7 Ron Roberts 8 STAFF MEMBERS Michael Kenny, Executive Officer 9 Tom Cackette, Deputy Executive Officer Michael Scheible, Deputy Executive Officer 10 Lynn Terry, Deputy Executive Officer Kathleen Walsh, Chief Counsel 11 Kathleen Tschogl, Ombudsperson 12 Bart Croes, P.E., Chief, Research Division Dr. Norm Kado 13 Leslie Krinsk, Senior Staff Counsel Richard Bode 14 Ralph Propper 15 Gabe Ruiz 16 Sylvia Oey, Manager, Southern California Liaison Section 17 Robert Fletcher, Chief, Planning and Technical Support Division 18 Dinh Quach 19 Darryl Gaslan, Manager, Heavy-Duty Diesel Enforcement Section 20 Annette Hebert, Chief, Heavy-Duty Diesel In-Use Strategies Branch 21 Nancy Steele, Heavy-Duty Diesel In-Use Strategies Branch, Retrofit Section 22 23 24 25 2 1 I N D E X PAGE 2 Roll Call 6 3 Item 02-2-1 7 Public Meeting to Consider a Health Update 4 Chairman Lloyd 7 Executive Officer Kenny 8 5 Staff presentation - Dr. Kado 9 Discussion 12 6 Item 02-2-2 15 7 Public Meeting to Consider Research Proposals Chairman Lloyd 15 8 Mr. Croes 15 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 15 9 Discussion (none) 10 Proposal No. 2512-224 16 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 16 11 Discussion 17 12 Proposal No. 2510-224 19 Chairman Lloyd 19 13 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 19 Discussion 20 14 Proposal No. 2515-224 21 15 Chairman Lloyd 22 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 21 16 Discussion 22 17 Proposal No. 2514-224 22 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 22 18 Discussion 23 19 Proposal No. 2516-224 23 Chairman Lloyd 24 20 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 23 Discussion 24 21 Proposal No. 2507-223 25 22 Chairman Lloyd 26 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 25 23 Discussion 25 & 28 24 Proposal No. 2505-223 27 Chairman Lloyd 27 25 Staff presentation - Mr. Propper 27 Discussion 28 3 1 I N D E X (continued) 2 PAGE Board approval of seven proposals 31 3 Item 02-2-3 31 4 Public Meeting to Consider an Update on California-Mexico Border Activities 5 Chairman Lloyd 31 & 47 Executive Officer Kenny 32 6 Staff presentation - Mr. Ruiz 33 Discussion 47 7 Item 02-2-4 66 8 Public Meeting to Consider a Status Report on the Fleet Rule and Reporting Requirements for 9 all Urban Bus Transit Agencies Chairman Lloyd 66 10 Executive Officer Kenny 68 Staff presentation - Ms. Quach 70 11 Discussion 90 Mr. Hogo 104 12 Mr. Shaw 109 Mr. Harvey 114 13 Mr. Douwes 117 Mr. Rall 120 14 Mr. Walker 123 Mr. Bates 124 15 Mr. Stephens 127 Discussion 130 16 Mr. Daughton 132 Discussion 135 17 Mr. Gleich 136 Discussion 138 18 Mr. Burton 139 Mr. Ellis 142 19 Mr. Whittle 143 Discussion 144 20 Mr. Luckhurst 146 Ms. Bailey 147 21 Mr. Campbell 150 Discussion 154 22 Ms. Holmes-Gen 156 Discussion 160 23 Ms. Berkshire 163 Discussion 165 24 Mr. Mandel 167 Mr. Duerr 170 25 Mr. Malina 172 Mr. Smith 174 4 1 I N D E X (continued) 2 Mr. Bertelsen 177 Discussion 180 3 Board approval of resolution 195 4 Open-comment period 195 5 Ms. Rodriguez 196 Ms. Forbis 197 6 Discussion 201 Mr. Campbell 205 7 Closed-session meeting 208 8 Introduction 207 Closed-session results 208 9 Conclusion of Proceedings 209 10 Reporter's certificate 210 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 5 1 SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA; THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2002 2 9:12 A.M. 3 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Good morning. The March 21, 5 2002, public meeting of the ARB will now come to 6 order. 7 Will you please lead us in the pledge. 8 (The pledge of allegiance was 9 recited.) 10 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Will the clerk of 11 the board please call the roll. 12 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Dr. Burke? 13 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Present. 14 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Mr. Calhoun. 15 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Present. 16 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Ms. D'Adamo. 17 (No audible response.) 18 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Supervisor 19 Desaulnier. 20 (No audible response.) 21 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Professor Friedman. 22 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Here. 23 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Dr. Friedman. 24 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: Here. 25 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Mr. McKinnon. 6 1 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: Here. 2 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Supervisor Patrick? 3 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: Here. 4 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Mrs. Riordan. 5 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Here. 6 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Supervisor Roberts. 7 (No audible response.) 8 CLERK OF THE BOARD KAVAN: Chairman Lloyd. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Here. 10 First of all, I would like to thank 11 Supervisor Roberts and the City of San Diego for the 12 excellent hospitality in allowing us to come here 13 today and use the facilities. So, Supervisor, I'd 14 like to thank you very much for that. 15 I'd also like to remind anyone in the 16 audience who wishes to testify on today's agenda item 17 to please sign up with the clerk of the board. Also, 18 if you give a written statement, please provide 30 19 copies to the board clerk. 20 First item on the agenda today is 21 02-dash-2-dash-1: "Public Meeting to Consider a 22 Health Update." 23 In keeping with our recent strategy, 24 today's staff will be presenting recent findings on 25 the association between short-term particulate-matter 7 1 exposure and increased deaths due to heart disease. 2 This is some of the new information being considered 3 by staff in the ongoing review of the health-based 4 California ambient air quality standards for 5 particulate matter. 6 The standards for particulate matter 7 were assigned the highest priority for review and 8 revision due to the magnitude of the health impacts 9 occurring. We anticipate considering staff 10 recommendation for revising the PM standard in June 11 of this year. 12 With that, Mr. Kenny, please begin 13 staff presentation. 14 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: Thank you, 15 Dr. Lloyd, and members of the board. 16 The first standards to be reviewed 17 under the Children's Environmental Health Protection 18 Act SB-25 are those for particulate matter. Staff 19 anticipates recommending revisions to the PM standard 20 based on short-term acute health effects as well as 21 longer-term chronic health effects. 22 Since the board will soon be 23 considering staff's recommendation for the PM 24 standard, I asked staff to provide you with an update 25 on some important recent findings on PM health 8 1 effects that will influence their recommendations for 2 the PM standards. 3 These findings have shown significant 4 associations between heart disease and short-term 5 exposure to PM. Dr. Norm Kado, from the Health and 6 Exposure Assessment Branch, will make the 7 presentation. Norm. 8 DR. KADO: Thank you very much, Mr. Kenny. 9 Good morning, Chairman Lloyd and 10 members of the board. Today I would like to discuss 11 results of a recent study on the health effects of 12 airborne particulate matter, or PM. 13 More specifically, I would like 14 discuss the emerging research on the exposure to fine 15 particulate matter, or PM 2.5, and associated 16 cardiovascular health effects. As you are aware, the 17 staff has been reviewing the air-quality standards 18 for particulate matter and expects to propose, to the 19 board, revisions of the standards to adequately 20 protect public health. 21 Staff is scheduled to present 22 recommendations to the board in June, 20002. 23 During this review of the standards, 24 the critical health impacts of particulate pollution 25 are starting to emerge. For many years, scientists 9 1 have studied the health effects of particulate 2 matter, or PM, exposure and have reported that PM is 3 associated with increases in mortality and increases 4 in the rates of hospitalization and emergency room 5 visits for cardiopulmonary, or heart and lung health, 6 effects. 7 These associations were reported in 8 epidemiological studies conducted in a number of 9 cities both in the U.S. and internationally. 10 However, the biological mechanisms regarding how PM 11 is involved with these health effects has not been 12 well understood, especially for the cardiovascular 13 effects. 14 The study that we are highlighting 15 today addresses the relationship between PM exposure 16 and a major cardiovascular health effect -- 17 myocardial infarction, or MI, commonly known as a 18 heard attack. In addition, this study looked at 19 effects from shorter-term PM exposures of 24 hours or 20 less. 21 Dr. Annette Peters and her colleagues 22 from Harvard University conducted an epidemiological 23 study involving patients who had myocardial 24 infarctions and studied the relationship of MI onset 25 to fine PM exposures. Hourly concentrations of PM 10 1 were investigated. 2 The study design consisted of 3 interviewing 772 patients with MI in the Boston area. 4 The average age of the patients was 62 years old. 5 Hourly concentrations of PM 2.5 were measured in 6 Boston. The time after exposure to PM was 7 investigated in relation to the onset of MI. 8 The results reported were important 9 for evaluating the cardiovascular health impacts of 10 PM. Investigators reported that the risk of MI 11 increased with elevated PM 2.5, especially if 12 exposure occurred in the previous 2-hour period. 13 They found a 50 percent increase in 14 the risk of MI when preceded by a 25-microgram-per- 15 cubic-meter increase in PM 2.5, 2 hours before the 16 onset of MI. 17 Another important finding that the 18 investigators reported was that there was a delayed 19 response associated with a 24-hour PM 2.5 20 concentration measured. That is, one day after 21 exposure to elevated PM 2.5, there was a significant 22 increased risk of MI. 23 The increase was approximately 70 24 percent for an increase in PM 2.5 of 20 micrograms 25 per cubic meter. 11 1 In summary, investigators have 2 recently reported that elevated concentrations of 3 PM 2.5 are associated with transient elevated risk of 4 MI, a major cardiovascular health effect. The 5 biological mechanism or mechanisms by which PM 6 triggers MI are currently unknown. 7 The authors indicate that the two 8 distinct exposure times before MI onset may indicate 9 different mechanisms of toxicity of PM 2.5. These 10 mechanisms of cardiovascular effects and PM are an 11 important focus of current research involving 12 laboratory studies. 13 There are also a number of new studies 14 that are evaluating this relationship between PM 15 exposure and cardiovascular health effects in terms 16 of heart rhythms and the constriction of the 17 arteries. 18 This concludes our presentation. We 19 look forward to discussing other health-related 20 research information with you in the future. Thank 21 you very much. 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 23 Any questions, comments from the 24 board? Dr. Friedman. 25 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: This is a 12 1 particularly interesting study because, before this 2 study, although it was known that there was some 3 relationship between cardiac death and PM, the notion 4 had been that, "Oh, these are old patients in their 5 70's and even older who are already at death's door 6 and usually in hospital settings." 7 In contrast, in this particular study, 8 you're talking about the at-risk population of people 9 in their early 60's. And it's becoming more clear 10 that the relationship is even more -- is even tighter 11 than we once thought between PM and cardiovascular 12 events. 13 And there are some additional studies 14 on the horizon. And, of course, we will eventually 15 be able to focus more on mechanism than just on 16 phenomenological events. So this happens to be an 17 important stepping stone. And it's published in one 18 of the most critically reviewed cardiologic journals 19 in the world. So it's an important contribution. 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 21 Ms. D'Adamo. 22 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Is this on? 23 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: To your left. 24 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: It's on your 25 left, I think. 13 1 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Okay. Thank you, sir. 2 Why was Boston selected? And also 3 what was the PM source? 4 DR. KADO: Boston is one of the -- there was a 5 single site in Boston. Boston, as you know, is sort 6 of the heart of a lot of the PM studies for health 7 effects, epidemiological-type studies, because of 8 Harvard University. Doug "Daukerry," Joe Schwartz, 9 and others have done the work there. 10 Boston was chosen because the six-city 11 study incorporates a couple of, I believe, cities 12 within that realm. And also the group is -- pretty 13 much has a lot of experience with the monitoring. It 14 has a fairly good history of getting PM 2.5 and other 15 components of the air-pollutant mix. 16 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Maybe it's a 17 stupid question. Does it make any difference whether 18 you breathe through your mouth or your nose in this 19 case? 20 DR. KADO: I think the filtering effect, as 21 you know, is usually for the larger particles and 22 then so there is a -- if you look at the filtering 23 curve for 2.5, it starts to dip. But I think the 24 mouth-versus-nose breathing, I'm pretty sure, is not 25 effective in this realm because of the size of the 14 1 particulate matter. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 3 So no more question? No one signed 4 up. Since this is not a regulatory item, it's not 5 necessary to officially close the record but to move 6 on to the next item. 7 The next either of business is Agenda 8 Item 02-dash-2-dash-2 -- the looking at seven 9 research proposals coming before the board for 10 approval. 11 Mr. Croes, does staff have anything 12 they wish to add about the proposal? 13 MR. CROES: Chairman Lloyd, we'd like to make 14 a make brief presentation on the seven research 15 projects. 16 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 17 MR. CROES: Ralph Propper will be making that. 18 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 19 MR. PROPPER: Thank you, Mr. Croes. 20 And good morning, Chairman Lloyd, and 21 members of the board. Today we are presenting to you 22 seven research proposals for a total of about 23 one-and-a-quarter-million dollars. ARB staff and the 24 research-screening committee have reviewed and 25 approved these proposals. 15 1 Each proposal supports the board's 2 research mission to provide timely scientific and 3 technical information to develop and support the 4 public-policy decisions required for an effective 5 air-pollution-control program. 6 The first project is "Post-Regulatory 7 Evaluation of the Cost and Economic-Impact Estimates 8 of Air-Pollution-Control Regulations." When 9 estimating the cost of new air-pollution regulations, 10 we assume the use of current technologies. 11 However, history shows that 12 technological improvement tends to lower compliance 13 costs over time. 14 By studying several state and local 15 regulations, this project will determine current 16 costs, economic impacts, and emission reductions of 17 past regulations and compare them to the original 18 estimates. Special attention will be given to the 19 role of innovative technologies in lowering the cost 20 of compliance. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Sorry. Were you going to go 22 into the next one, Ralph? 23 MR. PROPPER: Just about. I was just going to 24 say that we will learn how to improve cost and 25 economic-impact projections for the future 16 1 rule-making efforts from this project. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: If it's okay with you, I'd 3 like to entertain questions for each proposal -- 4 MR. PROPPER: Sure. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: -- before we forget. And I 6 know Mrs. Riordan had a question on this one. 7 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I 8 have, first, a question and then a comment. 9 The question is that I have: Are 10 there any other organizations or governmental bodies 11 that are sharing the costs of this project? 12 MR. CROES: No. We did approach the South 13 Coast AQMD and "NESCOM." And actually we're building 14 on work that they have funded previously. 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: That "NESCOM" had funded? 16 MR. CROES: Yes. 17 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: The comment that I have 18 then is, as I read through this research study, it 19 doesn't say who is going to determine the particular 20 regulations that are going to be studied. And it 21 seems to me, if this is our money and our money only, 22 that we ought to be very much involved with the 23 selection of the control measures. 24 And staff -- you may want to respond 25 to that. But I just see that as very important 17 1 because I think our staff, as they develop the cost 2 analysis, have obviously some projects that are a 3 little bit closer to them that they would like to 4 actually understand what the effects were. 5 So I think it's very important that, 6 in that contract, we are very much involved with 7 choosing the study parameters. 8 MR. CROES: And that will be the case. We 9 actually are working, with all the divisions in ARB 10 that do regulations, to select, with the contractor, 11 the group of regulations that will be evaluated. 12 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: And I think that's very 13 helpful because it didn't say that in the proposal -- 14 or I didn't think I read it and I wanted to be very 15 sure that we had that control over selecting the 16 regulations that were most meaningful to us. 17 MR. CROES: Yeah. We've actually had that 18 control over all the projects that we do. 19 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Okay. Very good. 20 Thank you. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Dr. Burke. 22 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: I was a little confused. 23 Did you say that, in fact, part of this study based 24 on previous studies funded by South Coast? 25 MR. CROES: No. The work is based on a prior 18 1 study funded by "NESCOM." 2 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Okay. Thank you. 3 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Ms. D'Adamo. 4 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Approximately how many 5 regulations do you think that this study will look 6 at? 7 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: I think it said ten. 8 MR. CROES: Ten. Ten. 9 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Okay. Thank you. 10 MR. CROES: A minimum of ten. I think it will 11 basically depend on how easy it is to acquire the 12 data. If it's easy, we'll be able to evaluate more 13 than 10. 14 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Thank you, Ralph. 15 MR. PROPPER: I'll continue on, then, with the 16 next project: "Indoor Air Chemistry: Cleaning 17 Agents, Ozone, and Toxic Air Contaminants." 18 The use of cleaning products can lead 19 to indoor exposure to VOC's and toxic air pollutants. 20 In response to ARB regulations, formulators are using 21 constituents that are less volatile. However, some 22 of these constituents may be toxic while others react 23 with ozone indoors to form irritants and carcinogens. 24 This project will obtain 25 toxic-emissions data from current cleaning products 19 1 and also characterize the emissions resulting from 2 reactions between cleaning agent emissions and ozone. 3 The results will help us decide if we should modify 4 our regulations and help us guide the public on ways 5 to reduce harmful exposures from the use of cleaning 6 products. 7 The third project is "Gas-Phase 8 Formation Rates of Nitric Acid" -- 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Wait, Ralph. 10 Any questions? Yes, Mr. Calhoun. 11 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Thanks. 12 I may have already asked this 13 question, but I'll ask it again: Since this is 14 indoor air chemistry -- and I assume there are other 15 state agencies that have responsibilities, some 16 responsibility in this area -- I guess the question I 17 would ask is: Are any of these agencies 18 participating in the funding of this study? 19 MR. CROES: There are other agencies that do 20 have programs related to indoor sources. But we are 21 the only agency that's funded for research in indoor 22 air-quality problems. And we are the only agency 23 funding this project. 24 UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: And also in the 25 case of consumer products, we have the direct 20 1 regulatory responsibility for consumer products. And 2 that includes looking at the impacts of exposures 3 that occur indoors. So this is pretty close to our 4 area of direct regulatory authority. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yeah. Thank you. 6 Professor Friedman. 7 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: I just wanted to 8 make sure I understand correctly. Is this a study of 9 indoor contamination based on commercial usages? Or 10 is this residential and private? 11 UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Professor 12 Friedman, it's the latter case. It's -- 13 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: We're not going 14 into dry-cleaning establishments, are we? 15 UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It's household 16 projects. 17 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Household? It's 18 only household products? 19 MR. CROES: Yes. 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 21 MR. PROPPER: The third project is "Gas-Phase 22 Formation Rates of Nitric Acid and its Isomers Under 23 Urban Conditions." 24 We use air-quality models to assess 25 control strategies for ozone and particulate matter. 21 1 During the chemical process that creates ozone, 2 nitric acid is formed from nitrogen dioxide. 3 The nitric acid then reacts with 4 ammonia to form ammonia -- to form ammonium nitrate, 5 a major constituent of PM 2.5, especially in the 6 South Coast and San Joaquin Valley air basins. 7 Currently the nitric acid formation 8 rate has a 25 percent uncertainty, which translates 9 to a similar uncertainty in model predictions for 10 ozone and ammonium nitrate. This project will 11 measure the formation rate of nitric acid using 12 sophisticated laser techniques and reduce the major 13 uncertainty in models for ozone and PM 2.5. 14 Any questions? 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I presume there were other 16 reactions where we have similar uncertainties. But 17 this is obviously a key one in terms of some of the 18 particulates as well. 19 MR. CROES: Chairman Lloyd, in terms of the 20 importance of reactions in ozone formation and PM 2.5 21 formation -- this one rises well above all the 22 others. 23 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 24 MR. PROPPER: The fourth project is 25 "Quantitative Analysis of Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass 22 1 Spectrometry Data Using YAADA." Aerosol 2 time-of-flight mass spectrometry is used to measure 3 the size and composition of single airborne particles 4 at a rate of about one measurement per second. 5 Very large data sets have collected in 6 Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. 7 YAADA is a software package designed to 8 quantitatively analyze these data. This project will 9 further develop the YAADA package and compare 10 single-particle data with the traditional 11 filter-based methods. 12 We will be able to perform much wider 13 analysis of data collected under previously funded 14 ARB contracts, including an approved ability to 15 distinguish the contributions of individual sources. 16 Any questions? 17 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Yeah. 18 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. Professor Friedman. 19 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Yes. 20 Dr. Friedman asked why this isn't being funded by 21 Seinfeld -- yada, yada, yada. 22 MR. PROPPER: Well, we'll have to ask the 23 appropriate Seinfeld. J. Seinfeld, as I recall. 24 The fifth project is the "Development 25 of Biological Methods of Dust Suppression in the 23 1 Antelope Valley." Arid areas of the state have had 2 health-threatening episodes of airborne dust due to 3 high winds stripping the soil from abandoned 4 farmland. 5 The ARB has been part of a 6 collaborative to develop reliable cost-effective 7 measures to control dust in the Antelope Valley near 8 Los Angeles. 9 Replanting of native desert vegetation 10 has been found to prevent dust bowl conditions. 11 However, without help, it would take several decades 12 for the new plants to be reestablished. This project 13 will test the large-scale dust-control effectiveness 14 and reliability of revegetation on unused farmland. 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Now, I understand this is 16 part of a long -- this is our contribution to a 17 larger scale -- 18 MR. PROPPER: That's correct. 19 MR. CROES: Yeah. Overall, the project is 20 160,000 per year, and we're contributing 30,000 of 21 that. 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 23 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: 30,000 a year over 48 24 months -- that's over 100,000 instead of 90,000. 25 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Do you want to reply to 24 1 Dr. Burke's point? 2 MR. CROES: This is actually a three-year 3 commitment of 30,000 per year. So 90,000 altogether. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But the contract is for 48 5 months. 6 MR. CROES: Right. But we usually give 'em an 7 extra year to complete the final report. 8 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: That's a lot of time. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yeah. Thank you. 10 MR. PROPPER: The next project is 11 "Determination of the Asbestos Content of Current 12 Automotive Dry-Friction Materials and the Potential 13 Contribution of Asbestos to Particulate Matter 14 Derived from Brake Wear." 15 A federal ban on asbestos in brakes 16 was rescinded in 1991. Although asbestos use in 17 brakes appears to be increasing, we do not know the 18 extent. 19 For this project, samples of brakes 20 and brake dust will be collected and analyzed to 21 reveal the form, size, and levels of asbestos 22 present. This will help us determine whether we need 23 to control asbestos emissions from brake wear. Any 24 questions? 25 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Yes, I have a question. 25 1 I think you stated that asbestos was banned in 1991. 2 Do we know if they actually stopped putting asbestos 3 in the brake linings at that time? 4 MR. PROPPER: Yeah. It was in the late 80's, 5 I think, that the U.S.-EPA announced its intent to 6 ban asbestos in brakes. And companies started 7 removing it and replacing it with, like, 8 semi-metallic kinds of brakes. 9 But then, in 1991, there was a 10 provision that made it possible that, if a company 11 could show that lives could be saved from the use of 12 asbestos -- in other words, that it was superior in 13 its braking function -- that an exception could be 14 allowed. 15 So we -- in the years since then, 16 apparently there has been an increase in asbestos 17 use, but we know it only anecdotally. We don't have 18 any hard information on it. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: So we don't know that there's 20 been an increase in asbestos use in brakes? We don't 21 know how that's translated into the ambient 22 atmosphere? 23 MR. PROPPER: Right. And we also don't really 24 have much of an handle on the extent of increased 25 use. We know that, apparently, it's being used a lot 26 1 more in, for SUV's and some high-end imports, 2 according to the data that we've looked at. But we 3 don't have any definitive measure on this. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Okay. Thank you. 5 MR. PROPPER: The last project is "Incidence 6 of Malfunctions and Tampering in Heavy-Duty 7 Vehicles." 8 The ARB's inventory model estimates 9 emissions due to malfunctioning and tampering -- also 10 called "faults" -- in diesel engines. Our estimates 11 of "fault" prevalence is 14 years old, when truck 12 engines used mechanical controls. 13 Since then, our smoke-inspection 14 program for trucks may be curtailing "faults" -- we 15 hope so -- and most truck engines now have electronic 16 controls. 17 This project will update estimates of 18 "fault" prevalence in diesel trucks. The contractor 19 will conduct surveys and random roadside inspections. 20 The results will help us improve our emissions 21 inventory and help us design a good smog check 22 program for heavy duty vehicles. 23 And we request that you approve these 24 projects for funding. If you have any questions on 25 this or any of the others, we'll try to answer them. 27 1 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Any questions on the last 2 one? 3 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Yes. I have one 4 question on the last project. 5 The board currently has an inspection 6 program on heavy-duty vehicles; is that correct? 7 MR. PROPPER: Correct. 8 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Are we finally out of 9 tampering on those vehicles? 10 MR. CACKETTE: The frequency of tampering has 11 gone down as the newer electronically controlled 12 engines that are harder to tamper with have entered 13 into the fleet. So it's been decreasing. 14 On the older ones, we do find a fair 15 amount of tampering and a fair amount of 16 malmaintenance. The reason you see those puffs of 17 smoke on acceleration -- that's usually tampering 18 from -- with something called the "puff limiter." 19 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Okay. Thank you. 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 21 Dr. Friedman. 22 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I just 23 wanted to return for just a moment to the prior 24 asbestos project. Am I to understand that 25 manufacturers are not required to indicate to us what 28 1 the asbestos content is in brakes? I mean I 2 appreciate that we're going to be studying the 3 asbestos released by braking. But do we not have an 4 accurate inventory of what the content of each brake 5 is with respect to asbestos in the aftermarket and 6 before? 7 MR. PROPPER: Well, my understanding is not. 8 I can defer to the mobile-source experts here. But 9 we -- this project was developed with input from 10 staff in our mobile-source control division. 11 And they're very interested in trying 12 to get a handle on the extent of use of asbestos in 13 brakes and getting an accurate emissions inventory if 14 it looks like it's a problem. 15 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: Well, I 16 understand the emissions part. I want to know about 17 the manufacturing part. Do you -- must there not be 18 some requirement so that we would know which brakes, 19 for example, have a higher likelihood of emitting 20 asbestos because they have a higher concentration of 21 asbestos in the brakes? 22 MR. CACKETTE: Dr. Friedman, right now, 23 there's no requirement or reason why we would get 24 that information. So we to have to go out and get 25 it. I don't think it's going to be that difficult to 29 1 have manufacturers tell us. But there's nothing in 2 the information stream that comes to us now that 3 deals with brakes. So we are largely -- we largely 4 just don't know. 5 MS. KRINSK: But legally we do have the 6 authority to require that information. Under our 7 air-toxics program, there is an automotive component 8 of it. And there's also an information-and-data- 9 gathering component of it that allows us to get any 10 information and protect whatever part of it is trade 11 secret. 12 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: And I would 13 presume that that information would be used to make 14 the selection of which brakes to test. 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Very good point. 16 MR. PROPPER: The first part of this study 17 would be a survey of the industry to determine the 18 information from them about the prevalence of 19 asbestos use in brakes. And the purpose is largely 20 to help us figure out which vehicles and which kinds 21 of brakes we should focus the actual lab work on. 22 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: I appreciate 23 that. Thank you. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you, sir. Are there 25 any more questions on any of the proposals? 30 1 If not, we'd like a motion -- is there 2 a motion to -- Doctor? 3 BOARD MEMBER W.F. FRIEDMAN: I'd make a motion 4 to approve the seven proposals. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: With the modification on at 6 least one of them that Mrs. Riordan mentioned to make 7 sure the staff is involved with that. 8 So all in favor, say, "Aye." 9 BOARD MEMBERS: Aye. 10 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Unanimous there. So thank 11 you very much. 12 A moment, before we move on to the 13 next one -- I just want to confirm with Mr. Kenny 14 there that we don't have the board item -- that's not 15 here, is it? 16 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: That is correct, Mr. 17 Chair. 18 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Next item on the agenda today 19 is 02-dash-2-dash-3 -- Public Meeting to Consider an 20 Update on Border Activities. 21 Mr. Kenny, I misspoke. It was a minor 22 item, I meant. And I knew you'd pick up on that. 23 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: I understood that. 24 Yeah. 25 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Thank you for 31 1 understanding. The ARB's been involved in a number 2 of cooperative efforts with state, local, and federal 3 agencies to address air-quality concerns in the 4 border area. The ARB's involvement is based on 5 several years. 6 But under the leadership of Governor 7 Gray Davis, the State has achieved an unprecedented 8 level of cooperation with the Republic of Mexico. 9 During a visit from Mexico's President Vicente Fox to 10 Sacramento in March, 2001, Governor Davis and 11 President Fox signed three historic agreements of 12 cooperation on border environmental issues. 13 This is the first time such agreements 14 have been reached by a U.S. border state and Mexico. 15 You will hearing more about these, one of these 16 agreements, in today's presentation. 17 At this point I would like to ask 18 Mr. Kenny to introduce this item. 19 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: Thank you, Dr. Lloyd 20 and members of the board. 21 Two years ago, staff presented a 22 comprehensive overview of our efforts to lay the 23 foundation for an effective border program. As part 24 of that effort, we continue to partner with the 25 Mexican government and the air districts in the 32 1 border region both here and in San Diego and Imperial 2 County. 3 We're particularly proud of our 4 staff's efforts to bring attention to the need for 5 the best possible emission controls on power plants 6 being built just south of the border. This is 7 critical for the public health of residents on both 8 sides of the border. 9 This and other ARB activities in the 10 border region are an important part of our mission to 11 promote public health in every corner of the state as 12 well as in neighboring communities across the border. 13 With that, I'd like to ask Gabe Ruiz, 14 our California-Mexican border coordinator, to begin 15 the staff's presentation. Gabe. 16 MR. RUIZ: Thank you, Mr. Kenny. 17 Good morning, Chairman Lloyd and 18 members of the board. It's a pleasure to be back in 19 San Diego to present an update of our activities to 20 improve air quality in the California-Mexico border 21 region. 22 As you may recall, in April, 2000, I 23 presented an overview of our efforts to establish a 24 successful air-quality-management program in the 25 region. 33 1 Today I'll be informing you about what 2 we have learned in the last two years about air 3 quality in this region, about the success of our 4 activities, and about some of the emerging issues. 5 I'd like to start with a brief 6 characterization of the border region. The 7 California-Mexico border area is a dynamic region 8 with a very diverse social, economic, and political 9 structure. This is a fast-growing region, 10 particularly on the Mexican side. 11 Many factors associated with this 12 growth -- such as increased commercial activity, 13 industrialization, and traffic -- have resulted in 14 environmental concerns that affect both sides of the 15 border. 16 From an air-quality perspective, the 17 California-Mexico border region can be viewed as two 18 distinct binational air basins, one encompassing the 19 San Diego and Tijuana areas and the other consisting 20 of the Imperial and Mexicali valleys. 21 This map shows the population of 22 different communities in the border region. As you 23 can see, most of the population in the region is 24 concentrated in the cities of San Diego, Tijuana, 25 Tecate, and Mexicali. The area's industrial base is 34 1 also concentrated in the cities. 2 By contrast, Imperial County is 3 primarily a rural area with an economy based on 4 agriculture. The population is distributed among 5 several small cities, all smaller than 40,000 people. 6 Baja California is growing at three 7 times the rate of California. As you can see from 8 this table, the fastest-growing area is Tijuana, 9 which is already one of the largest cities in the 10 region. 11 You may recall that one of the ARB's 12 first cross-border cooperative efforts was to 13 establish air-monitoring sites. The first station 14 was established in 1992 in Tijuana, in cooperation 15 with the San Diego Air District and the Technological 16 Institute of Tijuana. 17 With funding from the U.S.-EPA, this 18 monitoring program has been expanded to include six 19 stations in Tijuana, six in Mexicali, two in 20 Calexico, and one in Tecate. Data generated by this 21 network has been used by the Mexican environmental 22 agencies in the development of air-quality 23 improvement plans for Mexicali and Tijuana. 24 Our preliminary analysis of 25 air-quality data collected over the last five years 35 1 has shown very different air-quality profiles for San 2 Diego-Tijuana and the Imperial Valley-Mexicali areas. 3 Both the United States and Mexico have adopted 4 ambient air-quality standards that are somewhat 5 comparable but not identical. 6 For the purposes of today's 7 discussion, I will be comparing the pollution levels 8 in both U.S. and Mexican cities to the United States 9 national air-quality standards. The San Diego area 10 is in attainment for national ambient air-quality 11 standards for ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulate 12 matter under 10 microns, or PM10. 13 Tijuana appears to meet the standard 14 for ozone, but we have recorded a few exceedances of 15 the carbon monoxide and PM10 standards. 16 The Imperial Valley-Mexicali area, on 17 the other hand, exceeds the standards for all three 18 pollutants, and we have also observed high levels of 19 toxic air contaminants. 20 San Diego attained a national 21 air-quantity standard for ozone last year. We have 22 observed a similar trend in Tijuana, where no 23 exceedances of the standard were recorded in the 24 three years from 1998 to 2000. 25 Imperial County, on the other hand, 36 1 recorded an average of 11 exceedances per year. More 2 than half of these exceedances were recorded in 3 Calexico, a city adjacent to the border with a 4 population of 27,000 people. Mexicali, located 5 directly south of Calexico and with a population of 6 three-quarters-of-a-million people average 14 7 exceedances per year over the same time period. 8 This chart shows the ozone trends 9 graphically. In the foreground, we see just a 10 handful of exceedances in San Diego and Tijuana in 11 1997 and 1998 and no exceedances in 1999 and 2000. 12 In the background, we see that Mexicali typically has 13 a higher number of exceedances per year than 14 Calexico, with the exception of 1991. 15 Going back over 10 years of 16 air-quality data for Imperial Valley, we observe a 17 wide variation in the annual number of exceedances. 18 These variations are often due to meteorological 19 differences from year to year. 20 Normally we would present a 3-year 21 rolling average to smooth out some of these peaks. 22 However, we don't yet have enough air-quality data 23 from Mexican cities to allow for a meaningful 24 analysis of 3-year averages. 25 With respect to carbon monoxide, San 37 1 Diego has not had an exceedance of a national 2 eight-hour standard since 1991, and Tijuana 3 experienced an average of three exceedances per year 4 from 1998 through 2000. In fact, most of the areas 5 of the state have been in attainment for carbon 6 monoxide since the early 1990's with only two 7 exceptions -- Los Angeles and Imperial County. 8 Imperial County now has the 9 distinction of leading the state in carbon monoxide 10 exceedances with an average of 8 exceedances per year 11 from 1998 to 2000. 12 I must point out, however, that all of 13 the Imperial County exceedances were recorded in 14 Calexico. As you can see, the number of Calexico 15 exceedances is easily overshadowed by the average of 16 73 exceedances in Mexicali. 17 This chart illustrates the magnitude 18 of the carbon monoxide exceedances in the border 19 region and is a good example of a picture being worth 20 a thousand words. 21 PM10 concentrations show a similar 22 pattern: No exceedances in San Diego since the early 23 1990's, an average of 12 exceedances per year in 24 Tijuana. Imperial County leads the state with an 25 average of 25 exceedances per year, most of them in 38 1 Calexico. And Mexicali far surpasses Calexico with 2 an average of 183 exceedances per year. 3 Again, these trends are shown 4 graphically in this chart. I'd like to point out 5 that the spike in the number of exceedances in 6 Mexicali in 1999 and 2000 is probably due to a very 7 extensive road-construction project about 200 yards 8 from the monitoring station. 9 Our analysis of toxic-air-contaminant 10 data yielded some very interesting results. We were 11 surprised to find that some of the highest 12 concentrations of benzene, 1.3-butadiene, 13 acetaldehyde, and formaldehyde in the state were 14 measured in Calexico. 15 However, since the maximum 16 concentrations are not necessarily a good indicator 17 of population exposure, we ranked the annual average 18 concentration of these compounds in the state and 19 found that Calexico is consistently among the top 20 five areas. 21 In the case of benzene and 22 1.3-butadiene, Calexico is most often in the top 23 three areas of the state. These results are 24 particularly striking since Calexico has a population 25 of only 27,000 people. 39 1 Our analysis would not be complete 2 without looking at Mexicali. And what we found is 3 that the concentrations of toxic air contaminants in 4 Mexicali also exceeds these found in Calexico. As 5 you can see from this chart, the average benzene 6 concentrations in Mexicali are more than twice the 7 concentrations in Calexico. Similar trends were 8 observed for the other toxic compounds. 9 The emissions-inventory data for the 10 region indicates that motor vehicles are the 11 principal contributors of ozone-forming compounds, 12 carbon monoxide, and toxic air contaminants. 13 Stationary sources contribute ozone precursors and 14 possibly toxics. 15 The main contributors to particulate 16 matter pollution are unpaved roads and windblown 17 emissions. 18 If a picture is worth a thousand 19 words, the next video clip may be worth 10,000. This 20 video shows the international border about three 21 miles east of Calexico. In the foreground, we can 22 see agricultural fields in Imperial county and the 23 All American canal. 24 Just beyond that, we can see Mexicali 25 from Imperial County. As in the camera shot, we 40 1 start to appreciate the enormity of Mexicali. 2 Finally, we can see a cloud of air 3 pollutants hanging over the city and spilling into 4 Imperial County. These images corroborate what the 5 monitor data tells us about Mexicali's impact on 6 Calexico's air quality. I would like to thank Mr. 7 Steve Birdsall, air pollution control officer for 8 Imperial County, for providing this video. 9 In order to mitigate the potential 10 threat to air quality in the border region, the ARB's 11 involved in several activities, which include 12 participation in environmental working groups where 13 our main partners in the United States are the 14 U.S.-EPA and Cal-EPA. 15 We have also established long-term 16 cooperative relationships with environmental agencies 17 in Mexico. One of our most visible efforts has been 18 the operation of the air-monitoring network. But we 19 have also been involved in the development of 20 projects and strategies that will reduce emissions in 21 the region. 22 Since last year, we have been working 23 with Cal-EPA, the Bureau of Automotive Repair, and 24 the City of Tijuana in the development of a smog 25 check pilot project. This partnership is the result 41 1 of an agreement signed by Governor Gray Davis and 2 President Vicente Fox during President Fox's visit to 3 Sacramento in March, 2001. 4 We, along with BAR, are providing our 5 technical expertise in the development of a 6 smog-check program, the design of testing facilities 7 and the training of personnel. 8 The smog-check program will apply 9 initially to about 2,000 vehicles owned by the City 10 of Tijuana. If successful, the program could be 11 expanded to include private fleets, public 12 transportation, and eventually the general public. 13 Both the State of Baja California and the City of 14 Mexicali have expressed interest in this project. 15 Another area where we have maintained 16 an active presence is in inspection of diesel trucks 17 at the border crossings. This program was mandated 18 by state legislation in 1998. The ARB has had a 19 full-time inspection team at Otay Mesa since the 20 program's inception. And recently we established a 21 full-time inspection team at Calexico. 22 This program has had a very positive 23 impact in reducing excessive emissions. Initially 24 about 50 percent of the trucks tested at the border 25 failed. The failure rate has since dropped to about 42 1 12 percent at both border crossings. By comparison, 2 the statewide failure rate in California is now about 3 7 percent. 4 One of the major emerging 5 environmental issues is the construction of power 6 plants just south of the border. Several factors 7 have combined to increase the interest in building 8 power plants in the border region, among them 9 increased local demands for electricity, regulatory 10 reforms in Mexico that allow the export of energy, 11 Mexico's lower labor costs and less-restrictive 12 environmental regulations, and California's energy 13 crisis. 14 In this slide, you can see a picture 15 of one of three power plants currently under 16 construction near Mexicali. 17 As you can see from this map, many new 18 power plants are being built or have been proposed 19 along the California-Mexico border and also in the 20 vicinity of the California-Arizona border. 21 Eight power plants have been permitted 22 recently, and five more are being planned to meet the 23 region's anticipated demand for this decade. All 24 these plants will be built near populated areas such 25 as San Diego; Tijuana; Mexicali; and Yuma, Arizona. 43 1 Also, you can see that a large number 2 of plants will be built just west of Mexicali and 3 about six miles south of border. As we saw earlier, 4 this area already exceeds the national air-quality 5 standards for ozone, carbon monoxide, and PM10 and 6 experiences high levels of toxic air contaminants. 7 Each of these facilities will use 8 natural gas, reflecting the Mexican government's 9 commitment to cleaner fuels. Nonetheless, Mexico and 10 the United States have very different NOx and carbon 11 monoxide-emission limits for power plants. 12 In the United States, initial limits 13 are determined by the control technology available 14 and by the air quality in the area where the plant is 15 located. In practice, almost all new stationary 16 sources are required to use a high degree of control. 17 Mexico, on the other hand, has 18 preestablished NOx limits. The limits are low in 19 critical areas such as Tijuana and other large 20 cities, but these limits still allow many times the 21 NOx emissions that would be allowed in the United 22 States. Also there are no limits for carbon monoxide 23 emissions. 24 There are several environmental and 25 economic impacts associated with power plants. Power 44 1 plant emissions can aggravate air-pollution problems. 2 These plants can use vast amounts of water, which is 3 already a very scarce resource in this area. These 4 facilities can significantly impact public health, 5 and any unnecessary pollution from these facilities 6 will limit future growth opportunities in the region. 7 Recognizing these potential impacts, 8 we have been working on several fronts to raise 9 awareness about this issue. We have participated in 10 private discussions and community meetings with the 11 companies building these power plants. We have 12 achieved some success in persuading one of the 13 companies to install some emission controls. 14 However, a coordinated borderwide 15 approach is necessary. We have successfully 16 introduced a joint declaration into the planning 17 agenda for this year's Border States Governors 18 Conference. 19 This joint declaration calls for the 20 use of the best available air pollution emission 21 controls. At the request of the State Water 22 Resources Control Board, the declaration also calls 23 for the use of coolant technologies that minimize 24 water use in power plants sited in the desert 25 regions. 45 1 The Mexican government has indicated 2 that they are considering our revision of the 3 emission limits this year. Next month, we will join 4 the U.S.-EPA and Mexico's Environmental Ministry -- 5 SEMARNAT --in a coordination meeting to explore a 6 binational policy. 7 As you can see, we have made great 8 strides in understanding the extent of air pollution 9 in the border region. However, some formidable 10 challenges lie ahead. 11 We have seen that, despite very 12 positive gains elsewhere in the state, border 13 communities in Imperial County lag behind in 14 air-quality improvements. Our monitoring-data 15 analysis indicates that this is very likely a 16 spillover effect from Mexicali. 17 As you have seen today, our 18 partnerships with Mexican environmental agencies have 19 resulted in projects and strategies that may help 20 improve the air quality in the region. 21 As part of our responsibility to 22 protect the health of all California citizens, we 23 must continue working cooperatively with Mexico. We 24 sincerely hope that these efforts will lead to better 25 air quality and health for the 5 million residents of 46 1 the border region. 2 This concludes my presentation. Thank 3 you for your attention. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much for a 5 very clear presentation. It clearly highlights the 6 problem and that we have to make sure that, if we're 7 going to continue to strive to either attain the 8 standards or maintain them, that we need to work 9 cooperatively with these quickly growing communities. 10 So thank you very much, indeed, for that. 11 Colleagues have any comments or 12 questions? The board? Ms. D'Adamo. Dr. Burke. Mr. 13 McKinnon. 14 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I have several 15 questions, starting off with the power plant 16 coordination efforts. In the event that those 17 efforts are successful, could they have any impact on 18 any of the power plants that are currently under 19 development near the border? Or is it too late? 20 MS. OEY: The power plants that have a level 21 of control less than what we would like to see have 22 indicated that, if there is some way that they could 23 recoup the cost of additional controls, that they 24 would be willing to put on those controls. 25 If the Mexican government changes its 47 1 regulation to require a tighter level of controls, 2 they would be able to go back and revise their 3 contracts to recoup those costs. 4 And so, yes, there is the possibility 5 that they would then be -- clean up their act, as it 6 were, and impose those controls. 7 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Is there funding 8 available to them in the event that the agreements 9 are not reached prior to them coming on-line, in 10 other words, under what you would outline as 11 Option 1? 12 MS. OEY: Are you talking about incentive 13 funding that might help them put on additional 14 controls? 15 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Yes. 16 MS. OEY: We haven't explored that option. I 17 think there's some reluctance on their part to put on 18 controls beyond what they have contracted for because 19 they are concerned about setting a precedent as they 20 go into negotiations in other areas. 21 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Okay. A question 22 regarding the inspections of heavy-duty trucks, 23 heavy-duty vehicles -- what standard are they being 24 checked for? Would it be a standard similar to 25 California vehicles, trucks? 48 1 MS. OEY: Darryl Gaslan, from our Enforcement 2 Division is here and can answer that. 3 MR. GASLAN: Good morning. Darryl Gaslan, 4 State of California Air Resources Board, Heavy-Duty 5 Diesel Enforcement Section. The standards are 40 and 6 55 percent. And it is the same, exactly, as those 7 here in California. Those vehicles that cross the 8 border are inspected randomly at those opacity 9 standards. 10 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: And in the event that a 11 vehicle fails, what sort of enforcement can we 12 impose? Is it similar to what we would impose on 13 heavy-duty vehicles that are from within the State of 14 California? 15 MR. GASLAN: It is identical to that in 16 California. Penalties are three, eight, 17 eighteen-hundred dollars and the possibility of 18 removal of a vehicle from service. And I'm proud to 19 say that the Mexican operations operators have kept 20 up their clearances of the citations and penalties. 21 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Okay. Then and on the 22 smog-check program in Tijuana -- what sort of a 23 smog-check program is that? Would you compare it to 24 Basic or Smog 2? 25 MR. GASLAN: "Bar 90." And it's going to be 49 1 conducted by the Bureau of Automotive Repair. 2 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I'm not familiar with 3 "Bar 90." 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: It's similar to San Joaquin 5 or the San Francisco Bay Area. 6 MR. CACKETTE: -- San Francisco. 7 MS. OEY: It's more similar to San Francisco. 8 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Speaking of that 9 transport issue, that was one area that I think seems 10 to jump out, that that may be an issue, particularly 11 when you look at the populations in San Diego and 12 Tijuana and the low exceedances or actually no 13 exceedances for ozone. 14 And then you go over the 15 Imperial-Mexicali area, where there are much lower 16 populations and there are quite high exceedances. 17 But could someone address the issue of 18 transport? Is that -- does that have a lot to do 19 with why there are no exceedances in the more 20 populated areas? And if so, where are the emissions 21 going? 22 MS. OEY: Well, we believe that, indeed, the 23 favorable location that Tijuana and San Diego 24 experience contribute to those low level of 25 exceedances as well as, of course, the control 50 1 programs that have been imposed there. 2 We haven't looked at where those 3 emissions are going, other than through our 4 standard-transport assessment program. And we don't 5 see a significant impact in most California areas. 6 MR. RUIZ: In trying to answer this question, 7 which we posed ourselves a couple years ago, we have 8 established a monitoring station in Tecate, which is 9 where we believe some of these emissions are being 10 blown. 11 Well, the station has been there for 12 only less than two years -- I'm sorry -- less than 13 two years. And we still don't have really enough 14 data that would allow us to do an analysis of 15 transport between Tijuana and the eastern portion of 16 the Tijuana areas and the Tecate basin. 17 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Then how about with 18 regard to Mexicali and Imperial County? Do these 19 seem to be going east? north? south? The video seems 20 to indicate that some of the emissions end up north. 21 MR. RUIZ: Right. We have actually done some 22 analysis for PM10 as part of an upcoming PM10 23 revision for Imperial County, which shows transport 24 from Mexicali to Imperial County. For ozone and the 25 other pollutants, our assumption would be that we are 51 1 experiencing the same type of transport. 2 MR. FLETCHER: This is Bob Fletcher. I would 3 also add to that -- we've looked at the transport 4 couples between Mexicali and Imperial County and 5 looked at probably 20 or 25 days where they exceeded 6 national standards -- state or national standards. 7 And there is a clear link, from a 8 transport, that much of the exceedances are caused in 9 Imperial County by the South Coast emissions coming 10 in there. But there is also overwhelming transport, 11 from Mexicali into the Imperial County, causing those 12 exceedances. 13 There are some exceedances that are 14 caused by local emissions in Imperial county as well. 15 So they're kind of getting it from several different 16 locations. 17 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Thank you. 18 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Good for you. 19 Dr. Burke. 20 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Who cares about that 21 South Coast? 22 Yesterday I had the opportunity to 23 visit that transportation hub that's out there by 24 Brown field. I'm not sure that it has specific name, 25 but it's -- I never saw in my life so many 52 1 tractor-trailers in one location at one time in my 2 life. 3 And there's no question that those 4 tractor-trailers were not running clean. Now, when I 5 left that hub and came downtown to join my 6 colleagues, it took me less than 17 minutes to get 7 from there to here. 8 Now, I know that South Coast probably 9 contributes our share to everybody's problem. But I 10 would like to know, if that is a, you know -- it's 11 obviously a permanent installation and obviously 12 those trucks are there seven days a week in enormous 13 quantity -- what kind of enforcement activity, if 14 any, do we have at that location? 15 MR. GASLAN: The only enforcement that the 16 State of California performs is at the border scales 17 at Otay Mesa and at Calexico. 18 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: May I suggest for 19 consideration that we send some people to this 20 location since it's obviously a transportation point 21 that goes into Mexico and into the United States from 22 Mexico. 23 And it would seem to be that it would 24 be worth at least a spot check on a semi-regular 25 basis to check for vehicles which are in violation 53 1 which may not be caught at those other two locations 2 that were -- 3 You know, is there another location 4 here that provides that kind of hub, Supervisor 5 Roberts? 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Supervisor Roberts. 7 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: It's not clear to me 8 which crossing you're talking about. I thought he 9 was talking about Otay Mesa, the -- is this about 10 the -- 11 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: It's about five minutes 12 from Brown field, further away. 13 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Further west or east? 14 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: West -- east. I'm sorry. 15 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: That would be the Otay 16 Mesa border-crossing area. And I'm not sure that 17 that's not being checked. 18 We would love to see help in speeding 19 up traffic at all of these crossings. But we seem to 20 be going in the reverse direction right now. 21 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: It seemed to me that, if 22 for the protection of the people of San Diego as well 23 as for the protection of the people of Mexico, we'd 24 want to check a spot like that, even -- you know, I 25 can't conceive. It's like saying that the Alameda 54 1 corridor dump-off at Long Beach should not be 2 checked. 3 I mean, when you know that's a spot 4 where thousands of trucks a day are going to end up, 5 it's common sense to me that you go there and you 6 look. 7 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think Mr. Kenny had a 8 response. 9 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Yes. Mr. Kenny. I'm 10 sorry. 11 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: Dr. Burke, we were 12 trying to figure out exactly what location you were 13 at. And we think what it is, is essentially a 14 transfer station that is used for essentially 15 transporting Mexican goods into the U.S. and then 16 trucking them through the U.S. It sounds like it is 17 in the general vicinity of Otay Mesa. And it is also 18 something we think we can basically go down and look 19 at and use our roadside infection people to kind of 20 investigate. 21 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Well, if it's at the 22 transfer station, you're going to see some changes 23 here because of the laws that have been recently 24 improved. So I think you're going to see less of 25 that activity. 55 1 But I think that the crossing 2 itself -- I think there's checking that's going on 3 there. So if you're talking about that there is a 4 check -- if you're talking about the transfer 5 station, I think you're going to see some changes in 6 behavior there that are going to eliminate a lot of 7 that. 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think it would be 9 worthwhile, Mr. Kenny, if staff could prepare a 10 little report on this, in response to Mr. Burke's 11 question, to Dr. Burke. I think we'd also -- at 12 least, I think maybe my colleagues would all like 13 copies of that to receive. I think it's a very good, 14 very valid point. 15 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: All right. 16 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: And then Mr. McKinnon. 17 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: Thank you. Make sure 18 I get the right button. Okay. 19 Not a question. Really, really kind 20 of a comment. And I've spent some time in the 21 communities in Mexico near Otay, meeting with 22 community organizations, not as an air board member, 23 but as a labor leader. 24 And I have a very, very difficult 25 time -- the way that the report came off really kind 56 1 of minimized some of what's going on in Tijuana. And 2 I raised it a little bit at my briefing. 3 And there is a location a couple miles 4 from the border where there are six-foot-high piles 5 of cadmium and lead sitting in the open air. It can 6 blow. It can -- all sorts of thing. It's a location 7 where people dumped batteries. They recycled 8 batteries. 9 An American family that lives over in 10 Coronado owned the plant, deserted the plant. There 11 are discarded batteries. There's discarded lead. 12 There's discarded cadmium. Battery acid ran through 13 the soil, off the mesa, down into the community that 14 lives just below where the plant's dumping. 15 And I don't want to hold -- you know, 16 obviously the staff of this board is not responsible 17 for that happening. But one of the things that 18 worries me when we minimize a problem -- and I think 19 we needed to talk about transport in this report, and 20 I think we need to be very public about transport. 21 There is transport. It's a river 22 valley on the ocean where the wind blows every day, 23 out. So we need to find out what the transport is 24 out, and we need the federal government to do their 25 share because this problem, you know -- some of the 57 1 problems are related to federal law. 2 But I think that there is certainly a 3 lot of hope. Vicente Fox's environmental minister, I 4 think, is very pro-environment. But I just feel like 5 we minimize the transport question in here, and maybe 6 it's 'cause we don't have enough data yet. 7 But I look back and think of some of 8 the other sewage problems that have come up here on 9 the border and toxics problems that aren't even being 10 talked about yet. 11 And I think we just have to be honest 12 about the transport stuff so that, when that day 13 comes where we need to maybe make some investment, 14 major investment, into fixing things or changing 15 things or changing rules, we've had it out there. So 16 that's my -- all I have to say about that. 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much, Mr. 18 McKinnon. 19 Professor Friedman. 20 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: I had a quick 21 question about the power plants that are proposed, 22 some of which have been permitted. I wanted to be 23 sure I understood. Did you report who the owners and 24 operators will be? Are they mainly U.S. -- 25 MS. OEY: The facilities are all owned by U.S. 58 1 or northern companies. There's a facility owned by 2 Sempra, which is essentially going to be operating 3 with U.S. -- California-level controls. Excuse me. 4 And then the other two facilities -- 5 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Which one is 6 that, if you could identify? 7 MS. OEY: The Sempra? It's one of the 8 Mexicali facilities. 9 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Mexicali? 10 MS. OEY: Yes. All three of these facilities 11 are in Mexicali. The other two are owned by a 12 conglomerate of "Bechtel" and Shell called 13 "Intergen." One of those -- one of those plants is 14 operated -- is being built under contract to the 15 Mexican government. It will have NOx emissions at 16 approximately 10 times the California rate. The -- 17 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: And where will 18 that be? That will also be in Mexicali? 19 MS. OEY: It's Mexicali. Yeah. These 20 facilities are within about a mile of each other. 21 And then the second of "Intergen" 22 plants is being built primarily to export energy. 23 And it will be operating at a lower level of 24 emissions -- approximately twice what we would like 25 to see in California. 59 1 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: And we're -- 2 again, what is the plan, the strategy, to develop 3 reduction in those proposed emissions? 4 MS. OEY: The Mexican government has -- the 5 environmental agency there has indicated an interest 6 in adopting a tighter control standard for all of its 7 new power plants, not just those on the border. 8 So we will be meeting with them, 9 April 15 and 16, in Mexicali, together with U.S.-EPA, 10 and discussing this option more closely. I should 11 add that the Mexican government is a little bit ahead 12 of us as far as the cooling technology is 13 concerned -- making broader use of coolant technology 14 so they limit water use. 15 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: And there is, 16 then, technology to reduce the emissions? 17 MS. OEY: Absolutely. And one of the -- 18 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: And that's been 19 proven and costed elsewhere? 20 MS. OEY: One of the things that we've tried 21 to emphasize throughout the past few months, as we've 22 participated in public meetings where this issue is 23 discussed, is that the BACT level of controls is very 24 effective and which have very little impact on the 25 cost of electricity to the ultimate consumers. 60 1 And I think that's one of the issues 2 that was of concern to the Mexican government and to 3 the localities that would be receiving this 4 electricity. So we're doing our best to get the 5 message out in a public-education standpoint as well 6 as working directly with the government. 7 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: You refer to 8 "BACT." You mean California BACT? Apparently 9 there's some difference with Arizona or other -- 10 MS. OEY: Yes. I'm referring to 11 California-level BACT. 12 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Thank you. 13 MR. SCHEIBLE: Just to put it in perspective, 14 a large new power plant, a 500-megawatt power plant, 15 costs on the order of $300 million to construct, and 16 most of that are set costs for the turbine and the 17 mechanical-type and construction costs that occur no 18 matter where it's located. 19 Putting the very best pollution air 20 control on it will add five to $10 million to that 21 cost. So you're talking about a sizable amount of 22 money but a very small percent of the overall 23 investment. And the difference is a factor of 10 in 24 terms of the NOx emissions from the plants. 25 So we're -- our position is that 61 1 that's a very sensible investment in the environment 2 to require for the plant operators and it will 3 benefit the region and, most of all, it will benefit 4 the people who live close to that plant. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you, Mike. 6 Dr. Burke. 7 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: First, an offhand casual 8 comment. Maybe we should get CBE to go down to sue 9 that power plant in Mexicali to bring them into 10 conformity under Mexican law. 11 On our level, though, to protect our 12 citizens, I wonder if it's legal if a company like 13 Sempra, which is based in California, is providing 14 pollution by being over a geopolitical line. Is 15 there a way that we can average that into their 16 credits in their California operations? 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think Sempra are meeting 18 the standards. 19 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Sempra -- the testimony 20 was Sempra's meeting the standards. You gotta -- 21 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Using that name as an 22 example. 23 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Oh, why don't you use 24 another name since they're doing a good job? 25 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: I'll use another name, 62 1 another name. If a power company -- how about that? 2 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Yeah. Very good. 3 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: If a power company is 4 operating in California and is also operating in a 5 border city which is impacting in America, is it 6 legal for us to accumulate all their pollution and 7 figure out what their responsibility for reduction is 8 under a cumulative formula instead of a numerical 9 formula which disregards their disregard for American 10 air here? 11 MS. WALSH: Dr. Burke, we've not looked at 12 that question specifically. I would say that it 13 would be difficult to try to take account of 14 extraterritorial emissions. There are some 15 mechanisms to look at trying to exert control beyond 16 a border. 17 We had made comments to DOE, with 18 respect to their power lines coming into the United 19 States that were going to bring that power being 20 produced in Mexico, and had suggested that a part of 21 their approval of those transmission lines should 22 include a requirement for the controls. That was 23 unsuccessful. 24 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: That's what I'm talking 25 about. Sure. 63 1 MS. WALSH: And although CBE is not suing the 2 companies that are building the plans, they have, in 3 fact, filed a lawsuit very recently challenging that 4 decision. 5 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Another one against us? 6 MS. WALSH: No. Somebody else. 7 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 8 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: But I didn't understand 9 the subject of the lawsuit. 10 MS. WALSH: Oh, the approval of the 11 transmission lines that would bring the power into 12 the United States. 13 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 14 Another question from the board? 15 Professor Friedman. 16 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: I just want to 17 add that that was a very good, clear report. I 18 appreciate it. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. Thank you. 20 I'd also like to congratulate 21 Supervisor -- and Jim -- of the Board of Supervisors 22 of San Diego -- our colleague Ron Roberts -- for the 23 fact that San Diego is now at three clean years and 24 essentially are in attainment for the ozone 25 standards. 64 1 So I think, Ron, that's -- for you and 2 your colleagues, that's a wonderful testament that, 3 in spite of all the growth, you're able to get to 4 that accomplishment. So I think congratulations -- 5 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. 6 Chairman, for acknowledging that. I was disappointed 7 I couldn't be here when you were having kind of the 8 report card up there that shows we're trying harder. 9 And we've had some success that we're going to 10 continue. I can make that commitment. 11 I'm late because I was at a meeting of 12 our transit district where we're looking at how we're 13 going continue to pushing the light rail out into 14 other areas, which has been a big help. But there's 15 a lot of things coming. And we appreciate the help 16 of this board on that. 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: And I reiterate my earlier 18 comments to you and your colleagues for the excellent 19 hospitality and invitation to come back to your 20 beautiful city here. We're really enjoying it. So 21 thank you so much again. 22 So if there are no more questions and 23 nobody's signed up, I'd like to -- it's not a 24 regulatory item and not necessary to officially close 25 the record, but, again, thank you very much indeed 65 1 and with the follow-up reports, we'll move ahead. 2 Thank you. 3 The next item is on the agenda today 4 is 02-dash-2-dash-4 -- Public Meeting to Consider a 5 Status Report on the Fleet Rule and Reporting 6 Requirements for all Urban Bus Transit Agencies. 7 Last September, staff presented the 8 first update of the public transit bus fleet rule to 9 the board. At that time the board was concerned that 10 a number of transit agencies were not on track to 11 comply with the 4.8-grams-per-brake-horsepower-hour 12 fleet -- NOx fleet average, which will take effect in 13 October of this year. 14 Furthermore, the board learned that, 15 out of the 71 California transit agencies, only 15 16 chose to apply for the alternative NOx strategy. I 17 have to remind my colleagues that the alternative NOx 18 strategy was incorporated into the rule after the 19 engine manufacturers indicate they would not be 20 producing complying engines during the 2004-to-2006 21 time frame. 22 To refresh your memory, the 23 alternative NOx study was am option that transit 24 agencies could have chosen if they want to purchase 25 model year 2004-to-2006 diesel buses that did not 66 1 comply with the stringent emission standards for NOx 2 because the complying engines would not be available. 3 Each transit agency would have to 4 apply to the executive office for an exemption. If 5 approved, the transit agency would be allowed to 6 purchase diesel buses that emit more than a 7 half-gram-per-brake-horsepower NOx provided that they 8 demonstrate NOx-emission benefits through 2015 9 greater than those achieved if they had purchased the 10 half-gram NOx buses. 11 At the conclusion of the September 12 meeting, the board asked staff to report back in six 13 months on these two main issues. So staff is here 14 today to present the second update of the regulation. 15 And I want to say, in the interim, 16 we've had some very good meetings with CTA, EMA, and 17 the transit districts. And I think that we've made 18 significant progress. And clearly, as my colleagues 19 remember, in September, we felt that we were being 20 ignored. 21 I'm delighted to see the various 22 representatives here today. I'm glad to see Jed 23 Mandel so I would not be getting a call later today 24 to say he was concerned. 25 So I think that, since that time -- at 67 1 least, I felt -- that we've made significant 2 progress, come to a much greater understanding of 3 where we stand. And so I feel much happier than I 4 did at that time. 5 So with that, I would like to turn it 6 over to Mr. Kenny to introduce this item and begin 7 staff presentation. 8 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: Thank you, Mr. 9 Chairman and members of the board. 10 Today, staff will be presenting the 11 second update of the Public Transit Bus Fleet 12 Regulation. This regulation is designed to achieve 13 significant reductions in both PM and NOx through 14 the implementation of a innovative dual-path fleet 15 rule in emissions standards for new transit bus 16 engines. 17 As you've just mentioned, Dr. Lloyd, 18 staff was asked to report on back on two main 19 issues -- compliance with the 4.8-gram-per-brake 20 horsepower-hour NOx average and implementation of the 21 alternative NOx strategy exemption applications. 22 As of the September board meeting, 14 23 transit agencies had not demonstrated that they would 24 comply with the required NOx average by October 1, 25 2002. However, since September, staff have worked 68 1 with these 14 transit agencies to move them towards 2 compliance. 3 To date, only 5 transit agencies 4 report they will be unable to comply by October 1, 5 2002. And as you will hear from the staff, 2 of 6 those agencies are actually very small; and the staff 7 has not had as much time to work with them. 8 However, their bus numbers are also 9 very small, in the very low single digits. Also as 10 reported in September, 15 transit agencies had 11 applied for the alternative NOx strategy exemption, 12 but only 3 of those had submitted a plan to 13 demonstrate greater NOx-emission benefits through 14 2015. None were demonstrating advanced NOx 15 aftertreatment technology. 16 Today, staff will report that 7 17 transit agencies have successfully completed their 18 exemption applications. Staff will update the board 19 on the applications and the advanced NOx- 20 aftertreatment technology demonstration. 21 Staff will also briefly report other 22 issues related to the transit bus rule, including PM 23 emission controls for older engines and hybrid- 24 electric bus testing. 25 With that, I'd like to ask Ms. Dinh 69 1 Quach to make the presentation. 2 MS. QUACH: Thank you. 3 Good morning, Chairman Lloyd and 4 members of the board. Today I will present the 5 second update of the Public Transit Bus Fleet 6 Regulation. 7 During my presentation, I will be 8 covering the following topics: The background of the 9 Public Transit Bus Fleet Rule adopted by the board in 10 2000; an update on the transit agencies' 11 implementation of the rule, including the submission 12 of annual reports; an update on the availability of 13 low-sulfur diesel fuel; outreach to the transit 14 agencies to facilitate implementation; an update on 15 the transit agencies' compliance with the NOx fleet 16 average requirements; an update on the implementation 17 progress of the alternative NOx strategy 18 applications; the voluntary activities performed by 19 transit agencies beyond the requirements of the 20 regulation; a summary of the outstanding issues 21 related to the regulation; and, finally, staff's 22 recommendations for the board's consideration. 23 I will begin my presentation with the 24 background of the Public Transit Bus Fleet Rule. My 25 gosh. I'm sorry. This is the wrong presentation. 70 1 Sorry. Sorry about that. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: It's okay. 3 MS. QUACH: The board adopted the Public 4 Transit Bus Fleet Regulation in February, 2000, to 5 reduce oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter 6 emissions from urban buses. 7 The regulation includes both a fleet 8 rule, which applies to transit agencies, and new 9 engine-emission standards, which apply to 10 manufacturers. 11 The main -- excuse me -- the main 12 requirements of the regulation for transit agencies 13 include the following: First, each transit agency 14 must select one of two fuel paths, either diesel or 15 alternative fuel, by January 31, 2001. Annual 16 reports must be filed to ensure compliance. 17 In addition to the fleet rule, new 18 standards for diesel engines were adopted which apply 19 to engine manufacturers. A .01-gram PM standard for 20 diesel engines starts October 1, 2002. For the 21 model year 2004 to 2006, diesel dual-fuel and bi-fuel 22 urban bus engines must meet a .5-gram NOx standard. 23 This standard will decrease to .2 grams for NOx in 24 2007 and beyond. 25 Third, engine manufacturers had stated 71 1 that they had no plans to build complying diesel 2 engines during 2004 to 2006. Therefore, staff 3 included an alternative method transit agencies could 4 use to achieve NOx reductions and purchase diesel 5 buses during those years. This method is also known 6 as "The Alternative NOx Strategy Exemption." 7 Fourth, every transit agency must 8 comply with the 4.8-gram NOx fleet average 9 requirement by October 1, 2002. This can be met by 10 repowering or retiring old engines. An alternative 11 means of compliance is to retire all 1987 and older 12 diesel urban buses by October 1, 2002. 13 Transit agencies were required to 14 submit reports by January 31, 2001, detailing their 15 plans for compliance. 16 Fifth, annual reports that describe 17 their fleet composition and plans are due each 18 January 31st. 19 Sixth, transit agencies must switch to 20 low-sulfur fuel -- 15 ppm or less -- for all diesel 21 buses beginning on July 1, 2002. 22 Seventh, transit agencies are required 23 to reduce diesel PM emissions with a phase-in 24 retrofit process starting January 1, 2003. 25 And, finally, additional requirements 72 1 for large transit agencies on the diesel path, 2 including implementing a zero-emission demonstration 3 beginning in 2003 and purchasing zero-emission buses 4 beginning in 2008. 5 Large transit agencies on the 6 alternative-fuel path are required to make 7 zero-emission purchases starting in 2010. 8 Staff presented the first update of 9 the regulation at the public meeting on September 20, 10 2001. At that time, staff reported that 14 transit 11 agencies had supplied incorrect information or 12 omitted required information on their annual reports. 13 Consequently, they would not have complied with a 14 4.8-grams NOx lead average beginning in October 1 of 15 this year. 16 Additionally, staff updated the board 17 on the status of the alternative NOx strategy 18 exemption applications. By the June 30, 2001, 19 deadline, 15 transit agencies had applied for the 20 alternative NOx strategy exemption. 21 Of the 15, only 1 transit agency had 22 submitted a complete plan to demonstrate advanced NOx 23 aftertreatment strategies, while 3 had submitted 24 incomplete plans. No NOx demonstration had been 25 implemented by any of the transit agencies. 73 1 After the staff's report at the 2 September meeting, the board adopted Resolution 3 01-dash-31, directing staff to carry out several 4 tests. The first was for staff to assist transit 5 agencies in achieving compliance with the 4.8 grams 6 NOx fleet average. 7 Secondly, staff was asked to assist 8 transit agencies that apply for the alternative NOx 9 strategy exemption. The board allowed the transit 10 agencies until December 31, 2001, to submit complete 11 plans for the alternative NOx strategy exemption and 12 to commit resources for an advanced NOx 13 aftertreatment demonstration. 14 The NOx demonstration must be 15 implemented by December 31, 2002. Transit agencies 16 have the option to perform an individual or joint 17 demonstration. A joint demonstration must show 70 to 18 90 percent reduction in NOx emissions. 19 Finally, the board asked staff to 20 return in six months to present this update on the 21 progress of implementing these two items. 22 The next topic of discussion is 23 staff's outreach to the transit agencies. Since the 24 September meeting, staff has conducted various 25 outreach efforts. Multiple meetings and 74 1 teleconferences have been held to discuss remaining 2 alternative NOx strategy issues, including the plans 3 for the NOx demonstration and to assist transit 4 agencies in their progress towards complying with the 5 NOx fleet average. 6 In order to promote better 7 understanding of the Transit Bus Rule, staff made a 8 presentation at the California Transit Association 9 fall conference on the compliance requirements for 10 the rule and issued two advisories clarifying 11 definitions in the regulation. 12 Staff also met with representatives of 13 the Engine Manufacturers Association to discuss the 14 status of NOx aftertreatment technology. At the 15 meeting, EMA stressed that the engine manufacturers 16 would work with transit agencies and ARB on 17 furthering the NOx aftertreatment demonstration but 18 maintained they had no obligation under the rule to 19 conduct a demonstration. 20 In addition to the efforts described, 21 staff has continued to communicate regularly and 22 extensively with transit agencies through letters, 23 phone calls, and e-mails. 24 For this next section, I will discuss 25 the transit agencies' compliance with the NOx fleet 75 1 average. 2 As mentioned before, every transit 3 agency must comply with the 4.8 grams NOx fleet 4 average requirement by October 1, 2002. As of the 5 publication date of the status report, 5 transit 6 agencies reported that they will not be able to 7 comply with the fleet average by October. 8 Since that time, 1 has reported 9 revised information. And we now project they will 10 comply by the deadline, leaving only 4. 11 Of the remaining 4 transit agencies, 12 Arcata-MAD River Transit System is not projected to 13 comply until November, 2002, due to new bus delivery 14 schedules. Fairfield-Suisun Transit has also 15 informed us that they will not be able to comply 16 until December, 2002, due to timing and budgetary 17 issues. 18 Also due to budgetary constraints, San 19 Luis Obispo Regional Transit Authority and South 20 County Area Transit will not comply until December, 21 2003. 22 As requested by the board, I will now 23 present an update on the implementation progress of 24 the alternative NOx strategy exemption applications. 25 Prior to the adoption of the regulation, engine 76 1 manufacturers stated that they might be unwilling to 2 invest in technology to meet the 2004-to-2006 model 3 year NOx emissions standards. 4 Since that time, engine manufacturers 5 have confirmed that they have no plans to build and 6 sell complying diesel transit bus engines during 2004 7 to 2006. 8 The rule allows transit agencies on 9 either fuel path to purchase noncomplying engines if 10 they have an exemption granted by the executive 11 officer. Only transit agencies that are approved for 12 the exemption may purchase buses with diesel engines 13 certified to higher than .5 gram NOx during 2004 to 14 2006. 15 The requirements for the exemption 16 include applying to the EO by June 30, 2001, and 17 demonstrating greater NOx emission benefits through 18 2015 than would have been achieved through buying 19 complying engines. 20 Furthermore, the transit agency must 21 demonstrate advanced NOx aftertreatment technology. 22 The board allowed the transit agencies until December 23 31, 2001, to complete their plans and commit 24 resources to an advanced NOx aftertreatment 25 technology demonstration. 77 1 By the June 30, 2001 deadline, we had 2 received 15 letters requesting an exemption. 3 However, only 7 of the 15 have met the requirements 4 for approval by submitting complete plans and 5 committing to a NOx demonstration. 6 As you can see, all 7 are on the 7 diesel path, even though transit agencies on the 8 alternative-fuel path could have also applied for the 9 exemption. These 8 transit agencies formally 10 withdrew or never completed their plans. Those that 11 have not been approved for the exemption will not be 12 able to purchase new bus engines during 2004 to 2006. 13 1 of the transit agencies -- San 14 Joaquin Regional Transit -- submitted a plan after 15 the December 31, 2001, deadline that would be 16 approvable if an extension were given for a 17 submission. We do not plan to approve their 18 application, due to missing the deadline. 19 The third requirement for the 20 alternative NOx strategy exemption is that transit 21 agencies must demonstrates advanced NOx 22 aftertreatment technology. After many discussions, 23 the 7 transit agencies have chosen to do one joint 24 demonstration project. 25 2 other transit agencies that do not 78 1 have an exemption -- San Mateo County Transit and 2 Central Contra Costa Transit Authority -- also plan 3 to participate in the demonstration. The technology 4 chosen for demonstration must be able to potentially 5 achieve 70 percent or more reduction in NOx 6 emissions. 7 The transit agencies involved in the 8 demonstration project have informed staff that a 9 request for proposals will be released soon. A third 10 transit agency that did not apply for an exemption -- 11 Torrance Transit -- has informed staff that they will 12 perform a separate NOx demonstration. 13 Now that I've presented the 14 background, I would like to move on to the update of 15 the implementation of the rule. 16 The rule requires transit agencies to 17 submit annual reports by January 31 of each year. 18 Those reports are to detail their fleet compositions 19 and actions taken in the previous year to comply with 20 the regulation. 21 Of the 70 transit agencies, 49 22 reported on time, by January 31, 2002. 14 more 23 agencies reported by March 1, 2002, after being 24 contacted by staff. 2 additional agencies reported 25 by March 15, 2002, after being contacted by staff a 79 1 second time. And 5 agencies have still not responded 2 to staff's calls or inquiries. 3 To date, 5 transit agencies have not 4 submitted their 2002 annual reports, despite staff's 5 warning that they are past due. City of Commerce, 6 City of Norwalk, and Fairfield-Suisun Transit are on 7 the diesel-fuel path while the City of Los Angeles 8 Department of Transportation and Yolo Bus are on the 9 alternative-fuel path. 10 The regulation requires transit 11 agencies to start using 15-parts-per-million-sulfur 12 diesel fuel on July 1, 2002. Staff conducted a 13 survey of all 70 transit agencies to determine 14 availability of 15-parts-par-million-sulfur diesel 15 fuel. However, not all agencies responded, making 16 the survey not representative of the entire transit 17 population. 18 Of the 70 transit agencies, 54 -- or 19 70 percent -- responded to the survey. Of those 20 responses, 26 said that low-sulfur diesel fuel was 21 readily available. 12 said that it is unavailable. 22 However, 6 of them are eligible for an exemption 23 until 2006. 24 The reasons for fuel unavailability 25 are lack of fuel storage tanks and their fuel 80 1 provider and/or "car lock" facilities would not carry 2 the fuel. Of the 45 respondents, 14 have fuel 3 contracts in place, and 31 do not have contracts yet 4 or purchase on the open market. 5 Of these transit agencies with fuel 6 availability, 67 percent are paying 2 to 7 cents over 7 the price of car diesel, and 23 percent are paying 8 8 cents to 15 cents over car diesel. The higher price 9 difference is generally due to hauling distance 10 and/or low-volume sales. 11 Transit agencies have stated they are 12 also participating in voluntary activities beyond 13 what is required in the regulation. 14 These voluntary activities include 15 aggressively repowering their older two-cycle buses; 16 changing to less than 15-parts-per-million-sulfur 17 diesel fuel earlier than the July 1, 2002, deadline; 18 installing particulate filters earlier than required; 19 and testing various advanced-technology engines and 20 power systems that have lower NOx and PM emissions 21 than currently certified engines. 22 In addition to the items already 23 discussed, a few outstanding issues related to the 24 transit bus regulation still remain. These issues 25 include the unavailability of 85 percent PM reduction 81 1 strategies for older engines, the in-use performance 2 of transit buses equipped with diesel particulate 3 filters, and the development of hybrid-electric bus 4 test procedures. 5 To better understand the diesel PM 6 retrofit issue, let's first look at the fleet 7 composition of the buses in active service in 8 California. For retrofitting purposes, the rule 9 divided bus engines into three tiers by model years. 10 As of January 1, 2001, the majority of 11 pre-1991 and 1991-to-1995 model year engines are 12 two-stroke engines. In contrast, the 1996-to-2001 13 model year engines are overwhelmingly four-stroke. 14 By October, 2002 -- a few months 15 before the January 1, 2003, retrofit deadline -- 16 transit agencies project they will reduce the number 17 of pre-1991 model year two-stroke engines by about 53 18 percent. 19 However, the majority of pre-1991 and 20 1991-to-1995 model year engines are still two-stroke. 21 Despite this shift to new engines, these figures show 22 a large number of two-stroke and older engines still 23 will need to be retrofitted to reduce diesel PM. 24 The regulation requires that, by 25 January 1, 2003, 100 percent of pre-1991 model year 82 1 diesel engines must be retrofitted. The same 2 requirements apply to a lower percentage of model 3 years 1991 through 1995 engines by January 1, 2003, 4 under a phase-in schedule. 5 The regulation does include some 6 exemptions which are applicable to certain buses. 7 Pre-1991 model year diesel bus engines originally 8 certified to .6 grams PM that have been retrofitted 9 with a .1 grams PM ARB-certified retrofit device are 10 exempt. 11 And, secondly, '91-to-'95 model year 12 diesel buses that are being operated by transit 13 agencies on the alternative-fuel path and that are 14 within two years of retirement are also exempt. 15 And finally, '91-to-'95 model year 16 diesel buses that are being operated by transit 17 agencies on the diesel path and that are within one 18 year of retirement are exempt. 19 Transit agencies were required to 20 submit by January 31, 2002, their plans to comply 21 with the retrofit schedules. 22 An analysis of the submitted 23 information indicates that a majority of the pre-1991 24 model year buses will be retired, although 30 percent 25 of the pre-1991 model years buses with two-stroke 83 1 engines are listed as exempt because they have been 2 retrofitted under the U.S.-EPA urban bus 3 retrofit-rebuild program to reduce PM to .1 grams. 4 In contrast, the majority of the 5 1991-to-1995 buses will be retrofitted. 6 Staff verifies the technology to be 7 used for the retrofits. So far, two diesel 8 particulate filters have been verified for PM 9 reduction. However, they have only been verified for 10 use with model year 1994 and newer engines. There 11 have been no retrofit device verified for engines 12 older than 1994 model year or for two-stroke engines. 13 In general, two-stroke bus engines are 14 more technologically challenging to retrofit with a 15 passive diesel particulate filter because PM 16 emissions tend to be higher than four-stroke engines. 17 Furthermore, the exhaust gas 18 temperature may not meet the minimum temperature 19 required for spontaneous regeneration. 20 Staff is currently evaluating 21 technologies such as oxidation catalysts that may 22 work on those engines. However, oxidation catalysts 23 will not be reach the 85 percent reduction required 24 by the rule. 25 We believe that verified technology 84 1 will not be available for pre-1994 model year engines 2 in time to meet the January, 2003, deadline. 3 However, there are three retrofit devices approved by 4 ARB for use in the U.S.-EPA urban bus 5 retrofit-rebuild program that reduce diesel PM to .1 6 grams on certain electronically controlled two-stroke 7 engines. 8 We will look at this technology more 9 closely as a possible method to reduce emissions in 10 these older two-stroke engines. 11 In an effort to evaluate the available 12 retrofit technology for model year 1994 and newer 13 engines, ARB staff recently inspected buses with 14 filters and interviewed fleet managers about their 15 in-use performance. 16 New York City Transit had installed 17 900 filters on their 1994-to-2001 model year buses 18 with DDC Series 50 and Series 60 engines. Those -- 19 excuse me. Both Johnson-Matthey and Inglehart 20 filters were used. 21 The oldest traps installed were on 22 demonstration buses in February, 2000. And all these 23 traps are working fine. They have encountered 24 exhaust leaks, but they have corrected them. 25 Since the end of January, Long Beach 85 1 transit has been installing Johnson-Matthey filters 2 on their 1994-to-1998 model year buses with DDC 3 Series 50 engines. We were able to inspect 50 of the 4 60 buses with filters. 5 To date, one filter was found to be 6 loose due to a mounting problem. And another had an 7 exhaust leak, due to a broken temperature-and- 8 pressure fitting on the back pressure monitor. 9 With the exception of these two 10 problems, Long Beach has experienced relatively few 11 problems with installation and bus performance after 12 installation. 13 Philadelphia started installing 30 14 Inglehart filters on 1996 model year buses with DDC 15 Series 50 engines this year. They have not 16 encountered problems -- they have not encountered any 17 problems so far and plan on cleaning the filters 18 themselves. 19 Currently Los Angeles Metropolitan 20 Transportation Authority has two 1998 model year 21 buses with DDC Series 50 engines equipped with 22 Johnson-Matthey filters. 23 Originally, one of the filters failed 24 two or three months after installation because the 25 filter bracket loosened and damaged the ceramic 86 1 substrait. The damaged filter was replaced, and the 2 filters are working fine today. 3 San Francisco Municipal Railway 4 installed Inglehart filters in September, 2001, on 5 two 2000 model year buses with Cummins ISM engines. 6 They have experienced a back-pressure increase in one 7 of the buses, but the problem was fixed once the 8 filler was cleaned. 9 Finally, Santa Clara Valley 10 Transportation Authority has one 1999 model year bus 11 with a Cummins ISM engine which was equipped with an 12 Inglehart filter in December, 2000. Because this 13 model filter did not have a back-pressure monitor, 14 increased back pressure was only recently discovered 15 by testing. They are working on correcting this 16 problem now. 17 Based on this survey, staff concludes 18 that the current verified retrofit technologies are 19 working well for transit bus applications. However, 20 as noted earlier, the unavailability of retrofits for 21 two-stroke engines remains an obstacle to full 22 implementation of the retrofit requirements. 23 Another issue relevant to the 24 regulation is the development of a test procedure for 25 the hybrid-electric buses. We continue to work with 87 1 hybrid-electric bus manufacturers, hybrid drivetrain 2 developers, and transit bus fleet managers to further 3 understand the operating characteristics and 4 maintenance concerns of transit buses. 5 We plan to propose heavy-duty hybrid- 6 electric test procedures for the board's 7 consideration and adoption in September, 2002. 8 With the adoption of these procedures, 9 transit bus fleet operators will be able to introduce 10 certified lower-emitting hybrid electric buses into 11 their active fleets, thereby reducing the emissions 12 from buses. 13 In summary, nearly all the transit 14 agencies project compliance with the NOx fleet 15 average with the exception of 4, who will be issued 16 notices of violation if they do not comply. 17 For the alternative NOx strategy 18 exemption, all plans submitted on time have been 19 approved. The remaining agencies have apparently 20 chosen not to purchase diesel bus engines during 2004 21 to 2006. 22 All the agencies participating in the 23 alternative NOx strategy will be performing one joint 24 demonstration. Only 5 annual reports are past due at 25 this time, and the staff will continue to work with 88 1 agencies to obtain the reports. 2 Low-sulfur diesel fuel is generally 3 available to the majority of the transit agencies. 4 Staff will assist in the coordination between the 5 transit agencies and oil companies to obtain fuel. 6 The retrofit field experience has 7 shown that verified devices are performing well on 8 model year 1994 and newer engines. No retrofits have 9 been verified for pre-1994 model year engines, and 10 none are expected in time for the 2003 deadline. 11 And, finally, here are staff's 12 recommendations for the board's consideration: 13 Because it appears PM retrofits 14 meeting the 85 percent PM reduction mandate will not 15 be available for the pre-1991 model year buses by the 16 required deadline, we recommend that the 17 retrofit-implementation schedule be revised. If so 18 directed, we will propose regulatory changes for the 19 board's consideration in September of 2002. 20 The next recommendation is to direct 21 staff to continue to work with transit agencies on 22 meeting the NOx fleet average, assisting in the 23 advanced NOx aftertreatment demonstration, assisting 24 in obtaining low-sulfur diesel fuel, and in complying 25 with the retrofit requirements. 89 1 Instruct staff to assist rural and 2 small transit agencies in identifying, assessing, and 3 implementing strategies to support alternative fuel 4 bus fleets. Instruct staff to propose hybrid bus 5 procedures to the board in September, 2002. 6 And this concludes my presentation. I 7 thank you for your attention. 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 9 When you were talking in the summary 10 there and your outline in the presentation retrofits 11 not being available by the implementation deadline 12 for pre-'94, if we gave another 10 years or 5 years, 13 will we ever get to that spot? Or would it be easier 14 just to replace those buses? 15 MS. HEBERT: MECA is here today. I'm sorry. 16 Annette Hebert of the Heavy-Duty Diesel In-Use 17 Strategies Branch. MECA is here today to speak to 18 that. 19 However, what we have kind of been 20 told is that it's not so much that something couldn't 21 be come up for the old two-stroke buses. I think it 22 is that the technology would probably be very 23 expensive and very difficult to create. 24 And considering the life of or the 25 volume of two-strokes that would be left, it may not 90 1 be economically feasible to go that route. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 3 Supervisor Roberts. 4 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Yeah. Just a question, 5 Mr. Chairman, to a couple of points in the testimony. 6 There was, first, a reference to the 4 noncompliant 7 and the 5 transit agencies that haven't even bothered 8 to submit reports. 9 It's not clear to me what we're doing 10 and what incentives there are to encourage that 11 along. If somehow, I would think that, if we were 12 dealing with private firms here, there would be such 13 a righteous indignation that we wouldn't just be 14 somewhat "We'll get around to it" or "We'll keep 15 calling 'em and see if they're coming to it." 16 And I think perhaps there needs to be 17 some financial incentive to assist these groups 18 along, in the way of a fine or something. But 19 this -- I didn't find that part of the presentation 20 very satisfactory. And maybe I missed something. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Okay. 22 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: If you'd let me -- 23 Supervisor Roberts, what we're 24 planning to do is actually, with regard to the 4 that 25 have not indicated they will be in compliance by 91 1 October of this year -- we have sent those 4 letters 2 essentially indicating to them that, if they are not 3 in compliance, they will be issued notices of 4 violations for substantial noncompliance. 5 With regard -- 6 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: What does that mean -- 7 you send 'em a notice of violation? What happens as 8 a result of that? What incentive does that give 'em 9 to get going? 10 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: Well, exactly the 11 one you talked about. Penalties are essentially 12 applicable. They will be fined for having -- 13 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: At that point you send 14 those notices out? 15 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: Yes. I mean what 16 we'll do is we'll basically let them -- what we've 17 done now is let them know and put them on notice 18 that, if they are not in compliance by October 1, 19 2002, they will receive a notice of violation and 20 that the only recourse at that point is going to be 21 penalties. 22 With regard to the other part of your 23 question, those -- 24 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: And are the penalties 25 significant enough to get somebody's attention? 92 1 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: The penalties are 2 not as significant as we would like them to be. We 3 do have other sort of legal options available to us. 4 Those would be things, for example, that would 5 involve injunctions. It is our preference to try to 6 essentially use the penalties to get compliance and 7 to indicate that, in fact, that would be a preferred 8 course. 9 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Then, about the 5 that 10 are well beyond the date -- 11 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: On the 5, basically, 12 the same thing there. The intent is to essentially 13 give them notices of violation if we do not have 14 those reports in the very near future. 15 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: When? I mean when does 16 this happen? I mean you've called them on the phone. 17 You got some that complied. You've got 5 people or 5 18 groups, agencies that not are not complying. 19 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: What we were trying 20 to do is recognize that, in fact, we have been 21 working with a lot of these transit agencies. 22 And we also wanted to take some of 23 this burden on ourselves in that, since the board's 24 meeting in September, we have tried to work with the 25 different transit agencies. But some of them are 93 1 actually fairly small. So with regard to some of the 2 small ones, we have not put much time and effort into 3 them. When I mean "small," they might have 4- or 4 5-dozen buses. So those kinds of transit agencies -- 5 we actually are trying to be a little bit more 6 flexible with. 7 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Well, you had some that 8 looked bigger on that list also. 9 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: We do have some that 10 are bigger. And with regard to those, I mean the 11 idea there would be that they would get a notice of 12 violation for failure to submit the report because 13 the report is important to us in terms of achieving 14 the information we need to move forward. 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Dr. Burke. 16 Oh, I'm sorry. Were you finished? 17 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Well, it just seems to 18 me that, when we're asking our transit agencies to 19 comply, that we ought -- and to respond in a timely 20 fashion, that we ought to expect that that's going to 21 be the norm. 22 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: I don't disagree 23 with you. I think we should have that expectation. 24 That should be the norm. 25 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Dr. Burke and then -- 94 1 Supervisor Patrick. 2 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: Thank you, Mr. 3 Chairman. 4 I just had a question about the San 5 Joaquin Regional Transit. There was some discussion 6 in here about how they missed the deadline and wanted 7 an extension of the deadline. And perhaps someone 8 could elaborate on that for me. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think the comment there was 10 that they submitted something after the due date and 11 that we would assume that they were not in 12 compliance. 13 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: Right. And so -- 14 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But you ask the staff -- 15 yeah. 16 MS. STEELE: Nancy Steele with the Heavy-Duty 17 Diesel In-Use Strategies Branch. San Joaquin 18 Regional Transit was 1 of the original 15 that 19 submitted a request by June 30 which did not have a 20 plan in it. Following the September meeting, we had 21 numerous meetings with the transit agencies. And San 22 Joaquin Transit was one of the attendees at each of 23 these meetings. 24 And as I said in -- and as we said in 25 the presentation, in addition, we spoke at their 95 1 annual fall conference. So there was numerous 2 contacts. What we received in December from them was 3 a letter similar to what they had sent prior to the 4 June 30th deadline. 5 Again, it was a general letter saying, 6 "We would like to do this," but not a specific plan. 7 And we had made clear, to all of the 8 15 transit agencies, that they had to submit a very 9 specific plan. And we'd given them examples, sent 10 them spreadsheets, et cetera. 11 So after the vacation, we came back. 12 And I called them up. I began working with them. I 13 said, "If you want to continue working with us on 14 this, we can. And we'll discuss it and see how we're 15 going to go on this." 16 They did submit a -- finally get a 17 plan in to us about mid-February that was a specific 18 plan. But when we discussed it further, it appeared 19 it would be an inequity to allow them to have the 20 exemption with this late submission. 21 And the inequity arises because there 22 were several transit agencies that submitted a 23 request for the exemption after the June 30 deadline 24 and we denied them. 25 So the feeling was that, if we had 96 1 denied that original late request, it would not be 2 fair, then, to approve San Joaquin's late submittal 3 of the plan, especially with all of the outreach that 4 we had done. 5 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: So the consequences of 6 them not getting that in on time -- they are no 7 longer eligible for the exemption, then? 8 MS. STEELE: Correct. 9 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: Thank you, Mr. 10 Chairman. 11 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Dr. Burke. 12 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Following up, I think, on 13 Supervisor Roberts's comments -- when you issue an 14 NOV to somebody like the City of L.A. Department of 15 Transportation, which I just find incredible that 16 they haven't submitted their annual report, how much 17 in real dollars are we talking about here? 18 MS. WALSH: It depends on the number of buses 19 in the fleet -- 20 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: -- annual report. 21 MS. WALSH: Oh, the annual report? 22 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: This is not MTA. This is 23 the City of L.A. Department of Transportation, which 24 has nothing to do with M.T.A. 25 MS. WALSH: Right. We have a penalty 97 1 provision in the statute -- $500 per vehicle. 2 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: I'm sorry. I didn't hear 3 that. 4 MS. WALSH: $500 per vehicle or engine. So it 5 would depend on the number of buses or engines that 6 are in the fleet that was covered by the late or 7 nonexistent report. 8 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Does anyone -- and I know 9 this is a tough question -- does anyone have an idea 10 how many vehicles are covered under this? 11 MS. WALSH: 109. 12 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: So we're talking about a 13 $100,000 fine? 14 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: $50,000 fine. 15 MS. WALSH: $50,000. 16 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: $5,000 fine? I just -- I 17 want to call the city administrative officer tomorrow 18 about this. But I just -- I don't think that's 19 enough money to really motivate them. Is there a 20 reason that the City of Los Angeles -- I mean I just 21 can't imagine the City of Los Angeles not responding. 22 Is there some specific item of 23 information that I should know that they're going to 24 say to me? 25 MS. STEELE: The last -- this is Nancy Steele. 98 1 The last communication we had with them was over 2 their NOx fleet average. They were one of the ones 3 that had been late on getting us information. And I 4 don't have an explanation for why they didn't give us 5 the annual report. 6 There may have been a confusion in 7 their minds as to what they were submitting by when. 8 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Do you remember the 9 person's name you talked to? 10 MS. STEELE: It's Steve Cannistraci. 11 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: I'm sorry? 12 MS. STEELE: Steve Cannistraci. 13 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Okay. Thank you. 14 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Questions? 15 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Is he on the witness 16 list? I thought that was going to be too good to be 17 true. 18 UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: If he was, he's 19 taken himself off. 20 UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Right. He's 21 long gone. 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Mr. Calhoun. 23 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: It seems to me there's 24 a fairly large number of pre-1994 engines still on 25 the road; is that correct? 99 1 MR. CACKETTE: Yes. 2 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: And there are no 3 devices available nor do we anticipate -- am I 4 putting words in your mouth? Do so we anticipate 5 approval of any of the devices that would retrofit -- 6 that could be used to retrofit those engines? 7 MR. CACKETTE: Not 85 percent efficient 8 ones -- no -- for the reasons that were mentioned 9 before, which is it's a harder application and the 10 market is a diminishing one because they don't make 11 these engines anymore. So anyone who's going to 12 invest would see a very fixed and then declining 13 market to recover their investment. 14 So the engine -- the device 15 manufacturers, I think, are focussed on the future 16 which does not have two-stroke engines in it. We do 17 have some -- there are some options. We mentioned 18 them briefly. 19 There are lesser-efficient 20 aftertreatments that could go on. We may be able to 21 impose the EPA NOx retrofit -- or the EPA-retrofit 22 program requirements on them which normally occurs at 23 rebuild but could be done before a rebuild -- those 24 kind of things to try to come up with a program to 25 cover some, at least, of those buses. 100 1 But what we'll do is try to explore 2 that between now and September if you agree that we 3 should come back and make some modification to the 4 requirement then. 5 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Well, I certainly think 6 that should be done. I guess the concern that I have 7 is these things are going to on the road for a long 8 time. And there's no question about it. And I don't 9 think we should just give up on them, on the fact 10 that there's no technology available. We need to 11 keep pushing in that area. 12 And if it means that we can't get 75 13 percent or whatever the requirement is, then we 14 should maybe have to back off a little bit and take 15 something less than what we had anticipated. But I 16 certainly think that we ought to pursue this. 17 MR. CACKETTE: We'll do that and try to 18 explore all those options before we come back to you 19 in September. 20 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Okay. Thank you. 21 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: If I could add one 22 other thing, too, as the different transit agencies 23 are testifying, I think one of the things you may 24 hear is that they are actually accelerating the 25 retirement of some of those vehicles as a way of 101 1 essentially trying to improve the status of their 2 fleets. And so I'm pretty certain that some of them 3 are going to talk about that. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: All right. Any other 5 questions? Ms. D'Adamo? 6 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Oh, I would just like 7 to agree with Mr. Calhoun. I'd be uncomfortable 8 about giving up, especially in terms of the precedent 9 that this may set for some of our other strategies 10 that we have not yet considered with regard to PM on 11 some of the other fleets. 12 Where do the buses end up if they get 13 retired? Unless it's through a Carl Moyer program or 14 something, do they end up going to a different 15 transit district? And is there a region in this 16 state that seems to have a higher percentage of 17 pre-'94 buses? 18 MS. STEELE: This is Nancy Steele. My 19 understanding is that -- and some of the transit 20 districts, agencies may want to respond to your 21 question also when they testify. But my 22 understanding is that there's a mix of fates for 23 these. 24 Some of them are sold to or have 25 traditionally been sold to the smaller transit 102 1 agencies that didn't have the money to buy new buses. 2 Some of them go into the contingency or emergency 3 fleet because they are -- they do tend to be 4 workhorses. And so they are a bus that they can keep 5 around for an emergency when they absolutely have no 6 other buses to put on the road. And I imagine that 7 some of them are sold out of state and or out of the 8 country. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think part of the concerns 10 I hear from my colleagues here -- do they relate to 11 the previous item? And do they go across the border 12 and then continue to provide transported emissions? 13 Any other questions from the board? 14 With that, I would like to call up the 15 first witness here. In view of the large number of 16 witnesses to testify, I will start off at the 17 beginning by instituting a 3-minute restriction. 18 I would also appreciate your 19 indulgence, though. If you see that your testimony 20 relates to another one, rather than speaking to 21 that -- in avoiding repetition, it would help us all 22 because I'm sure there will be questions from the 23 testimony as well. 24 So Professor Friedman will be 25 enforcing the strict 3-minute timetable here. 103 1 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: No. I'll just be 2 running the timer. You will be enforcing it. 3 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. We do have a 4 panic button up here, too. So, anyway, to call on 5 the first three -- Henry Hogo, Joshua Shaw, Chuck 6 Harvey. 7 MR. HOGO: Good morning, Dr. Lloyd and members 8 of the board. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Good morning. 10 MR. HOGO: I'm Henry Hogo. I'm the Assistant 11 Department Executive Officer at the South Coast AQMD. 12 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Is the mike on? 13 MR. HOGO: Do I need to press -- 14 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: It's not on, apparently. 15 MR. HOGO: I still get my three minutes? 16 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. Yeah. You get credit. 17 1-to-1 credit. 18 MR. HOGO: Maybe if I can use this mike. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Much better. Thank you. 20 MR. HOGO: Thank you, again. My name's Henry 21 Hogo. I'm the Assistant Deputy Executive Officer at 22 the South Coast Air Quality Management District. 23 And I believe you have before you 24 written testimony from us. I want to highlight some 25 of the points in this testimony. I won't read it 104 1 verbatim. 2 Our biggest concern relative to 3 particulate emissions is the findings from the health 4 study that indicate the detrimental impacts on 5 children's lung growth, increased asthma, and 6 potential birth defects that we've seen in recent 7 studies from UCLA and, more importantly, the study 8 results that were indicated by your own staff this 9 morning relative to heart attacks. 10 With that, we believe that the 11 strongest approach to reducing particulate emission 12 is to have the cleanest engine technologies that are 13 commercially available today as an implementation of 14 your rule. 15 As such, we are urging your board to 16 eliminate the diesel path from the transit bus rule. 17 And I wanted to bring up the fact that 18 our agency adopted Rule 1192 back in June of 2000, 19 which is modelled after the alternative-path 20 provisions. And it has set a model for how transit 21 agencies can follow just one path at this time. 22 With that, I wanted to put up a chart 23 that shows -- the first chart that was up there -- 24 and it's in your package -- shows that at least about 25 50 percent of all the transit buses that are 105 1 operating in the South Coast Air Basin right now are 2 operating on natural gas or the alternative-fuel 3 path. 4 The 5 major transit agencies have all 5 chosen the alternative fuel path under your rule. 6 They are not required to do that, to choose that 7 path, but they have chosen that path. Other transit 8 agencies have chosen the diesel path, yet they must 9 still follow the Rule 1192 path. 10 What you see here is a breakdown of 11 the number of diesel buses that are operating in the 12 South Coast Air Basin at this time -- that's the 13 first column -- and the number of natural gas buses 14 operating in the South Coast Air Basin. 15 The 5 major transit districts have 16 over 70 percent natural gas buses in use today. 17 Last Friday, the Los Angeles MTA 18 announced the roll-out of natural gas bus services in 19 the San Gabriel Valley, one of the areas in the South 20 Coast Air Basin which has one of the worst air 21 qualities in the nation. So we're very encouraged by 22 this. 23 Long Beach Transit has chosen to go 24 the alternative-fuel path despite the fact that they 25 have declared a diesel path under your rule. So 106 1 transit agencies are able to move ahead with an 2 alternative-fuel path. They can achieve clean-air 3 benefits without having to choose between a diesel or 4 an alternative fuel path. So we are encouraged by 5 this aspect of it. 6 We wanted to highlight the fact that 7 the promise of future cleaner diesel technology is 8 just a promise. And it's not clear whether that will 9 ever be achieved in this time frame. We know today 10 that the same engine manufacturers who are producing 11 diesel engines are also producing national gas 12 engines, and they're pushing that technology to the 13 .5 gram level at this time. 14 And Detroit Diesel is one manufacturer 15 that may have or potentially will have a .5 gram 16 natural gas bus engine available by the end of this 17 year or early next year. So the natural gas 18 alternative-fuel technologies will meet the 19 compliance of your rule. 20 We strongly believe that the diesel 21 path is a tenuous one. We know that the alternative- 22 fuel engines are available today. To achieve clean 23 air as early as possible, we need to have the 24 cleanest technology available today and to reduce the 25 exposure to the residents of California, not only to 107 1 the bus riders but to the residents along those bus 2 lines -- 3 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Henry, that red light there 4 signifies your three minutes has been up a long time 5 ago. 6 MR. HOGO: Okay. So, in conclusion, I just 7 want to say we strongly urge you to eliminate the 8 diesel path at this time. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think we heard you there. 10 I think we're not here today to debate the two paths. 11 I think we've heard that. And, again, I congratulate 12 South Coast on the tremendous progress that's been 13 made with Dr. Burke on getting natural gas into the 14 fleet. I think it's a tremendous accomplishment. We 15 applaud that very much. 16 MR. HOGO: Thank you. 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But we also, I think -- I 18 would say that I think -- we think of diesel as more 19 of a promise. And you're aware of some of the 20 studies that we're jointly doing to investigate the 21 pros and cons of all the fuels. And I think we 22 feel -- at least, I feel satisfied that going the two 23 routes gives a flexibility in the marketplace. 24 And as we look at the state, as you 25 know, some of the areas we have difficulty getting 108 1 low-sulfur diesel in there, let alone natural gas. 2 So I think that -- but, again, it wasn't our intent 3 today to play out that particular issue. But 4 congratulations on great work in South Coast. 5 MR. HOGO: Thank you. 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Josh Shaw, Chuck Harvey, 7 Arthur Douwes. 8 MR. SHAW: Good morning, Dr. Lloyd, members of 9 the board. Joshua Shaw, Executive Director of the 10 California Transit Association. We appreciate the 11 opportunity this morning to comment on the staff's 12 recommendations. 13 Dr. Lloyd, you told us very clearly 14 that the question today was the level of effort and 15 commitment shown by transit agencies to implement 16 your rules and are we making progress, not just are 17 we working, but are we working in the right 18 direction? 19 You certainly expressed a lot of 20 concern at your September meeting last year. I'd 21 like to think we've been working hand in hand with 22 you, going back years. In fact, I remember, in fall 23 of 1998, when your board first adopted a resolution 24 signalling to us the fact that you wanted to look at 25 this whole area of what transit agencies were doing, 109 1 and Ms. Terry on your staff called us and said, 2 "Josh, you'd better start sitting down right now." 3 We've been doing that since then. 4 But as much as I think you had our 5 attention before then, certainly your September 6 meeting refocussed our attention like a laser beam. 7 And so we're here today to, I think, talk to you 8 about the progress we have made. 9 Dinh showed you a chart of all of the 10 calls and just all of the outreach efforts -- the 11 meetings, the e-mails, the conferences -- that your 12 staff has been putting out to do outreach to us. 13 I can only add that, for every three 14 or four calls that they've made and e-mails, we've 15 made three or four calls internally or five or six 16 calls to the engine manufacturers. We've had our own 17 committee meetings -- maintenance committees, 18 operations committees, conferences where we've tried 19 to figure out how to work with you folks to make this 20 thing happen. 21 In that regard, in terms of the 22 outreach that your staff has done and your board, I'd 23 like to thank some folks, Dr. Lloyd, particularly for 24 sitting down with us -- individual board members 25 who've met with your individual transit agencies in 110 1 your districts -- certainly Mr. Kenny; Mr. Cackette; 2 Ms. Witherspoon; Ms. Terry; Dr. Steele, her entire 3 staff; then Ms. Hebert and others have certainly put 4 in a lot of effort. And we really appreciate that. 5 In a moment, some other transit agency 6 representatives will tell you their individual 7 efforts. I have a couple of quick overview comments, 8 though, if you don't mind. 9 Your staff report did note -- Dinh 10 didn't really focus on it -- but your staff report 11 tells you that, since the institution of your rule, a 12 lot of agencies, a lot of buses have been moving 13 towards the alternative fuel, whether they're on that 14 path or not. 15 See. Your report says a lot of 16 agencies are moving to CNG. Whether that was a 17 conscious choice in your regulation or not, that 18 seems to be going on. And I assume a lot of you are 19 happy about that. 20 Number 2. At your September meeting, 21 you did express concern about those member agencies 22 who were not meeting the NOx fleet average. There 23 was 14 or 15 at the time. You heard the report that 24 we've had a lot of success in moving that forward. 25 We're pleased about that. 111 1 Number 3. Back in September, you were 2 obviously disappointed that not a lot of agencies who 3 did choose the diesel paths chose to ask for this 4 alternative NOx exemption. There are some reasons 5 why, and a couple of our agencies will talk to you 6 about that. 7 But, in fact, during the years in 8 which you're concerned the engine manufacturers won't 9 be providing the complying engines -- 'O4, '05, 10 '06 -- factors in the bus-manufacturing market -- 11 and, in fact, the transit economy -- 8, 9, 10, 11 12 years ago tell us and show us that our agencies, some 13 of our agencies won't be buying buses, not 'cause 14 they're trying to game your rule, they just don't 15 need to buy buses in '04, '05, '06. 16 So that's why not every agency on the 17 diesel path came in with the NOx exemptions. Some 18 folks will give you the specifics on that. 19 So we've made a lot of progress. 20 Still some challenges. Very quickly, Dr. Lloyd, the 21 5 NOx agencies who are still not in compliance -- I 22 think it's down now to 4 -- there's representatives 23 here today of all those folks. I would like to tell 24 you that a lot of those very small agencies are 25 facing a huge reduction in transit funding as we 112 1 speak. 2 I've been spending 60 to 70 percent of 3 my time in Sacramento trying to figure out why, in 4 the governor's budget for State transit assistance 5 this year, we're having almost a 50 percent cut in 6 transit funding that's going on. 7 As much work as we've done to prepare 8 for you to do this, the funding rug's being pulled 9 out from underneath us. That's going to make it that 10 much more harder. We appreciate your support there. 11 Now some other agencies will tell you 12 all the good things they're doing locally. And we 13 would just like to support the staff's recommendation 14 to leave the regulation the way it is and provide us 15 the flexibility on the retrofit issue you mentioned 16 earlier. 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you, Josh. Of course, 18 you're not alone in losing money. Let's put it that 19 we sympathize. 20 MR. SHAW: Thank you. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But, also, I'd like to thank 22 you personally for your help in trying to pressure 23 some of the other districts working with us on that. 24 So I appreciate that. 25 MR. SHAW: Absolutely. And some that the 113 1 board members mentioned today are still are not in 2 compliance -- we wrote those names down. We'll be 3 calling 'em when we get back tomorrow morning. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Chuck Harvey, 5 Arthur Douwes, Durand Rall. 6 MR. HARVEY: Good morning, Chairman Lloyd and 7 members of the board, members of the staff. My name 8 is Chuck Harvey. I'm the Chief Operating Officer for 9 the San Mateo County Transit District and the 10 Cal-Tran Commuter Rail System in the San Francisco 11 Bay Area. 12 I'd like to go back in time to the 13 adoption of the fleet rule for just a moment up to 14 your last board meeting in the fall and just tell 15 you, frankly, that the California Transit Association 16 blew it. 17 We failed to communicate adequately 18 what we were doing. We failed to understand the 19 importance of that meeting and the information that 20 you all were seeking. And we were at fault for not 21 being fully represented in communicating with both 22 the board and the staff. 23 Since that meeting, we've worked 24 diligently to form a partnership with your 25 organization, with our suppliers, and our local 114 1 policy boards. And I thank all of you for your help 2 with that. We've been meeting with stuff. We 3 understand your expectations, and we're developing 4 plans and testing protocols to move forward. 5 I prepared a detailed report for the 6 ARB, which you'll find in your staff report starting 7 on Page 81. I may refer to a couple of slides here 8 during my remarks. It shows the commitment of the 9 transportation industry in California to reduce 10 emissions regardless of the path that we are on. 11 A few key points I'd like to make: 12 We are committed to reducing emissions. Where 13 possible, we are accelerating programs to replace old 14 buses, repower engines, and use aftertreatment and 15 new technology. 16 If you refer to Page 85 and 86 of the 17 staff report, you'll see the examples of my own 18 agency where I am repowering 137 two-stroke engines 19 and going to four-strokes so that I don't have those 20 dirty engines that we talked about earlier. And also 21 I can then leverage those to apply aftertreatments 22 and ultra-low sulfur. Even though not required by 23 law, the agency is moving forward in doing that. 24 The gaps that were referred to in the 25 purchasing of buses in '04 through '06 were primarily 115 1 created due to the problems that we had with methanol 2 and the original .1 PM standards that were adopted in 3 1991 and '92. Very few transit buses were sold at 4 that time, and that's why we are where we're at. 5 We are moving forward with the 6 advanced NOx aftertreatment, and we are moving 7 forward with ZEV testing. We are working closely 8 with ARB staff on our presentation. 9 The current regulation is doing 10 exactly what you intended it to do. We're reducing 11 emissions. Multiple technologies in both paths are 12 working -- are being worked on to lower emissions. 13 The ARB is working with the industry to measure the 14 effectiveness of our benefits, and hybrid technology 15 is promising. 16 In conclusion, I would just like to 17 tell you that we are your committed partner. We 18 signed up for 15 years with this law. And we are 19 going to reduce emissions. We will continue to work 20 closely with the staff. 21 We urge you to balance the 22 technology-forcing initiatives that you've placed in 23 the law with the time lines that will adjust and 24 we'll have to change just as the staff has 25 recommended a possible change in the retrofit law. 116 1 As we see what really occurs, we need 2 to adjust and adapt and continue to try to make the 3 goal be reduced emissions. 4 Finally, our efforts are going to 5 allow you to have a platform to go after other 6 on-road "vocations." That's what this law's all 7 about. We hope that you'll continue to endorse it. 8 And I thank you for the opportunity to address you 9 and for the opportunity to work with you and your 10 staff. 11 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much for your 12 help and attendance at the meetings. I thank you 13 very much indeed. 14 Arthur Douwes, Durand Rall, Gene 15 Walker, John Bates. 16 MR. DOUWES: Good morning, Chairman Lloyd and 17 members of the board. My name is Arthur Douwes, and 18 I'm with the Valley Transportation Authority. I'm 19 here to give you an update as to what the VTA is 20 doing in terms of complying as well as exceeding the 21 ARB requirements. 22 First of all, last year we replaced 52 23 or purchased 52 new buses. And we got 'em delivered. 24 This year, we are right now in the process of 25 accepting 84 new buses. We have 40 new articulated 117 1 buses coming in, starting in May; and we have another 2 56 new buses coming in, starting in June. 3 Additionally, we are repowering 1992 4 buses with new engines for NOx reductions as well as 5 PM reductions as well as for the PM-emissions- 6 reductions devices. 7 As Dinh Quach noted earlier, we had a 8 very early model "soot-filter" on top of a 1999 9 vehicle for testing purposes. We are going through 10 the testing. We've tried to resolve some of the 11 problems that have been found. 12 Since then, we are having -- we have 13 ordered, placed an order for 24 new Johnson-Matthey 14 filter systems for some of our buses -- 1992 buses 15 with the new engines in 'em. 16 And as far as ultra-low-sulfur diesel 17 fuel, the Valley Transportation Authority has been on 18 ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel since the beginning of 19 last year to be ahead of the curve, demonstrate its 20 feasibility, its availability, and going forward with 21 that. 22 The NOx demonstration program -- we 23 have 2 NOx demonstration programs that we are 24 proceeding with. I believe that I've left a package 25 here on the NOx demonstration programs and the 118 1 installation that has just started. We have nearly 2 completed that and getting ready to put that bus back 3 into service. 4 We are also the lead agency for the 5 joint advanced NOx demonstration program, which we 6 hope we'll see the 70 to 90 percent reduction in NOx. 7 The VTA board has just authorized us to go forward 8 with the request for proposal, which is required 9 accordingly. 10 And we're scheduling with ARB staff 11 the prebid meetings as well so that we'd like to see 12 them in attendance because this is a joint effort, 13 not only with the transit agencies, but as well as 14 with ARB. 15 There are a number of agencies that 16 have committed to this program. And there are 17 several agencies that, although not required, are 18 also participating or proposing to participate within 19 this program. We continue to review our programs and 20 NOx as well as emissions-reductions programs and to 21 see what we can do for -- thank you. 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much, indeed. 23 Thank you. A big help. 24 Gene Walker, John Bates, Fred 25 Stephens. 119 1 My colleagues -- if you want to jump 2 in with questions, please feel free. 3 MR. RALL: Good morning. And thank you, Dr. 4 Lloyd and members of the board for allowing my 5 presence and the rest of us in the transit industry 6 to come forth and present our positions this morning. 7 We want you to know that we at Omnitrans -- I'm 8 Durand Rall, by the way -- CEO, General Manager of 9 Omnitrans, San Bernardino, California. 10 We started on this alternate-fuel path 11 some time ago when the regulation first started and 12 felt that an alternate-fuel path was really the way 13 to go to allow some flexibility. And the reason I'm 14 so personally confirmed and believe in that is that 15 we should be regulating the emissions of vehicles and 16 not the type of vehicle utilized to get to those 17 emission levels. There should be some freedom in the 18 marketplace to develop that level. And I've always 19 supported that position. 20 We are in the current process of 21 testing hybrid vehicles. These really don't fit into 22 either one of the fuel paths because, in our case, 23 these hybrid vehicles are going to be run by gasoline 24 engines, which is a little different than diesel you 25 use in others. But I understand that these testing 120 1 procedures that will be utilized will go a long ways 2 in helping. 3 The good short-term news in that is 4 that the preliminary results are literally no PM, no 5 NOx coming out of those engines that are running 6 those hybrid vehicles. We think that's very 7 positive. 8 Up until recently, we were running 9 1980 models -- 1980 -- eight, zero -- model buses. 10 Our commitment to get things moving -- we've now 11 replaced all those in our fleet. They're going off 12 to auction, and we'll begin to do a much more 13 aggressive bus-replacement process to help reduce our 14 long-term emissions. 15 The contingency fleet -- we do have 16 some of the 1989-vintage buses. Those buses are 17 simply kept for emergencies. They're not run on a 18 daily basis. They're stored off-site. But if there 19 is an emergency where we need to provide additional 20 service, we will be able to do that. 21 I think our "alt" fuel is not just 22 limited to buses. In our case, we have a lot of 23 hybrid-electric cars we run -- the new Toyota 24 Priuses. We have electric cars. We have electric 25 Toyota "RAO-4's" that we use for driver-relief cars. 121 1 So we've gone beyond the realm of just dealing with 2 large-sized buses and have also introduced these 3 alternatives into our other fleets. 4 All of our current two-stroke engines 5 have been retrofitted to the 1 gram per brake 6 horsepower and that that has all been done, currently 7 meeting that regulation at this time. 8 On our fleet average -- I'd just like 9 to go through where we were in 1996. On NOx, we were 10 at 5.2 average per vehicle; total hydrocarbons, at 11 .87; total CO, at 8.73. And our total came to .07. 12 On our 2001 averages that we just 13 looked at, those numbers dropped to a NOx, 3.52; 14 hydrocarbons, .844. And our total CO is 10.24. And 15 that increase comes as a result of the natural gas 16 engines because they do run with a higher carbon 17 dioxide. And the particulate matter has decreased 18 from .0762 to .0715. 19 So we have made some significant fleet 20 improvements. We have made some significant advances 21 in the alternative-fuel technologies. And as 22 somebody pointed out, about 70 percent -- I'm almost 23 done -- 70 percent of our fleet is alternate fuel 24 right now. 25 However, the new buses we're buying 122 1 aren't all increases to our fleet. Those are 2 replacements for older buses. And some of those 3 older buses -- '89 to '92 engines -- will be coming 4 out of our fleet. Thank you again. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Congratulations on that mix. 6 Gene Walker, John Bates, and Fred 7 Stephens. 8 MR. WALKER: Good morning, Dr. Lloyd, board 9 members. I'm Gene Walker, Maintenance Manager of 10 Golden Gate Transit in San Rafael, California. 11 I'd like to take this opportunity 12 today to reinforce Golden Gate Transit's commitment 13 to the continued support of the Air Resources Board 14 and the regulations that you have provided for us to 15 operate under. We certainly are committed with other 16 regional transits in our area to joint efforts in NOx 17 demonstration, ZEV bus demonstration projects that 18 are on line and in progress for implementation. 19 There was questions about retrofits 20 for two-cycle engines. Golden Gate Transit has, for 21 some time, been removing two-cycle engines, replacing 22 them with four-cycle engines so that the 23 aftertreatments, when they are available, are able to 24 be supported by the four-cycle engine. 25 Part of our retrofit program also 123 1 allows for the two-cycle engine to be removed from 2 the mainstream. It will not be used and rebuilt and 3 put in service somewhere else. It's gone. 4 We have also been low-sulfur diesel 5 since September -- pardon me -- January of this year. 6 And in preparation for demonstration projects for PM 7 aftertreatment and in our efforts to clean up PM, we 8 have entered into demonstration projects. We have 9 been starting some projects back as early as December 10 of the year 2000, when we loaned coaches for testing. 11 But I want to thank you again for this 12 opportunity to come down today. Certainly it was -- 13 as Chuck stated, it was our fault for not 14 communicating what we were doing. We certainly 15 weren't setting there. We had projects that were in 16 place. We were working diligently towards lowering 17 emissions, but we never reported it. But thank you 18 again for your time. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. It's more fun to 20 come to San Diego, anyway, than Sacramento. 21 MR. WALKER: Yes. Definitely. 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 23 John Bates, Fred Stephens, Kevin 24 Daughton. 25 MR. BATES: Good morning, Mr. Lloyd, Chairman 124 1 of the board, and board members. My name is John 2 Bates. I'm from the San Luis Obispo Regional Transit 3 Authority. And we are 1 of the 4 who will not be in 4 compliance in October of 2000. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: One of the bad guys. 6 MR. BATES: We are one of the bad guys. But 7 we are in an attainment area. Okay? And we're proud 8 of that. And we want to keep it that way. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. True. 10 MR. BATES: My purpose here today is making 11 sure that you received the package that I sent the 12 clerk of the board outlining the plan that we did 13 implement. And it's in a very precarious position 14 right now, meaning that we're not sure of our funding 15 because of the short funding that the State is 16 providing small rural agencies, as we are. 17 And then, upon talking to Dr. Steele 18 last week, we are not sure that the engines that we 19 are going to be buying in 2000 are going to be the 20 2.5 engines. So depending upon the funding situation 21 and the engines that we'll be purchasing, may set our 22 production back into 2003. 23 So I just wanted you to know that 24 because it was not in the cover letter that I sent 25 you, Dr. Lloyd, and it was not in the package that I 125 1 sent to Michael Kenny in January 23. 2 Speaking of the letter in January 23, 3 I spoke with Dr. Steele about that letter. And to 4 date, we have not received any correspondence 5 relative to that letter. So we really don't know 6 where we stand with CARB on that issue. We hope that 7 we can work with CARB on this, get passes. 8 I know we are struggling financially 9 as well as production time. And we are trying our 10 best, as well as the South County Area Transit, to 11 comply with the NOx-emissions average as soon as 12 possible. 13 We do know that, at December of 2003, 14 all of our pre-1995 buses will be retired in both 15 South County Area Transit fleet as well as in the 16 regional -- San Luis Obispo Regional Transit fleet. 17 So we continue to work with your staff and hopefully 18 get through this. And that's all I have to say 19 unless you have any questions. 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 21 I would like staff to comment back on 22 the fact that you hadn't heard back on that letter in 23 January. 24 MR. CACKETTE: I think the letter was faxed to 25 them on Tuesday. 126 1 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Ah, good enough. 2 MR. CACKETTE: It's like me. I don't always 3 see the faxes right away. So -- 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: So you anticipated that 5 question. What did it say, Tom? What did it say? 6 MR. CACKETTE: It said, "You need to be in 7 compliance by October." 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Okay. Okay. Thank you. 9 Fred Stephens, Kevin Daughton, Jim 10 Gleich. 11 MR. STEPHENS: Good morning. 12 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Good morning. 13 MR. STEPHENS: Dr. Lloyd, members of the 14 board, ARB staff. My name is Fred Stephens. I'm the 15 Deputy General Manager for Maintenance at the San 16 Francisco Municipal Railway, or MUNI. Today I'd like 17 to update the board on the MUNI's activities to 18 improve air emissions. 19 The first thing I'd like to state for 20 the record -- I'm not sure if it comes out clear in 21 the reports that we've filed -- but, of MUNI's almost 22 900 rubber-tired vehicles, 375 of them are 23 zero-emission vehicles. 24 I know most of you that have gone, 25 come to San Francisco, of course, know the fact that 127 1 we do operate on a daily basis 375 electrically 2 powered diesel buses -- I'm sorry -- electrically 3 powered trolley buses. 4 And in addition, the balance or 5 almost -- of the 595 or so diesel buses, 375 of those 6 are clean-air buses. And we're working to get the 7 rest of them in compliance or to improve the air 8 quality. 9 The first thing I wanted to talk about 10 or the highlight of what I want to talk about today 11 is what we at MUNI are calling our alternative-fuel 12 program. It consists of an evaluation and comparison 13 of two CNG buses, two hybrid-diesel-electric buses. 14 And we have, as was stated by your staff earlier, 15 retrofitted two buses and two of our late-model buses 16 with the Inglehart PM traps. 17 Let's see. We have -- by August of 18 2001, we had acquired these buses. And for the last 19 six months, we've been running them in the very 20 challenging San Francisco duty cycle, which consists, 21 of course, of each day standing loads and grades of 22 up to 35 percent. 23 We've run these buses in revenue 24 service. We've also had the buses evaluated on a 25 chassis dynamometer located and operated by the 128 1 University of California at Berkeley out at their 2 Richmond Fields field laboratory. 3 The programming or simulation of the 4 San Francisco duty cycles for this dynamometer were 5 developed by or are developed by the University of 6 California at Davis. The program is being run, 7 again, on daily basis. We are being monitored by an 8 independent oversight committee which consists of the 9 Union of Concerned Scientists, the Department of 10 Energy, PG&E, and many other community groups. 11 The program -- the evaluation or 12 operational part of the program will be completed, 13 and we will publish a report on the program's results 14 on the MUNI website on April 15. And we would 15 welcome everyone to access that. 16 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Will you please 17 conclude, Mr. Stephens. 18 MR. STEPHENS: I will. 19 In addition to that, again, as was 20 stated earlier, other activities we have are we've 21 retrofitted buses. We have also recently unveiled -- 22 last month at a stakeholders' meeting, a public 23 stakeholders' meeting, we unveiled a plan to retrofit 24 or change as many as six additional diesel lines to 25 trolley -- 129 1 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Mr. Stephens, I'm 2 afraid your time is up. We have a number of people 3 that we need to accommodate. So perhaps you'd want 4 to submit the balance of your -- 5 MR. STEPHENS: That's all right. I will -- 6 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: -- in writing. 7 MR. STEPHENS: I'll just wrap up by thanking 8 you for allowing us to be here today and, again, 9 assuring you, like the other operators, that we 10 are -- we take the air resources requirements 11 seriously and we're working diligently to comply. 12 Thank you. 13 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 14 Questions? 15 Yes, Mr. McKinnon. 16 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: I want to ask you a 17 question, and it's a bit of a -- it's a bit departed 18 from the issue at hand today. But it's something 19 that came up in some community meetings in Hunters 20 Point. And have you considered -- and certainly if 21 you need get back to me, I'm real interested in 22 this -- have you considered alternative fuels or 23 hybrids for the routes that run through Hunters 24 Point? 25 MR. STEPHENS: Yes, sir. 130 1 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: You have? 2 MR. STEPHENS: We have. We are -- we have 3 simulated many runs, including the routes that run 4 through Hunters Point. We've run our hybrid buses 5 through those routes. And as part of the overall 6 plan, we will, of course, do that. 7 One of things that we've done, in 8 response to the Hunters Point community, as you may 9 recognize, is we have early on placed our cleanest 10 diesel buses -- the new buses are running in the 11 Hunters Point area. 12 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: Great. Great. Thank 13 you. 14 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes, Dr. Burke. 15 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: In keeping with 16 Mr. McKinnon's question, I have been asking 17 continually, every place I go, in school districts, 18 and in transit agencies -- because school districts 19 really have this problem -- "How do you make the 20 decision on where you put your dirtiest buses? How 21 is that philosophic decision made?" 22 And let me tell you something. I have 23 to get an answer. But someday -- every day, somebody 24 makes a decision on a school bus and decides where 25 they're going to send the dirtiest school buses. 131 1 And, you know, my assumption, based on no fact in 2 evidence, is that it's not sent to the richest part 3 of the school district. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 5 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: I think your 6 observation's correct. But I had a perception that 7 there was -- I mean there's been a lot of community 8 meetings in Hunters Point. And I had an idea that 9 there was some response brewing. And I'm glad to 10 hear that it's already going. 11 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah. Unfortunately I didn't 12 prepare written comments. But we have an entire 13 program interacting with our Hunters Point community. 14 It involves not only placing clean buses in the area 15 but providing other transportation to health-related 16 services to the community. It's, quite frankly, a 17 political process. 18 BOARD MEMBER BURKE: Oh, I understand that. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 20 MR. STEPHENS: Thank you. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Kevin Daughton, Jim Gleich, 22 Richard Burton. 23 Thank you for your letter. Thank you. 24 MR. DAUGHTON: Good morning, Mr. Chair and 25 fellow board members. Kevin Daughton, City of 132 1 Fairfield Transportation Manager. 2 One of our tasks, as well, is to 3 operate what's called Fairfield-Suisun Transit. And 4 if I could paraphrase, with a slight difference, a 5 comment you made to one of the earlier smaller 6 operators like ourself -- we are no longer one of the 7 bad guys. And I hope your staff can attest to that 8 as well. 9 Our situation is really just a matter 10 of growth and budget -- growth in our population and 11 our service area. We are now in compliance, as of 12 this week. We've adjusted our budget to reflect the 13 changes needed to meet 4.8. 14 But I just wanted to provide some 15 information that shows our situation. We're not 16 asking for any difference of view from you to us 17 versus other operators that have complied earlier 18 than we have. 19 But I would like to point out some 20 details that show our interest as a agency and a 21 program to try to provide our fair share of relief 22 from pollution. 23 As early as 1998, we began operating 24 CNG-powered paratransit buses. And we still operate 25 those. And we plan to change financially, 133 1 physically, and operationally from the diesel path 2 over the next several years, going to alternative 3 fuels, most likely CNG. 4 That was an experiment in some of the 5 first paratransits in the entire state that were not 6 unleaded or diesel operated. This year -- this past 7 year, we've converted eight of our oldest units -- 8 converted them from the older diesel engines to the 9 much cleaner ones. And those will also then 10 accommodate the newer traps in the future as those 11 come into play. 12 And we're buying almost 50 percent 13 more in fleet than we currently have. We're adding 14 15 new buses just this year alone for the -- on the 15 heavy-duty side. That's a fantastic expansion for 16 us, especially when our annual revenue from the State 17 only about $2.7 million. 18 So as I stated to the staff in 19 numerous discussions on the phone and in writing 20 through these letters, we are a smaller agency. We 21 do have a demand that extends across three different 22 counties, and that's our service area. 23 But we're just the City of Fairfield. 24 And our revenue stream is based upon what our city 25 will obtain, not necessarily the service area that 134 1 we're accounting for. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Thank you very 3 much indeed. 4 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Just a quick question. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes, Supervisor Roberts. 6 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Maybe I'm confused. Is 7 this not the same transit agency that the staff was 8 reporting as not compliant? It is, or it isn't? 9 MR. DAUGHTON: Yes. We were 1 of the 4. I 10 provided a letter -- 11 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: And now you're 12 compliant? 13 MR. DAUGHTON: The letter states that by 14 October 1, 2002 -- 15 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: October 1 -- okay -- 16 MR. DAUGHTON: -- we will be. 17 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: So the staff report we 18 received is correct, at least as of this date? 19 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: The compliance date 20 actually is October 1. And our information was that 21 they would not be compliant by October 1. What we're 22 hearing today is that, in fact, they will make the 23 October 1 deadline. 24 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: So you're hearing this 25 for the first time -- this good news -- today? 135 1 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: It's good news. 2 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: It's good news. 3 MR. DAUGHTON: Again, that's a budget revision 4 that we had to accommodate at the expense of other 5 projects -- 6 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Thank you -- 7 MR. DAUGHTON: -- to achieve that -- 8 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: -- for the good news. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: We appreciate that very much. 10 Thank you. 11 MR. DAUGHTON: Thank you. 12 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Jim Gleich, Richard Burton, 13 David Ellis. 14 MR. GLEICH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members 15 of the board. AC Transit's undertaken over 12 16 initiatives in the last several years as a clean-air 17 commitment, a number of them in accordance with your 18 regulations and our efforts to comply with them, but 19 some that are clearly voluntary. 20 We've amassed over $22 million in 21 funding for this program and are truly committed to 22 cleaning up our fleet as quickly as possible. I've 23 summarized these and will ask that they be 24 distributed to you rather than talk too much about 25 them. 136 1 But there are two things I wanted to 2 highlight that I think are important. 3 One is we have recently agreed to 4 participate in the demonstration of WestPort, this 5 WestPort technology on transit buses that's being 6 used on some trucks here in California and has a lot 7 of promise. And so we will start doing that early 8 next spring. 9 And probably, most importantly, we've 10 had, I think, a landmark happening this week where 11 our board of directors at AC Transit approved a 12 contract with ISE Research here in San Diego to build 13 four AC Transit and Sunline Transit and Palm Desert 14 fuel-cell buses. 15 And those of you that have been 16 following this technology know it's been kind of a 17 rugged road for the last 18 months. But we finally 18 have put something together. We're going to have a 19 contract with these people. 20 And we will have delivered four buses 21 by July of 2004; and it's a very exciting 22 development, a great program that we're thrilled to 23 be part of. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Again, I'd like to thank you 25 and AC Transit for the work you've done on this -- 137 1 trying to get something together and, of course, also 2 VTA for their efforts on the fuel-cell bus. I know 3 how difficult it is. 4 And I see it's great to have some 5 competition. Also to see San Diego -- these buses 6 being built down here. So congratulations to both of 7 the transit districts and also to Sunlines. So we 8 appreciate that. Thank you very much indeed. 9 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: I had a question, 10 just a quick question. 11 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. 12 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: The 14 million in 13 grant funds to purchase the three zero-emission 14 fuel-cell -- 15 MR. GLEICH: Yes, sir. 16 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: -- buses and the 17 related infrastructure -- what was the source of 18 that? 19 MR. GLEICH: Some of it is CARB funding. And 20 I think the largest single amount was funding through 21 the governor's congestion-relief fund. So it's 22 mostly State money. There's some federal money 23 involved, but mostly it's State money that you folks 24 have been responsible for generating. 25 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: I suppose that 138 1 was in the good days, huh? 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. Yes. Thank you. 3 MR. GLEICH: Thanks. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Richard Burton, David Ellis 5 and Tom Whittle. 6 MR. BURTON: Good morning, Chairman Lloyd, 7 members of the board. I'm Richard Burton. I'm the 8 Director of Facilities and Maintenance for Monterey- 9 Salinas Transit. 10 A little bit about our fleet. We are 11 76 buses, and 25 percent of our fleet is natural gas 12 buses. We did originally submit a request for an 13 exemption last summer. We subsequently withdrew that 14 exemption due to the cost of termination. Given the 15 age of our fleet, it was not cost effective to put a 16 lot of money into older buses. 17 We've since reached a determination of 18 being aggressive in complying with the CARB 19 regulations. We've elected to buy 46 new buses, 38 20 replacements, and 8 for fleet expansion. This is 21 significant for us 'cause it represents 60 percent of 22 our fleet replacement. And all of those buses will 23 be delivered within two years. 24 Our strategy was to replace buses 25 sooner rather than invest a lot of money into older 139 1 equipment. What this means to us, however, by 2 expediting this bus-replacement plan -- the financing 3 cost is $3 million above and beyond what the normal 4 replacement cost would be. 5 What this does -- it ties up our 6 capital budget for several years into the future and 7 also at a time when our ridership is increasing and 8 the need for additional service is very real. 9 Our ability to meet that need, 10 however, in the face of dwindling resources has been 11 discussed here earlier, and the significant tie-up of 12 our capital budget will give us a real challenge over 13 the next few years. 14 We do support the staff recommendation 15 here today. Just like to point out that a decision 16 to defer retrofitting of Tier 1 engines does need to 17 allow time for smaller systems like us to program, 18 identify funding, procure, and actually install the 19 equipment. That's not an easy process nor a quick 20 one to bring about. 21 The bad news -- I'm sorry. The good 22 news is that our capital funding program is locked in 23 for the next 10 years, and we're able to buy 46 new 24 buses. The bad news is that all identified funds are 25 committed for an extended period. That does not 140 1 allow us to do other things such as build 88 2 compliant bus stops and shelters, to approve 3 passenger amenities, and to upgrade operating 4 facilities. So this is a significant investment of 5 our budget. 6 As a small transit property, we 7 certainly look forward to working with the CARB staff 8 to identify the economies of scale for fueling 9 infrastructure, as pointed out in your staff 10 recommendation. 11 However, small and rural transit 12 systems are, by definition, fairly isolated. So in 13 order to gain those economies of scale, it really 14 means conversion of other municipal fleets, other 15 private operators. And I think we all recognize that 16 ultimately all buses and trucks -- school buses have 17 to be converted to achieve real air-quality 18 improvements. 19 We commend your staff and their 20 outreach efforts to educate and provide more 21 information to your board about transit agency 22 efforts in California to comply with the Public 23 Transit Fleet Rule. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much for your 25 comments. 141 1 David Ellis, Tom Whittle, Bill 2 Luckhurst. 3 MR. ELLIS: Good morning, Chairman Lord -- 4 Chairman Lloyd -- I beg your pardon -- and members of 5 the board. My name is David Ellis, and I'm a transit 6 planner with Santa Rosa City Bus. 7 We are a small transit agency located 8 in Northern California. We run a fleet of about 25 9 heavy-duty transit vehicles. And we were one of the 10 agencies that was originally identified in the staff 11 report as being not in compliance with the 4.8 rule. 12 But when we worked with Nancy Steele 13 to recalculate our emissions, we actually determined 14 that we have been in compliance since January of 15 2001. 16 We support the clean air initiatives 17 as brought about by your board. And we're especially 18 pleased to be able to follow the diesel path because 19 this allows us to meet the standards as developed by 20 the board while still investing into other 21 capital-infrastructure improvements with our system 22 to help increase ridership and to eliminate the use 23 of private vehicle trips. Thank you. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. Thank 25 you. 142 1 Tom Whittle, Bill Luckhurst, Diane 2 Bailey. 3 And thanks for saving us some time. 4 MR. WHITTLE: Dr. Lloyd. My name is Tom 5 Whittle. I'm the general manager of Torrance 6 Transit. I'll save you some time as well by 7 distributing a letter. And I'd like to say that we 8 have no association whatsoever with the Axis of Evil, 9 the bad guys, or any of the other transit agencies. 10 We sort of think of ourselves as good 11 guys. We've been in the good guy business for a long 12 time. Our constituency are people that really need 13 our help. And we really go out of our way -- we 14 gravitate towards this kind of work. And we've 15 always thought of ourselves as being on the right 16 side of things -- rather, the good side. 17 At Torrance Transit we did choose the 18 diesel path. We looked at the alternatives in terms 19 of the economy --- all of the things that we had to 20 take into consideration when we make these kinds of 21 purchasing decisions. 22 And we went ahead, and we bought a 23 couple of hybrid-electric buses, which have done 24 very, very well on the chassis dynamometer testing, 25 if you will, without getting into an argument, 143 1 compared to CNG in-use buses. 2 We do use ultra-low sulfur diesel, and 3 we got a good price on it. And it's working 4 wonderfully. We have programmed funds for both NOx 5 reduction aftertreatment and PM aftertreatment 6 devices. That money's been set aside. 7 We do have a demonstration program 8 going on with NOx, which we really think will bring 9 us down to what we consider to be equivalent 10 emissions to alternatives available to us. 11 We really do -- we are pretty sanguine 12 about our ability to be able to get down low enough 13 to be able to say, "We're really down there." And we 14 think can do it through diesel. And we think the 15 board should support alternative efforts because 16 you've got a bigger fleet to worry about than a few 17 thousand buses. 18 And these innovations that are going 19 to happen as a result of your leaving this rule open 20 and this path open are going to give you a big 21 pay-off in the future for your larger efforts. 22 And I thank you very much, sir. 23 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 24 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Mr. Chairman? 25 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes, Ms. D'Adamo. 144 1 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Just a quick question. 2 How does the diesel hybrid compare in price to a CNG 3 or a diesel? 4 MR. WHITTLE: It depends on who you talk to. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: We're talking to you. 6 MR. WHITTLE: How about 385,000 right now 7 today, if you wanted one today? 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: And how does that compare -- 9 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: How does that compare? 10 MR. WHITTLE: There are people here who 11 probably can answer that question better than I can. 12 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Okay. 13 MR. WHITTLE: I really wouldn't want to 14 speculate. I know it's over 300, but I don't know 15 exactly what it is. Other speakers will know exactly 16 what that number is. 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Let me ask. 18 Tom, do you have any feeling for that? 19 MR. CACKETTE: Well, the number that comes to 20 mind, I think, is something around 330 for natural 21 gas and a little under 300 for diesel. 22 MR. WHITTLE: What we do, when we look at that 23 issue, is look at the life-cycle cost and through the 24 savings that we would get on the fuel, we would get a 25 better payoff life cycle, even though we paid more 145 1 upfront money for a hybrid. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. Thank 3 you. 4 Bill Luckhurst, Diane Bailey, Todd 5 Campbell. 6 MR. LUCKHURST: Dr. Lloyd, committee members. 7 My name is Bill Luckhurst. I'm Director of 8 Maintenance at Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority 9 in Antioch, California. We're a small agency. We 10 have 72 buses. 11 We have gone along with your ruling. 12 Starting of June of last year, we started to use a 13 test fuel on the market called "Pure-nox." Its basis 14 is made out of water and an additive. We have been 15 testing 16 of our vehicles with it. 16 To date, we have reduced the PM to 17 almost .01. The NOx have come down almost 34 18 percent. Plus, on our oil analysis, we are coming 19 back with a lot less "water metals," which would, in 20 our crunch for money, would leave the engine to last 21 longer. 22 So we're really happy with what the 23 results are coming up. And we hope too, somewhere 24 down the line, that others will entertain it. 25 Thank you. 146 1 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 2 MR. LUCKHURST: Thank you. 3 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 4 Diane Bailey, Todd Campbell, Paula 5 Forbis, Bonnie Holmes-Gen. 6 And you're the first person to oppose. 7 MS. BAILEY: I'm not sure we fully oppose. 8 Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the 9 board. And thank you very much for the opportunity 10 to comment here. Again, my name's Diane Bailey and 11 I'm a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense 12 Council. 13 I just want to express that we have 14 some serious concerns with this transit bus rule, 15 that it's veering off track from the significant 16 air-quality improvements and benefits to public 17 health that it originally promised. 18 We now know that diesel buses will not 19 meet the NOx standards. We also know that diesel 20 particulate traps cannot be used on the oldest, 21 dirtiest buses. And we have not seen any written 22 evidence of progress on specific demonstrations of 23 low-NOx diesel buses nor for zero-emission buses 24 except based on what we've heard today. 25 Based on all these shortcomings, we 147 1 recommend that CARB take the diesel path out of the 2 rule and direct all transit agencies to the 3 alternative-fuel path. 4 Mr. Chairman, you expressed 5 disappointment at a board meeting several months ago 6 that the engine manufacturers -- quote -- "in this 7 case really have not stepped up to the plate in terms 8 of providing emission reductions required under this 9 rule and also that the flexibility there was 10 basically used not to comply and to delay." 11 We share your disappointment. Despite 12 claims from engine manufacturers of clean new 13 diesels, they make no firm commitments of NOx 14 aftertreatment demonstration projects. And they also 15 continually assert that it's infeasible for them to 16 meet the standards in 2007. 17 Nitrous oxides have serious health 18 effects, in addition to contributing to smog, which 19 already plagues many areas throughout California. The 20 transit bus rule promises the public a NOx reduction 21 of 5.4 tons per day by 2010. And this is based on 22 the combined benefits of the 2004 and 2007 standards, 23 neither of which the engine manufacturers plan on 24 meeting. 25 How does CARB plan to make up for this 148 1 shortfall? The public may also lose most of the 2 benefits from PM reductions if the board accepts the 3 staff's proposal to retrofit the newest, instead of 4 the oldest, buses first. 5 While we understand that diesel 6 particulate traps are currently verified -- that are 7 currently verified are incompatible with pre-1994 8 model year vehicles, these older vehicles need to be 9 either controlled through other means or retired. 10 We suggest the latter -- that the 11 oldest, most polluting buses be retired now and 12 replaced with new clean buses employing modern 13 pollution-control equipment. 14 The staff's proposal to allow transit 15 agencies to perform retrofits on the same number of 16 newer bus engines in lieu of the older engines would 17 lead to a 90 percent shortfall in the 300 pounds per 18 day of promised PM reductions. 19 Even if CARB retrofitted all of the 20 possible buses that are eligible for the verified 21 control devices, it would lead to an 83 percent 22 shortfall in emission reductions that are promised. 23 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think your time is up 24 there. 25 MS. BAILEY: To summarize, we believe that the 149 1 diesel-fuel path has been given ample opportunity to 2 meet the goals and standards in the transit rule and 3 continues to fall far short of these requirements. 4 Thanks very much. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 6 Todd Campbell, Paula Forbis, Bonnie 7 Holmes-Gen. 8 MR. CAMPBELL: Todd Campbell, Policy Director 9 for the Coalition for Clean Air. Good morning, 10 Chairman Lloyd and members of the governing board. 11 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Good morning. 12 MR. CAMPBELL: In August of 1998, this board, 13 under a Republican administration, adopted Resolution 14 98-dash-35 judging diesel exhaust toxic as a toxic -- 15 diesel particulate as a toxic air contaminant. 16 In September, 1998, this board, under 17 the same Republican administration, adopted 18 Resolution 98-dash-49, recommending the funding 19 agencies replace the entire diesel fleet of transit 20 agencies with alternative-fuel vehicles by the year 21 2010, as alternative vehicles produce significantly 22 less emissions than diesel engines. 23 Nearly 4 years later, alternative-fuel 24 buses still produce significantly lower emissions 25 than their diesel counterparts and are expected to 150 1 achieve a level of .5 grams for brake horsepower hour 2 for oxides of nitrogen this year. 3 In fact, "nonalternative fuel engines" 4 on the market today meet 1.5 gram standard for NOx, 5 surpassing the new optional standard that will be 6 adopted in October later this year. 7 Not one diesel technology today 8 currently exists that meets the "low-option NOx 9 standard" that has been on the books for 4 years 10 today. On February 24, 2000, ARB staff was able to 11 convince the board, now under the Davis 12 administration, to adopt dual-fuel path in the belief 13 that the diesel path would advance the diesel engine 14 in a technology that could be later transferred to 15 other diesel fleet applications. 16 Today, over 2 years later, it is clear 17 that the promises of the diesel path are a far cry 18 from what was promised to the public. Level 3 19 particulate aftertreatment devices, which are 20 believed to achieve 85 percent reduction, can only be 21 applied to "nominal use" 1994 or newer engines. 22 As Diane already pointed out, we 23 believe there will be an 83 percent PM shortfall as 24 the current rule stands. The staff also recommended, 25 despite the strong protest by the environmental 151 1 community, that the board adopt a provision that 2 would allow transit fleets on the diesel path to 3 implement an alternative strategy to achieve 4 NOx-emission reductions equivalent to those that 5 would be achieved with the staff's originally 6 proposed .5 gram standard for model years 2004 7 through 6. 8 As a part of the alternative strategy, 9 the engine manufacturers committed to ensure that 10 aftertreatment technology for all tiers would be 11 ready for October, 2002, and committed to implement 12 demonstration programs of buses equipped with control 13 technology designed to meet staff's proposed 2004 14 standards. 15 It is important to note that the 16 dual-fuel path was originally pitched by the 17 environmental community or to the environmental 18 community as a means to provide the technical support 19 needed for the 2007 heavy-duty diesel standards 20 adopted by the board, this board in 2007. 21 Unfortunately the March ARB staff 22 report notes several significant disappointments. 23 First, the report implies that ARB 24 staff will accept transit agency commitments to fund 25 and conduct a demo project and is silent on how 152 1 tightly they will construe the word "contract" in the 2 existing language. 3 ARB staff should retain a strict 4 interpretation and not deviate from it. If they 5 delete their requirement for a contract by December 6 31, 2002, staff has relaxed the diesel path. 7 Second, engine manufacturers have 8 indicated that they will not produce an engine that 9 will meet the proposed 2004 standards, citing cost 10 effectiveness, which highlights the exact reason why 11 the environmental community opposed the fleet average 12 to begin with. 13 Further, in the November meeting with 14 the ARB, the engine manufacturers stated that they 15 would make no commitment. This is a problem for us 16 if we're going to meet our 2007 heavy-duty standards. 17 I just want to sum up by saying today 18 that the staff's report offers this board and your 19 colleagues a great opportunity to set an improved 20 course for transit districts statewide. You have the 21 chance to rectify the major problems with this rule. 22 Mr. Chairman, at the January, 2000, 23 board meeting, staff noted how important this rule is 24 to protect public health on a localized level, given 25 transit buses and their penetration into our 153 1 communities. I'm sure that there are board members 2 who feel it is unfair to ask transit agencies to 3 switch to diesel -- to alternative fuels at this 4 time. 5 I would argue it is unfair to require 6 transit agencies on the alternative-fuel path to 7 absorb more risk or to force communities serviced by 8 transit agencies on the diesel fuel path to accept 9 significantly less healthful conditions. Thank you. 10 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you, Todd. I could go 11 on and spend half an hour debating this with you. I 12 will not do that. 13 I would say, however, that your early 14 comment that staff was able to persuade this board 15 about the viability of the dual path -- as you know, 16 we spent 2 days and I think the board made its 17 assessment based on staff input, based on your input, 18 based on the industry input, and the transit 19 districts. 20 And it was on that conclusion -- I 21 don't think it was the fact that the staff persuaded 22 us -- we made that independent assessment. And I 23 think in spite of all -- some of the disappointment 24 we've seen, I feel committed. 25 And given the alternatives and given 154 1 what we've seen, given all the research comparing the 2 emissions from the fuel to this stage, I feel still 3 confident that, as we've heard today, this continues 4 to be a technology-forcing rule giving flexibility in 5 the marketplace. 6 But -- and I hope we can continue to 7 work together to get to cleaner air as fast as 8 possible. 9 MR. CAMPBELL: The environmental community 10 wants nothing more than to continue to work with the 11 Air Resources Board and the staff to assure that we 12 will receive the public health benefits under this 13 rule. 14 But we will agree to disagree that 15 this rule is achieving the technology advancements 16 that it intended to, especially for the NOx side -- 17 and that there are substantial emission shortfalls 18 both for PM and NOx as well. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: One of the advantages you 20 have is that -- I understand we'll continue -- 21 continue to meet. Thank you. 22 MR. CAMPBELL: Let's work together and let's 23 try to set a point where, you know, we decide, you 24 know, "Okay. It's not working. And we need to move 25 on to something that will be more public health 155 1 protective." 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 3 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Bonnie Holmes-Gen, Jynell 5 Berkshire, Jed Mandel. 6 MS. HOLMES-GEN: Mr. Chairman and members, 7 Bonnie Holmes-Gen with the American Lung Association 8 of California. And our lung association has been 9 strongly committed to the transit bus rule in 10 cleaning up urban buses. And we have strongly 11 supported other state incentive funding that has been 12 available as an assist in cleaning up those urban 13 buses. 14 We've appreciated the hard work the 15 staff put into the rule. But we do have a lot of 16 very serious concerns today about the problems that 17 we are facing us with regard to implementation of the 18 diesel-fuel path. I'm going to jump right to the 19 conclusions -- 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 21 MS. HOLMES-GEN: -- because there's all this 22 time pressure here. We are asking today for a 23 commitment from the board to, first of all, achieve 24 all the anticipated clean-air benefits in the transit 25 rule and to achieve those clean-air benefits as soon 156 1 as possible. 2 From our perspective, the easiest and 3 cleanest way to do this would be to revert to the 4 one-fuel alternative-fuel-only pathway. But if 5 you're not going to do that -- 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But, Bonnie, I don't 7 understand how you can still say that given what 8 we're heard today; given what we've looked at before; 9 given, in some cases, the impossibility of getting 10 natural gas in certain areas of the state. You know 11 we have to look at the state. So I hear you. 12 But I still feel that you're not 13 hearing us in terms of what some of the constraints 14 we have -- 15 MS. HOLMES-GEN: We are trying to hear you. 16 And we always -- even when the rule was considered a 17 couple years year ago, we talked about some having 18 some exclusions for some areas of the state. I mean 19 we had some -- we had worked on some of those 20 practical issues. 21 But we think that, Number 1, we need 22 to consider expediting retirement of older buses as a 23 key strategy and -- 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: We agree. 25 MS. HOLMES-GEN: -- we thought we'd see a lot 157 1 more today about that strategy and how we can push up 2 those deadlines and get a lot more older buses out of 3 the fleets earlier. 4 Number 2, we need to resolve this NO2- 5 emissions problem from the traps. I didn't hear 6 anything about that today in the presentations. And 7 this seems to be a major problem that we're facing 8 with trap technology, even the traps that are 9 available for the newer buses. 10 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: As you know, you didn't hear 11 a lot about emissions data from any of these fuels 12 today. That wasn't the subject here. And that's the 13 subject of another debate. 14 MS. HOLMES-GEN: Right. But this is a big 15 problem we need to deal with. 16 Third, we need to put the 17 manufacturers on notice that they must comply with 18 the NOx-control requirements in the regulation. And 19 there's been a lot of discussion about the penalties 20 for the transit districts. But I haven't heard a lot 21 of discussion about the penalties for the 22 manufacturers who are not going to be complying or 23 who may not comply with the requirements of the rule. 24 We believe there needs to be a clear 25 requirement with a drop-dead deadline for meeting the 158 1 requirements in the rule and consequences for not 2 meeting those requirements. 3 The state has adopted a rule. It's 4 now the state law. And the manufacturers need to 5 comply. There needs to be serious consequences. And 6 we would like to know what those are. 7 Second of all -- second major point -- 8 we would like to ask the board today to seriously 9 consider reopening the option to choose the CNG 10 pathway. And the rationale is that the playing field 11 has shifted. There will be a lot of work done over 12 the next few months to determine new strategies that 13 transit agencies on the diesel pathway can take to 14 meet their emission-reduction goals. 15 And that will, I hope, be burdensome 16 on those transit agencies because we need to do a lot 17 more. We need to expedite retirements. We need to 18 get buses out of the fleet. It's going to be costly. 19 So they ought to have the option to shift to 20 alternative fuels. 21 And, third, we need to continue to 22 focus on evaluating the reliability of traps. We 23 don't have enough data. We don't have enough 24 long-term studies of the traps and the problems that 25 can come up. We're concerned about the lack of these 159 1 long-term studies on effectiveness and reliability. 2 And, as you've heard today, there have 3 been exhaust leaks and problems with the traps. We 4 haven't fully -- we don't fully understand the 5 problems and the potential liability with those 6 traps. 7 Please -- the message is "Please don't 8 back off on this rule. Don't back off on the 9 emissions reductions." 10 We need to step up our efforts and 11 find ways to make the rule achieve the emissions 12 reductions that all the communities in California 13 were promised. 14 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much, Bonnie. 15 Supervisor Roberts. 16 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Yeah. Just a question 17 of staff. Has there been any discussion of a 18 reopener for -- of CNG or alternative fuels? 19 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: We have actually not 20 discussed that in terms of basically allowing transit 21 agencies to chose the diesel path and then switch 22 over to the alternate-fuel path. 23 Generally I think we could look at 24 that because what ends up happening is that the more 25 onerous requirements are on those who choose the 160 1 diesel path. But I'd have to look at that, and we'd 2 just go through the details and see whether or not 3 there are consequences that simply I'm not aware of. 4 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Well, just in view of a 5 lot of the testimony we're hearing today, I'm not 6 sure that that's a bad idea. And I'd liked to see 7 the staff maybe look into it. 8 MS. STEELE: This is Nancy Steele again. I'd 9 just like to add one point, which I've been aware of, 10 because several of the transit agencies that are on 11 the diesel path have asked us at various times if 12 they could switch to the alternate-fuel path. 13 And when we've looked into it, what 14 happens, if they switch, is that they have a longer 15 time line for doing the retrofits. So they're free 16 to purchase alternative-fuel buses even though 17 they're on the diesel path. 18 And there are actually several transit 19 agencies in the South Coast Air Basin that chose the 20 diesel path. And what that essentially means is that 21 they have to retrofit sooner than if they'd chosen 22 the alternative-fuel path. So if we allowed them to 23 then switch to the alt-fuel path, those PM retrofits 24 would take longer to achieve. 25 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I guess I'm wondering 161 1 if there's a way to make a switch but maybe change 2 the time frames in which they'd have to make some of 3 those changes rather than to extend those deadlines. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think that maybe that's a 5 good suggestion. Maybe, Mr. Kenny, in September, 6 that could be explored so we would not be sacrificing 7 air-quality benefits from that at the same time 8 adding that additional capability in there. 9 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I mean the suggestion 10 was made on the basis of improving things. So if 11 you're going to draw it out and you're going to 12 degrade what's there -- 13 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But I think -- 14 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: But I still think that 15 the possibility that somebody could do that at the 16 same time we get an air-quality benefit out of it 17 ought to be looked at in view of all this other stuff 18 we're hearing and the -- 19 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: I think we can look 20 at it and see what we can do to propose to you that 21 would essentially achieve the objectives that I think 22 the board is directing us to achieve with regard to 23 the emission reductions and, you know, also provide 24 an incentive for the alternative-fuel path. 25 I think the only concern we had was 162 1 the one Nancy mentioned -- 2 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Yeah. 3 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: -- and we'll see if 4 there's a way of addressing that. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thanks very much. 6 Jynell Berkshire, Jed Mandel, John 7 Duerr. 8 MS. BERKSHIRE: Good afternoon, Chairman Lloyd 9 and fellow board members. My name is Jynell 10 Berkshire. I'm the Government Affairs Manager of 11 Allison Electric Drives, which is a part of Allison 12 Transmission Division of General Motors. 13 I'm pleased to be here this afternoon 14 to update you briefly with respect to our hybrid 15 technology and our powertrain that we have available. 16 If you haven't had the opportunity to just go look at 17 it, we have an OCTA bus parked out on the north side 18 of the parking lot with a hybrid powertrain in it 19 today on display for you to look at. 20 It appears that the transit -- excuse 21 me. I'm suffering with a cold. I brought it from 22 Indiana. It appears the transit bus rule seems to 23 provide a challenge for the transit agencies here in 24 California who seek an elect to travel down the 25 diesel path. 163 1 We, at Allison, believe that we have a 2 product and the technology that will allow the 3 transit agencies to submit compliant programs and 4 make this rule more of a success. 5 Specifically, I've provided handouts 6 and updates to you today that discusses our 7 technology and the ability of the technology to 8 improve both air quality in urban areas as well as 9 reducing the volume of fuel. 10 Allison, through its own testing and 11 confirmed by your staff's testing in a report -- 12 Number 0101 on July 31, 2001 -- shows that the 13 Allison hybrid-system bus operated on low-sulfur 14 diesel fuel can compete in California with any 15 current technology. 16 The testing reveals, from an emission 17 standpoint and fuel economy, that this technology 18 performs on par, if not better than, compressed 19 natural gas. And Allison believes that there's still 20 additional room for improvement. 21 Allison-General Motors also believes 22 that it's important for the transit agencies to have 23 at their disposal a variety of technologies in 24 California to choose from that will provide them the 25 utility needed and the bonus added benefits with 164 1 respect to the emissions and the fuel-efficiency 2 standards. 3 Our team at Allison Transmission and 4 General Motors continues to work with ARB staff in 5 helping to define the role of this technology in 6 California and the benefits that it will provide in 7 the near term. 8 We look forward to working with a 9 variety of the transit agencies in California -- and 10 we have been doing that, and we will continue to do 11 that -- as well as your staff members. 12 Other than that, I encourage you to 13 look at the technology that we have on display out 14 here today. And if you have any questions, I'd be 15 more than happy to answer those. 16 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 17 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, just one 18 quick question. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Supervisor Roberts. 20 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: It's not clear to me 21 what kind of hybrid bus this is. When I drove in, I 22 was trying to figure out who parked in my parking 23 space out there. 24 MS. BERKSHIRE: I apologize for that. We 25 actually made arrangements yesterday to bring that 165 1 down. So I am so sorry they parked in your parking 2 space. 3 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Just tell me about the 4 bus. 5 MS. BERKSHIRE: But it is a diesel-hybrid 6 OCTA. It's a 40-foot "New Flyer" bus. And it has 7 had our technology in it for well over two years. It 8 has over 60,000 miles. It's been running in 9 revenue-generated service. 10 And it's been reported back to us from 11 Orange County that it's been operating well over 90 12 percent efficiency. And they've been very pleased 13 with it. 14 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: And it's low-sulfur 15 diesel fuel and what else? 16 MS. BERKSHIRE: It's low-sulfur diesel fuel. 17 And it has a hybrid-technology power train in it. 18 And you have a picture in your packet that talks 19 about the electric motors and the generators and goes 20 into -- we have a patent on the technology -- General 21 Motors does. 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: So this bus is cleaner. It's 23 more efficient. It's just as safe. It's got the 24 power you need. What I don't understand is, if 25 General Motors and Allison can do that in a bus, why 166 1 they can't do it in an SUV. 2 MS. BERKSHIRE: Well, that technology is 3 coming, Chairman Lloyd. We appreciate your comments 4 on that. 5 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 6 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Did she say, "It's 7 coming"? 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: This is very helpful. Thank 9 you. 10 Jed Mandel. John Duerr. John Malina. 11 MR. MANDEL: Good afternoon. It's very nice 12 to be here with you today in San Diego. My name is 13 Jed Mandel. And I'm here today on behalf of the 14 Engine Manufacturers Association. Among EMA's 15 members are the major manufacturers of CNG and 16 diesel-fueled heavy-duty engines used in transit 17 buses. 18 Six months ago, the staff presented a 19 status report that caused board members to express 20 some concern about the integrity of the transit rule. 21 As I subsequently outlined to you, 22 both in writing and in person in October, there was 23 some unfortunate misunderstanding about the transit 24 rule and, as a result, some need for clarification 25 and for a recommitment on the part of all 167 1 stakeholders to the successful implementation of the 2 rule. 3 I believe that the misunderstandings 4 have been cleared up; and as reflected in the staff's 5 report, significant progress to a successful 6 implementation of the rule has been made. 7 As engine manufacturers, we reconfirm 8 our commitment to producing low-emitting, reliable, 9 durable, and efficient diesel and CNG transit bus 10 engines. And we strongly support the staff's 11 recommendation that the diesel path be retained. 12 The transit bus rule is working. Many 13 fleets have chosen to either convert to or expand 14 their use of CNG buses. 15 Other fleets have pulled ahead or are 16 committed to pulling ahead with new low-emitting 17 diesel-engine technologies, turning over their fleets 18 faster, demonstrating low-NOx diesel technologies and 19 otherwise improving the emission performance of their 20 diesel buses. 21 None of that would be happening as 22 quickly as it is without the transit bus rule. And 23 any significant changes to the transit bus rule now 24 will only disrupt the significant progress that has 25 been made and would have a disastrous impact on 168 1 transit agencies and the public ridership they serve. 2 Throughout the process of developing, 3 adopting -- adapting -- adopting -- excuse me -- and 4 implementing the transit bus rule, there has been 5 remarkable cooperation by a broad array of 6 stakeholders. Fuel producers have made available the 7 ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel necessary to enable the 8 new engine and retrofit technologies required by the 9 rule. 10 Aftertreatment system manufacturers 11 have worked to develop PM- and NOx-reducing 12 aftertreatment technologies. The transit agencies 13 have done an outstanding job of reducing overall 14 fleet emissions by any number of innovative 15 approaches. And throughout, engine manufacturers 16 have supported their transit fleet customers and ARB 17 and its staff in successfully implementing the rule 18 with new cleaner bus-engine technologies. 19 We are justifiably proud of all that 20 we have done to improve the emission performance of 21 transit bus engines and we are prepared to invest 22 even more resources to achieving still greater 23 reductions in the future. 24 Appreciate the time before you today. 25 And if you have any questions, as always, I'd be 169 1 pleased to answer them. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Again, thanks, Jed. And we 3 appreciate your personal commitment to working with 4 us on this. Thank you very much. 5 MR. MANDEL: Thank you all very much. 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: John Duerr, John Malina, and 7 Dave Smith. 8 MR. DUERR: Good afternoon. I'm John Duerr, 9 Manager of Regulatory Activities at Detroit Diesel 10 Corporation. Detroit Diesel has been and remains 11 committed to providing low-emission diesel and 12 natural gas engines for use in urban buses. 13 Our 2003 model year diesel-fuel urban 14 buses will be available in October of this year. 15 These engines will meet a combined NOx plus 16 nonmethane-hydrocarbon standard of 2 1/2 grams per 17 brake horsepower hour, over 40 percent lower than 18 current engines. 19 And in response to the new particulate 20 standard applied to diesel engines in this rule, 21 Detroit Diesel has invested substantial resources to 22 accelerate the availability of particulate-control 23 technology. And as a result, our October engines 24 will be certified with a diesel particulate filter 25 that reduces particulates by over 80 percent to below 170 1 .01 grams per brake horsepower hour. 2 Also in December -- or in October, 3 Detroit Diesel will be introducing a new generation 4 of natural gas-fueled urban-bus engines. These 5 engines will be certified to a NOx plus 6 nonmethane-hydrocarbon level well below 2 1/2 grams 7 per horsepower hour. 8 And, like the diesel engines, these 9 engines will have particulate emissions below 0.01 10 grams per horsepower hour, even though the California 11 standard for these engines remains at 0.05 grams per 12 horsepower hour. 13 It's important to recognize that the 14 diesel-and-natural-gas-fueled engines have different 15 attributes. By retaining both paths, transit 16 operators will have the greatest choice and will have 17 flexibility to select the engines type that is best 18 suited to their operational requirements. 19 Retention of both paths also ensures 20 that both technologies will continue to develop and 21 improve. For these reasons, Detroit Diesel endorses 22 the staff recommendation to maintain the dual-path 23 approach. Thank you. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Thank you very 25 much. 171 1 John Malina and Dave Smith and Bruce 2 Bertelsen. 3 MR. MALINA: Good afternoon, Chairman Lloyd 4 and board members. My name is John Malina. And I am 5 the General Manager -- 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I'm sorry. 7 MR. MALINA: -- of the Worldwide Bus Business 8 with Cummins. Cummins manufactures heavy-duty 9 engines for use in stationary, mobile, off-highway, 10 and automotive applications. In one segment of the 11 automotive application are the urban-bus segment, the 12 subject of today's hearing. 13 Cummins produces both diesel- and 14 natural gas-fueled engines for the urban-bus 15 market -- the latter through our joint venture with 16 WestPort Technologies called "Cummins-WestPort." 17 And to further serve the urban-bus 18 market and other markets, Cummins has recently formed 19 a unit within our "Fleet Guard Nelson" subsidiary 20 called "Emissions Solutions." And the purpose of 21 this group is to develop first fit and retrofit 22 emissions-control systems. 23 Another area of Cummins's focus in the 24 urban-bus market is the diesel-electric hybrid bus. 25 Cummins was working closely with hybrid-system 172 1 co-suppliers and bus OEM's in developing an engine 2 specifically for this application. 3 Cummins is a member of the Engine 4 Manufacturers Association and fully concurs with the 5 statements of the EMA. And as mentioned in Jed's 6 statement, engine manufacturers including Cummins 7 support the staff's recommendations to retain the 8 diesel path in the urban bus rule. 9 To avoid repetition, I will not repeat 10 all the list of benefits brought by retaining the 11 diesel option. 12 And, lastly, there is one important 13 element of the diesel path that I would like to 14 discuss. And that is the low-NOx demonstration 15 program. Cummins continues to participate in the 16 development of such a program. Cummins -- 17 This effort necessarily involves a 18 large number of stakeholders, including transit 19 districts, engine manufacturers, manufacturers of 20 emissions-control systems, as well as representatives 21 of the Air Resources Board. 22 For its part, Cummins has committed to 23 assist with the emissions-control-system interfaces 24 with the engine, especially if buses with Cummins 25 engines are chosen for the demonstration program. 173 1 We are keenly aware of the importance 2 of matching the emission-control system to the engine 3 and to the duty cycle. The ultimate success of the 4 demonstration project hinges on this integration. 5 This concludes my comments. And I 6 appreciate the opportunity to address you. Thank 7 you. 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. Thanks. 9 MR. SMITH: Chairman Lloyd and board members, 10 I'm Dave Smith. I work for BP-ARCO. I'm the Chair 11 of the Diesel Task Force within the Western States 12 Petroleum Association. 13 In the past, WSPA has supported the 14 board's efforts through the diesel-control plan. 15 We've supported the adoption of the dual-path 16 urban-bus rule. And we're continuing to work 17 cooperatively with the staff on the refuse and 18 fuel-delivery truck rule. 19 We do support the staff's 20 recommendation. It probably comes as no surprise 21 that we're saying not to eliminate the dual path. It 22 certainly does promote technology. I think we've all 23 recognized there is no silver bullet that we're 24 looking at for either technology that is being 25 considered. There is a lot of flexibility provided 174 1 the fleets. And we do also encourage the board to 2 approve the ideas of the amendments being considered 3 later this year. 4 I'd also like to thank ARB for their 5 support and efforts in helping us compare CNG 6 emissions with ultra-low-sulfur diesel emissions. 7 Just in the last few months, there's been preliminary 8 findings made available and circulated. 9 These results are comparing both toxic 10 and ozone potential of the two exhausts. And 11 fortunately for us, they're providing very 12 encouraging results for ultra-low-sulfur diesel and 13 verified traps and, at the same time, raises some 14 serious concerns about overcommitting to CNG without 15 further study. 16 And so we would like to thank you 17 again for those studies and continue to communicate 18 those results to other parties. With regards to 19 ultra-low-sulfur diesel availability, I think you've 20 heard that the product is available in both Northern 21 and Southern California. 22 Large terminals of the material are 23 available in San Francisco and L.A. There have been 24 public letters submitted about the market-driven 25 prices that people have been able to derive the fuel 175 1 from. And we'd like to keep our commitment to work 2 with the staff and the board in trying to help the 3 transit associations obtain the fuel. 4 Just as a final comment -- and I have 5 to kind of step out of the WSPA role and step into a 6 BP role for a second -- make that clear for the 7 record -- BP continues to produce a million gallons 8 or has the ability to produce a million gallons of 9 carb ultra-low-sulfur diesel from our Carson 10 refinery. 11 We've trained over a hundred resellers 12 and distributors on how to handle the material and 13 segregating it properly. We have over 6 million 14 gallons of storage capacity, divided between northern 15 and southern terminals. And we, along with Shell, 16 have public rack-price postings for ultra-low-sulfur 17 diesel. 18 And we have discussed with the staff 19 that there are some agencies that are having trouble 20 getting the fuel. In some cases, those problems may 21 not be able to be resolved. But we are committed to 22 trying to work with them to see if we can provide 23 them fuel. Thank you very much. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you, Dave. And thank 25 both WSPA and BP for getting the type of distribution 176 1 we saw today for the low-sulfur diesel ahead of time. 2 So thank you very much. 3 MR. SMITH: Thank you. 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Bruce Bertelsen. You're the 5 last great hope here, Bruce -- 6 MR. BERTELSEN: I know I'm the only thing 7 standing between you and lunch; so I'll be very 8 brief. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: No. No. No. 10 MR. BERTELSEN: Good morning, Chairman Lloyd 11 and members of the board. 12 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: As you heard from the 13 environmental community, you're the great hope here 14 to solve our problems with these traps. 15 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, we'll talk a little bit 16 about that. We're pleased to have the opportunity to 17 comment in support of the program. We believe that 18 the urban bus program that was adopted back in 2000 19 is a program that is balanced, fair, flexible, and it 20 will achieve the emission reductions sought in a 21 cost-effective manner. 22 I'd like to take the opportunity to 23 commend the board for its leadership in this ground- 24 breaking program and also to thank the staff for 25 working effectively with all the stakeholders to find 177 1 workable strategies to implement this program and 2 also for the staff's work in a number of other 3 related programs designed to reduce emissions from 4 diesel engines. 5 From our perspective, adoption of this 6 program has helped encourage investment effort and 7 innovation in emission-control strategies for diesel 8 engines. And I think it's fair to say that, since 9 January, 2000, significant investments have been made 10 in developing technologies for both retrofit and new 11 applications for diesel engines. It's very exciting. 12 And I think the board deserves a lot 13 of credit really for kick-starting this effort, which 14 has now translated into the adoption of the 2007 15 heavy-duty on-road rules by EPA and ARB. 16 And while there are certainly 17 challenges that exist, we believe that actually 18 progress is being -- significant progress is being 19 made and the program is on track to achieve the 20 objectives that were originally set out in 2000. 21 I think, as members of the board know, 22 MECA's a nonprofit association of companies that 23 manufacturer emission-control technology, not only 24 for diesels, but also for gasoline and 25 alternative-fueled vehicles as well. 178 1 But this afternoon, just in the 2 interests of time, I'm going to focus specifically on 3 the diesel side. We support the proposal of the 4 staff to give transit authorities the flexibility to 5 retrofit newer diesel engines with trap technology. 6 We think this is a recipe for success. 7 Currently, as the staff noted -- and 8 actually there were a few more; there's over a 9 hundred -- excuse me -- over a thousand urban buses 10 in the U.S. that have been equipped with diesel 11 particulate filters. Worldwide, there are 20,000 12 buses. And we estimate approximately 50,000 on- and 13 off-road vehicles that have been equipped with 14 filters. 15 And filter technology, particularly 16 used in combination with low-sulfur fuel, has 17 demonstrated outstanding durability in retrofit 18 applications. 19 There are applications in Europe that 20 have -- that took place a number of years ago that 21 have been operating for hundreds of thousands of 22 miles, and the filters continue to work effectively. 23 So it is a technology that works effectively. 24 We concur with the staff, however, 25 that filter retrofit for the pre-1994 engines and the 179 1 two-stroke engines are more challenging. But I think 2 what the staff is suggesting and what we support is 3 not a statement that we're giving up on the older and 4 two-stroke engines. 5 The work continues to look at filter 6 technology for some of these engines, but that 7 technology is not going to be available in time. 8 Also there are other alternatives, besides filters, 9 that can achieve some meaningful reductions in PM and 10 toxic emissions that may be more suitable for these 11 older buses. And certainly that's something to look 12 at. 13 Another strategy certainly is 14 retirement or repowering. So we think there are ways 15 to address the emission issues form the older buses. 16 But certainly, in the short term, allowing that 17 flexibility to choose to retrofit the newer buses, 18 again, is going to provide significant emission 19 benefits and, again, I think is a program that is 20 designed for success. 21 In closing, I just, again, want to 22 thank the board and the staff for your efforts in 23 this area. I'd be happy to answer any questions you 24 have. 25 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes, Mr. Calhoun. 180 1 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Yes. You said the 2 technology for the two-stroke, pre-1994 engines is in 3 the process of being developed. But you didn't think 4 it would be developed in time. What are we talking 5 about timewise? 6 MR. BERTELSEN: I can't give you a specific 7 time. I know that the efforts are continuing. 8 But, as the staff and some of the 9 other folks pointed out, the primary effort in 10 developing and optimizing and applying filter 11 technology has been directed at the newer buses as 12 well as newer engines on other categories of 13 vehicles. But the simple reason is that there is 14 a -- worldwide, there is a demand for that product. 15 Having said that, there still is 16 effort going on with regard to looking at controls, 17 filter controls, for the older buses. And that's 18 something that's ongoing. 19 I can't give you a time frame. I 20 can't guarantee that necessarily that's going to 21 result in a success. But certainly work continues. 22 And people wouldn't be working on it if they didn't 23 believe some solutions could be developed. 24 I think it's also fair to note, as the 25 staff did, that we're probably talking about a 181 1 technology that may be more complex, may have 2 additional costs. But those are all things that will 3 have to be looked at. 4 But there is work going on. I did 5 want to make that point -- that, as an industry, we 6 and others have not abandoned the effort for filter 7 technology on older vehicles. 8 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Is the staff aware of 9 the efforts being put forth by your member companies? 10 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, we have worked very, 11 very closely with the staff. I think they have a 12 good sense of what the development efforts are. And 13 I think the strategy that they have outlined is a 14 reflection of the reality. 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I think, Mr. Calhoun, just a 16 reminder, I think you're coming out for a briefing 17 here, shortly. 18 MR. BERTELSEN: Right. We'll be out, I guess, 19 in a month or so to give a further update. But we're 20 actually out here quite often meeting with the staff. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Professor Friedman. 22 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Well, it seems to 23 me that it's a dwindling market. It's sort of a 24 self-defeating strategy for us, in a realistic sense, 25 because the big market is the newer diesel. And the 182 1 older, the two-stroke engines -- gradually they're 2 going to be retired. And so there's less and less 3 economic incentive to develop a temporary solution 4 for them -- these older vehicles. 5 And I'm really concerned that we're 6 hearing that there are people working on it. But I 7 don't know what their incentive is. I don't know 8 whether they're putting all their heart and soul in 9 it, whoever they are. 10 But there are just questions there 11 that really trouble me. And we keep hearing, "We're 12 working on it." But we are so -- so maybe, if you 13 can give us any comfort here or the staff, I would 14 appreciate it. 15 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, I think that the 16 strategy that the staff has suggested, which is "Give 17 the transit authorities the flexibility to choose the 18 engines," working with the emissions-control 19 manufacturers, makes sense. 20 Do the engines that are applications 21 where the technology is a demonstrated success, and 22 that allows additional time for those who continue to 23 work on other technical strategies for the older 24 buses to continue. And we still have time to see 25 whether or not they're successful. 183 1 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: What if they're 2 not? 3 MR. BERTELSEN: If they're not, there are 4 other options for the older engines. And I think at 5 some point, there's a point where the board and the 6 staff will say, "We simply can't wait any longer. We 7 need to do something about the older buses." 8 And that's a decision for the board 9 and staff. If that decision is made and there is a 10 willingness to accept technologies that will achieve 11 less than an 80 percent PM reduction, there's 12 technology available today that can be put on those 13 older buses. 14 It's not going to achieve 80 percent 15 PM reduction, but it will achieve a significant 16 reduction. I'll give you one example, but there are 17 probably others as well. Diesel-oxidation catalyst 18 is a technology that's been used for, you know, for 19 decades on diesel engines. It's demonstrated in 20 emission-control effectiveness of reducing total PM's 21 anywhere from 20 to 50 percent. 22 I think typically the technologies 23 that are being verified for urban-bus applications -- 24 it's about 25 percent. But in addition to reducing 25 25 percent of the total particulate emissions, 184 1 catalyst technology is very effective in reducing 2 total -- reducing the hydrocarbon species that the 3 board has identified as toxic air contaminants -- 70 4 percent or more control there. 5 So there are some significant 6 benefits, and there are other alternatives out there 7 besides the filter technology. And that's a decision 8 for the board to make. But by choosing to go forward 9 with retrofits on the newer engine, first, in a 10 sense, you have bought some time. 11 The board may decide that it wants to 12 go down both paths and require something less in a 13 faster time frame for the older engines. We'd be 14 happy to, you know, work with the board and staff on 15 that. But certainly the program that the staff has 16 proposed here -- we think is a reasonable approach. 17 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Mr. McKinnon. 18 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: One of the things that 19 concerns me is, if retrofit kind of strategies on 20 older two-strokes is abandoned -- we're just talking 21 about transit here. And aren't there two-stroke 22 engines in all sorts of other applications out there? 23 Maybe I'm -- 24 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, I couldn't give you the 25 exact inventory number. But the issues are similar 185 1 for the older --- I mean for two-stroke engines and 2 older four-strokes. As the staff mentioned, one of 3 the issues is temperature. With two-strokes, you 4 have also some issues of perhaps increased oil 5 consumption. 6 So I think that's in answer to your 7 question, Professor Friedman -- "Why are people still 8 working on it?" 9 And the reason that people are still 10 working on it is not specifically for the California 11 urban bus market but the fact that there are -- 12 worldwide, there are a lot of old dirty diesel 13 engines and. if one can come up with a technology 14 that works, there's certainly a market for it. So 15 that's why the work is continuing. 16 But, again, I don't want to leave you 17 with the misimpression that it's right around the 18 corner. It may be. But that's not message I'm 19 getting. The message I'm getting is people continue 20 to work on it. 21 BOARD MEMBER McKINNON: I mean one of the 22 concerns when we get beyond transit -- and we're 23 talking about cleaning up other diesel sources -- one 24 of the concerns out there is that there's sort of a 25 built-in favoritism towards older engines. You have 186 1 to do less. You have to spend less. 2 And what that tends to set up, when 3 you go into the private sector, is a more difficult 4 set of circumstances for those who bought more recent 5 engines -- in terms of cost. And so I don't know. 6 I'm not sure how I think about it in terms of this 7 rule, but I certainly don't want us abandoning 8 finding ways to deal with the two-strokes. 9 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, one thing it doesn't -- 10 I may not totally address your point, which I think 11 is a fair one -- is that currently ARB is looking at, 12 as part of its verification process for technologies, 13 to verify technologies that not only achieve 80 14 percent or better but to have gradations in between 15 that would open the door for technologies that may be 16 appropriate in situations where filter technology 17 simply doesn't make sense, either from a 18 technological point of view or a cost-effectiveness 19 point of view. 20 So I think that the staff has already 21 anticipated and begun to work on at least part of the 22 point you've made. But it's a fair point. 23 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Oh, sorry. Tom. And then 24 Ms. D'Adamo. 25 MR. CACKETTE: I just wanted to add one point. 187 1 And that is we did have a meeting with European 2 manufacturers of filters and PM-reduction technology. 3 And they have developed a lot more systems that are 4 more active and, by being "more active," might have 5 better application for those cold engines. 6 And we do have a contract with a 7 agency in the Swiss government who is going to be 8 testing one of our engines using some of those 9 technologies -- one of our two-stroke engines. So 10 we'll get some sense of whether that technology, 11 albeit probably more expensive, could work on these 12 older engines. So I just wanted you to know we 13 haven't given up either. 14 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I'm a bit confused 15 about what you just said. There is technology 16 available right now that would provide for less than 17 whatever the -- our goal is eighty -- 83 percent and 18 it would be somewhat less? And how does that compare 19 to this other technology that you were referencing -- 20 25 percent reduction PM? 21 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, that was an example of 22 one of the technologies. I mean the technology is 23 diesel-oxidation catalyst, which, in a range, gets 24 anywhere from 20 to 50 percent. 25 But typically through the verification 188 1 process, it's been verified for urban buses at about 2 25 percent. And so you're obviously going to fall 3 short of 80 percent for PM control, but you do get 4 excellent toxic hydrocarbon control. 5 And I'm sure the staff is aware of 6 other technologies that other folks are developing 7 that will fall somewhere in between there -- between 8 25 and 80. And that's why they're looking at perhaps 9 establishing three different increments for 10 certification purposes, which we think makes a lot of 11 sense. It encourages innovation. 12 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I also had a question 13 about the level of investment. I know that you don't 14 have figures with you here today. But what occurred 15 as a result or just after the adoption of this rule 16 in terms of investment for the retrofit technology -- 17 pre-94? post? 18 MR. BERTELSEN: Okay. Yeah. I can give you 19 some idea. In fact, we recently have conducted a 20 survey -- and I can't give you the exact dollar 21 amount 'cause it hasn't been officially released -- 22 but we surveyed our members and asked them what they 23 were spending on R and D and capital investments for 24 the -- to develop technologies for the 2007 rule. 25 And it's in the range of $1.5 billion. 189 1 And my comment I made earlier was 2 really, when California adopted the urban bus 3 program, it sent a very strong signal to our industry 4 and others that California and others were very 5 serious about cleaning up diesel engines and they 6 were very serious about making low-sulfur fuel 7 available. 8 And the level of commitment that began 9 in terms of R and D and capital expenditures really 10 kicked off in around that time frame. And I can give 11 you one anecdotal example. 12 One of our companies recently 13 mentioned that, in the year 2000, they spent more 14 money in R and D and capital expenditures on 15 diesel-emission controls than they had in the 16 previous history of the company. 17 And last year, they did it again. 18 They spent more money in 2001 than they'd spent from 19 2000, on back, to when they first got into this area, 20 which they're a company that got involved in the 21 technology in the 70's. 22 So there is a significant investment 23 in R and D and capital expenditures. And, again, I 24 think it really got its kick-start out here in 25 California, in February, 2000, when this program was 190 1 adopted. 2 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Well, that's -- I think 3 that's very positive. The concern is that we may be 4 sending the wrong message and that that investment 5 will just be in the newer buses. It'll dry up 6 completely and the -- 7 MR. BERTELSEN: Well, it's not -- let me make 8 clear. That $1.5 billion is not for retrofit alone. 9 It's for retrofit and new technologies for the -- to 10 comply with the EPA and ARB 2007 heavy-duty rule and 11 also the on-road rule, as well -- I mean the off-road 12 rule, which is coming down the road. 13 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 14 Supervisor Roberts. 15 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Yeah, Mr. Chairman. 16 This doesn't sound very promising. And I was just 17 wondering, from a time frame, as you look out -- I 18 don't know when we're due -- when we would revisit 19 this again. And I'm not suggesting -- I think we 20 don't need to give any direction today, but it seems 21 to me -- 22 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: -- September, we're going to 23 come -- staff is going to come back to us. 24 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: -- strategize -- 25 September? Okay. I'll hold my question till 191 1 September, then. 2 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: But I think, as we've heard 3 today, Supervisor -- and I think staff reflects 4 this -- I think there are a number of items, 5 including the one that you raised earlier, that we 6 should look at. 7 And the other one I'm seeing, in this 8 particular case as we're looking -- are we wiser to 9 basically to look at the alternative of accelerating 10 retirement of those vehicles altogether and not worry 11 about that? 12 And clearly, I think, that would be a 13 popular route all round if we can get the money -- if 14 we can get money for new buses there. But I'm sure 15 staff is going to investigate that as part of the 16 overall program. 17 So thank you very much. 18 MR. BERTELSEN: Thank you. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you, Mr. Bertelsen. 20 I guess are there any other comments 21 from the board members? 22 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Yes. I want to ask 23 staff one question. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes, Mr. Calhoun. 25 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: I was not aware of the 192 1 work that Allison had been doing in Orange County. I 2 know they do a lot of work. I just wanted to know -- 3 wondered if one of our staff is on top of -- 4 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: What county do you live in? 5 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: How's that? 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: What county do you live in? 7 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Orange County. 8 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: You live in Orange County? 9 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: I live in Orange 10 County. Not all -- 11 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: That's a good question. I 12 don't know whether you heard Mr. Calhoun's question. 13 What he was saying, indicating -- he was not aware of 14 the extent of Allison in Orange County with the 15 Orange County Transit Association. 16 If we could comment on that -- whether 17 we're aware of it and whether we're getting feedback. 18 MS. HEBERT: Yes. We are aware of it and 19 we're actually testing it at our heavy-duty 20 laboratory in L.A. 21 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: I can talk to staff 22 more about it at some other time if you want to close 23 the record. 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. Since this is not 25 a regulatory item, it's not necessary to officially 193 1 close the record. However, we do have a resolution 2 before the board, and I would then entertain a motion 3 at this time. 4 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: So moved. 5 VARIOUS UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Second. 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. 7 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Mr. Chairman, I 8 actually have a question about the resolution. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Okay. 10 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I remain a little 11 nervous about the retrofit issue. And the concern 12 that I have is that the language in the resolution is 13 so broad as only to -- we may end up getting 14 something that's pretty far off from equivalency just 15 because it's not -- just not feasible. 16 And what I'd like to do is at least 17 see staff come up with a proposal that is equivalent, 18 that contains -- even if it may not be feasible so 19 that we can see the range of what could be out there. 20 And I would like to have staff comment on that. 21 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yeah. 22 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: We can do that. 23 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I was also going to comment 24 that the resolution should be modified to reflect 25 Supervisor Roberts's comment early on that we look at 194 1 ways that they could look out to the other path -- to 2 go back to the alternate-fuel path -- the comment 3 that was raised earlier. 4 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: We can do both those 5 things. 6 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yeah. And that -- with that 7 addition, would that be okay? 8 BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Yes. Yes. 9 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: So with those two additions, 10 then -- two modifications, all in favor say, "Aye." 11 BOARD MEMBERS: Aye. 12 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: It's unanimously approved. 13 Thank you very much. 14 Thank you, staff. 15 I guess what I would like to do now is 16 go to the open-comment period. Although no formal 17 action may be taken, the board is allowing an 18 opportunity to interested members of the public to 19 address the board on items of interest that are 20 within the board's jurisdiction but that do not 21 specifically appear on the agenda. 22 Each person will be allowed a maximum 23 of five minutes to ensure that anyone -- everyone has 24 a chance to speak. I know, in this area, we do have 25 two speakers signed up to testify. 195 1 Yes. If the people departing could do 2 so as quiet as possible so the two witnesses coming 3 to testify can hear -- yeah. You might want to -- 4 you'll wind up with one minute. 5 Yes. We have three witnesses signed 6 up with -- Todd Campbell -- could you please -- 7 Paula, you might start, I think. Oh, 8 it's not -- 9 MS. RODRIGUEZ: Buenos tardes. 10 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Oh, Sonia's going to start? 11 MS. RODRIGUEZ: Mi nombre es Sonia Rodriguez. 12 MS. RODRIGUEZ (Through Interpreter): My name 13 is -- 14 MS. FORBIS: I'll translate for her, if that's 15 okay. 16 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Could we have -- you might 17 want to get the other mike. 18 MS. RODRIGUEZ (Through Interpreter): My name 19 is Sonia Rodriguez. 20 MS. FORBIS: Is there another mike? 21 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: I'm having 22 trouble hearing because people are speaking back 23 there. Would you give us the courtesy of departing 24 quietly? Thank you. 25 MS. RODRIGUEZ (Through Interpreter): My name 196 1 is Sonia Rodriguez, and I'm a resident of Barrio 2 Logan. And my visit today is to thank you -- to the 3 Air Resources Board and the County for the time and 4 the work that you are putting into my community with 5 the monitors. 6 And we know now that you are pursuing 7 the lawsuit against the chrome platers. And this is 8 a great step for our community. I just wanted to 9 thank you for my family and our children in the 10 community. That's all. Thank you. 11 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much indeed. 12 And, again, we would like to thank working with you 13 and also working with the County. 14 MS. RODRIGUEZ (Through Interpreter): Thank 15 you. 16 MS. FORBIS: I have a couple extra comments, 17 And I will keep them brief because I know that now we 18 are what stands between you and lunch so -- but, 19 again, I want to thank you. I want to update you a 20 little bit on the "Chrome 6" situation in Barrio 21 Logan. 22 Sonia Rodriguez and many of the other 23 residents have been concerned about this problem for 24 many, many years. And we have been overwhelmed by 25 the response that has come from your agency under 197 1 this administration and from our air pollution 2 control district on this particular issue. 3 And I think your staff deserves a huge 4 thanks. There's a lot of staff. And I would go 5 through all the names; but we'll be here for a long, 6 long time. They've been putting in many, many hours 7 on this project -- conducting the monitoring; 8 analyzing the results; coming down for community 9 meetings, several times a week in many instances. 10 And we really, really appreciate their 11 participation, their work, and the many hours that 12 they are putting in on this. We are also very 13 appreciative that this issue is moving forward. 14 The work that you all have done in 15 studying the chrome emissions from these platers has 16 resulted in our county's ability to pursue a nuisance 17 action against them in court and to try to close 18 their operations of one of them -- Master Plating -- 19 at least temporarily. 20 And the temporary-restraining-order 21 hearing is going to be coming up this Monday. And 22 we're hopeful that the County and their attorneys 23 will have success in that action. 24 And, you know, I wish I could stand 25 here and tell you those that those emissions had 198 1 stopped for the residents. But they're still 2 ongoing. Master Plating is still operating today, as 3 we speak. 4 And I think the wheels of justice and 5 wheels of environmental justice are the same. They 6 turn slower than probably any of us would like. But 7 we are very appreciative that you are moving with 8 speed on this issue and taking very swift action to 9 reduce the emissions of these facilities and bring 10 some relief to local residents. 11 For our part, Environmental Health 12 Coalition is also working on the land-use side of 13 this. We recognize that, fundamentally, at the root 14 of this problem, is the mixed-use zone, which allows 15 a chrome plater to be several feet from someone's 16 house. And so we are working with a local council 17 member on that issue and to ensure that that is 18 addressed. 19 We also wanted to call your attention 20 that there is a worker issue here as well for the 21 workers inside the plating facility. The levels that 22 have been identified by the monitoring conducted by 23 the APCD have shown cancer-risk levels for those 24 workers up to 4,000 cancers per million. 25 Those folks do not wear any protective 199 1 equipment, and it's a very alarming situation for 2 them as well as the residents that are just outside 3 the door. 4 We're also appreciative of ARB's work 5 to amend the air toxic control measure on this issue. 6 And we're hopeful that that will proceed quickly as 7 well because we know that Master Plating is not the 8 only source of these emissions. In Barrio Logan 9 alone, there are three or four other chrome platers 10 that are operating within a close proximity of 11 residents. 12 And so it's going to continue to be a 13 problem even if we're successful with Master Plating. 14 We're hoping that you will take -- as you go through 15 the ATCM renewal process, you will take a much more 16 stringent approach to the decorative chrome platers 17 and perhaps also to the hard chrome platers to 18 require that those emissions get reduced 19 substantially. 20 And, in fact, what this may be 21 indicating is the need for a more creative approach 22 as well -- one that looks at the proximity of some of 23 these sources to residents. 24 In this instance, we have the Martinez 25 family that is literally feet from Master Plating. 200 1 "Carlson and Belloy" is on the other side of that 2 family. And there are now four generations of 3 Martinez family residents that have lived in that 4 location for many decades. 5 And so we really hope that proximity 6 to sensitive receptors is something that comes up in 7 the ATCM renewal process and it may be that we need 8 to set a basic limit to the emissions from these 9 kinds of facilities, whether they are hard or 10 decorative chrome platers, in order to protect 11 residents around them. 12 So we look forward to continuing to 13 work with you and your staff on this issue. Again, 14 thank you for the leadership that's been shown by 15 both by the ARB and by our county on this issue. We 16 are hopeful that it will result in some success and 17 reduction of these emissions in the very short term 18 for the residents. Thank you very much. 19 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you very much. 20 Supervisor Roberts. 21 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I think it would be 22 appropriate for me to comment. I want to thank the 23 staff of ARB for all of the work they've done. And I 24 want to especially thank you and Mr. Kenny, who kept 25 in close contact with me as we've tried to work our 201 1 way through this. 2 You know I think that it's one thing 3 to identify that you have a problem. It's then a 4 second thing to identify who is to blame for that. 5 And in this case, we had two prime suspects. 6 And from everything I've seen of the 7 testing, one of those, very deservedly, is the 8 subject of our temporary restraining order. And we 9 feel confident that that is going to happen. And 10 then we have to take -- you know, we will keep 11 continuing to pursue this. 12 I think that Paula did acknowledge 13 that ultimately there is some land-use issues here 14 that we have acknowledged and have some action taken 15 over -- by colleagues over at the city. 16 But we're going to continue this. And 17 to the extent that we have any information that says 18 there's a problem, we'll find out the source of that 19 problem. And we'll take appropriate actions. 20 In this case, there actually -- it 21 showed us that there was one operation that was 22 causing the problem and another that is acting in a 23 very lawful way. So we're still -- we're still 24 working on this. And the support that you've given 25 us is invaluable. 202 1 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I appreciate that, 2 Supervisor. And I think that's a great example of 3 good cooperation here between us. I think I'd like 4 to thank Mr. Kenny and staff -- Lynn -- particularly 5 Lynn there -- for their staff, for all of the effort 6 they've put in. I see Bob Fletcher here -- 7 tremendous effort put in there. 8 I'd like to thank Paula for her 9 persistence on this issue. We've not always agreed. 10 But I think that clearly, in the end, we all feel 11 that we've done what we were supposed to do and 12 that's to protect the health of the citizen, wherever 13 they are. So thank you. 14 Professor Friedman. 15 BOARD MEMBER C.H. FRIEDMAN: Since I'm the 16 other San Diegan, I can't resist adding simply that 17 this was one of the early environmental justice 18 concerns. And I think the Environmental Health 19 Coalition and Paula and her colleagues really 20 triggered the monitoring that we were able to 21 establish here. 22 It's taken a couple of years to pin 23 down scientifically what's going on there, at least 24 in part. I hope we continue to monitor, and I think 25 Shankar and the staff, who have been assiduous in 203 1 pursuing this and trying to find what is going on, 2 have done great work. 3 And so I think that hopefully justice 4 will prevail on this one. But, again, like most of 5 what we do, we have miles to go before we sleep. So 6 I hope we'll keep going. 7 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you. 8 Todd Campbell. Sorry. Is your mike 9 on? 10 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: If I could just 11 mention one thing, there's a portion of ARB that 12 actually is always invisible and in this particular 13 situation has actually done incredible work to make 14 this happen. That's the monitoring laboratory 15 division. 16 The folks in the monitoring laboratory 17 division rarely get much recognition. But in this 18 particular case, we could not have done this without 19 them kind of turning things upside down, putting 20 people on planes instantaneously, and really 21 maximizing the resources that are available there. 22 So you know I think you've heard a lot 23 of the names. But the names you haven't heard are 24 those that are in the monitoring laboratory division. 25 And they really deserve a huge amount of credit as 204 1 well as the folks in funding and technical support 2 division. But the two together did a lot. 3 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I thank you for correcting my 4 error there, Mike. You're very true. I omitted 5 that. I think that the monitoring now comes under 6 Tom; is that right? 7 So, Tom, please pass that on. And we 8 know Jeff and the people and Bill. As you say, that 9 is, in fact, key to the work because, without the 10 effort and the quality assurance in that work, you 11 could not point any fingers. 12 Thank you. 13 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Can I correct the 14 record and thank Tom instead of Mike, then? 15 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Todd. 16 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Chairman Lloyd -- my 17 name is Todd Campbell, Policy Director for the 18 Coalition for Clean Air -- and board members. 19 I too wanted to thank the Air 20 Resources Board for extending the resources to barrio 21 Logan and specifically remind or actually 22 specifically thank Dr. Prasad, the Community Health 23 Advisor to the chairman, who's been a really great 24 supporter of communities that may suffer from 25 environmental justice issues. 205 1 As we know and we've experienced in 2 the South Coast with "Suva" elementary school -- that 3 incident actually showed dramatic impact from the 4 chromium platers there. And hopefully we can learn 5 from Barrio Logan and Suva and other examples 6 throughout the state to improve chromium-emission 7 reductions for the future. 8 The other issue I wanted to just 9 briefly address was the issue of concern that Board 10 Members D'Adamo and McKinnon raised. And we too are 11 very concerned about the existing diesel fleet. And 12 we very much support the Air Resources Board's 13 efforts to reduce emissions from existing vehicles. 14 As you know, the Natural Resource 15 Defense Council and the Coalition for Clean Air are 16 currently in a litigation over the California -- over 17 the China shipping project at the Port of 18 Los Angeles. 19 And the toxicity levels in the Ports 20 of Los Angeles and Long Beach, especially Wilmington, 21 are something like 1,531 in a million. Those are 22 significant emission levels, especially when we 23 consider acceptable risk to be 1 in a million. 24 So I fully encourage this agency to 25 continue to push and prod MECA and other 206 1 aftertreatment manufacturers to not give up on 2 existing fleets. As you and I well know, there are 3 independent owner-contractors that are working in the 4 ports that have 40-plus-year-old trucks. 5 And we can't give up on the people of 6 Wilmington and San Pedro. Thank you. 7 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I appreciate you reminding 8 us. Todd, I think you can rest assured, we're all 9 committed to that as well. I agree. It's a big 10 problem. We need to work together. And I thank you. 11 Rest assured we will. Thank you. 12 Mr. Kenny. 13 EXECUTIVE OFFICER KENNY: One other quick 14 comment. We had planned to present to you today an 15 update on the Moyer air program. And we were not 16 ready to do that, even though it was on the agenda. 17 And so we are planning to present that to you, 18 probably next month. So I just simply wanted to make 19 that statement for the record. 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yeah. Thank you. With that, 21 we will now adjourn and reconvene in a closed session 22 of the board as indicated in the public notice for 23 today's meeting. 24 The purpose of the closed session is 25 to confer with or receive advice from its legal 207 1 counsel regarding Coalition For Clean Air versus 2 South Coast Air Quality Air Management District, 3 U.S. District Court for the Central District of 4 California, Case Number CV 97-dash-6916-dash-HLH and 5 San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control 6 District versus State of California Air Resources 7 Board, Sacramento County Superior Court 8 Case Number 02CS00270. 9 After the conclusion of the closed 10 session, we will reconvene an open session. Thank 11 you for your patience. 12 UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Dr. Lloyd. 13 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Yes. 14 UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Let me just 15 clarify that. When we reconvene in open session, it 16 will be just to briefly report on the results of the 17 closed session and then to adjourn the meeting so 18 that members of the audience understand that nothing 19 else will be taken up in an open session. 20 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: Thank you for that 21 clarification. Thank you. 22 (1:18 - 1:53 P.M. - The board met in 23 closed session.) 24 CHAIRMAN LLOYD: I'd like to reconvene after 25 closed session. The meeting of the California Air 208 1 Resources Board is now in session. Please come to 2 order. Early today, the board met in closed session. 3 I would like to announce the results of the closed 4 session. 5 The closed session to discuss the 6 Coalition for Clean Air versus South Coast Air 7 Quality Management District et al., U.S. District 8 Court for the Central District of California, Case 9 Number CV 97-dash-6916-dash-HLH has been postponed 10 and will be noticed for a further -- later meeting in 11 closed session. 12 The San Joaquin Valley Unified Air 13 Pollution Control District versus State of California 14 Air Resources Board, Sacramento County Superior Court 15 Case Number 02CS002708 was discussed but no action 16 was taken. 17 With that, I would like to close the 18 March 21 California Air Resources Board meeting. 19 Thank you. Thank you all, colleagues. Thank you for 20 coming for coming. 21 (Proceedings concluded at 1:55 P.M.) 22 23 24 25 209 1 STATE OF CALIFORNIA ) ) ss. 2 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES ) 3 4 I, NEALY KENDRICK, CSR No. 11265, do hereby 5 certify: 6 That the foregoing transcript of proceedings 7 was taken before me at the time and place therein set 8 forth and thereafter transcribed by computer under my 9 direction and supervision, and I hereby certify the 10 foregoing transcript of proceedings is a full, true, 11 and correct transcript of the proceedings. 12 I further certify that I am neither counsel 13 for nor related to any party to said action nor in 14 anywise interested in the outcome thereof. 15 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto subscribed 16 my name this 3rd day of April, 2002. 17 18 _______________________________ NEALY KENDRICK, CSR NO. 11265 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 210