California Off-Road Diesel Retrofit Rules Become Law June 15, 2008

Despite AGC of America's strong objections, last Friday, California’s Office of Administrative Law approved the state air board’s controversial off-road diesel regulations. The rules will be written into California law within 30 days.  AGC remains determined to prevent California from setting a de facto national standard that is both economically and technologically infeasible.

Unless the combined wisdom and experience of construction equipment owners/operators, engine manufacturers, engineers, economists, and financial experts is totally wrong, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) rules will wreak havoc on California’s construction industry in the near term.  AGC stands by the 300+ pages of technical and legal arguments and testimonials it has submitted to the record, maintaining that industry’s facts and figures are not overstated.  AGC will persist in its ongoing efforts to bring reason to the debate over these first-time emissions rules for existing fleets of off-road diesels. 

The off-road retrofit rule — currently being eyed by other states — will force older equipment out-of-service and require equipment owners to spend an estimated $13 billion in California alone over the rule’s lifetime on new machines and/or engine retrofits. Under the rule’s timeline, covered fleets of equipment must meet labeling and annual reporting requirements, idling limits, and restrictions on adding older vehicles to fleets beginning in 2009.  In the following years, all fleets have to meet yearly target rates for average emissions of particulates and NOx or retrofit or replace a certain percent of its total horsepower. 

For many contractors, diesel retrofit is cost prohibitive.  Coupled with the fact that there is a lack of available (1) retrofit devices, (2) higher-Tier used equipment, and/or (3) Tier 4-level new engines - it stands to reason that CARB’s new retrofit rule will render thousands of pieces of construction equipment worthless.  California contractors also face the beaureaucratic nightmare and expense of keeping detailed records on each engine in their fleets and reporting to CARB each year, starting next year.  View the entire set of regs at:  http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2007/ordiesl07/ordiesl07.htm
 
CARB administrators have said non-compliance may cost $10,000 per day, per violation, but would probably start at a lower amount.
 
Other states are expected to follow in the footsteps of California. To date, fifteen states have opted in to at least one of California's more protective emission standards. With California, these states are home to 142 million Americans, or almost half of the population. The states include Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.

In the coming weeks, AGC will provide its Chapters and Members with more information on the details of this state-wide rule and its anticipated impact on contractors across the country.

If you have any questions please contact Leah Pilconis at 703-837-5332 or pilconisl@agc.org. [ return to top ]