Communities near railroad yards, ports and other freight corridors have long been hard hit by air pollution from dirty, old locomotives. These massive railcars, which use a diesel generator to power electric cars and railcars that carry freight or passengers, are major polluters and responsible for a growing share of emissions that increase cancer risk, shorten lives, and exacerbate smog across California . But the authorities have done almost nothing to change this.
Residents have been pleading with state officials for years to get the railroads to reduce harmful emissions from locomotives, but they’ve been told California can’t do anything because of an exemption in the federal Clean Air Act.
This picture started to change a few years ago. Outraged California air quality officials took another look and found that while the state can’t enforce emissions standards on locomotive manufacturers — that’s the job of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — it does have the authority to regulate railroad operators and the types of equipment they use. The state Air Resources Board will vote on it next month difficult new rules for the approximately 12,000 locomotives in service in California. The regulations will force the rail industry to replace its oldest and dirtiest locomotives with the cleanest diesel models and eventually zero-emission electric or fuel cell technology.
It’s time for state regulators to stand firm against a powerful industry that has long evaded the same health protections imposed on nearly every other sector of the California economy. Locomotives are so dirty that government regulators have identified reducing their pollution as the biggest strategy in their plan to bring smog back to federal health standards by 2037 — accounting for more than 30% of the emissions reductions needed, more than any other sector, including all the cars and trucks on the road.
No wonder the railways are against it. The billion-dollar companies have been almost entirely spared from California’s exemptions because only the federal government can tell them what to do, and the industry has indicated its intention to sue state-imposed regulations. At a public hearing last fall, Michael J. Rush of the Assn. by American Railroads, an industry lobby group warned the Air Resources Board The rules would not reduce the number of exceptions because if passed, “the inevitable result would be lawsuits and court decisions prohibiting the board from proceeding”.
California regulators should not be deterred by the harassment of the railroad industry. Their top priority should be reducing long-term health risks for the state’s most polluted and economically disadvantaged communities, such as Commerce, Colton and San Bernardino, where locomotives emit diesel fumes 24 hours a day. Under the proposed rules, the risk of cancer from diesel pollution from locomotives would decrease by more than 90% in communities close to railway yards. They will reduce smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions by 86% and prevent more than 3,000 premature deaths from air pollution.
In the past 25 years, civil servants have only performed voluntary agreements with the two class I railways BNSF Railway and Union Pacific, which are working in California to clean up emissions from their Southern California locomotives, have made disappointingly few improvements.
More than half of California’s locomotive pollution comes from engines originally built some two decades ago or earlier and only required to meet the outdated emissions standards of the time. Meanwhile, virtually every other vehicle type in California, including passenger cars and heavy-duty trucks, must phase out new sales of gasoline or diesel models until they are 100% emission-free within the next decade.
Under the proposal, the state’s Air Resources Board would begin enforcing rules prohibiting locomotives from idling their engines for more than 30 minutes in 2024. In the same year, operators must also put money into a special escrow account every year to switch to the cleanest models or to zero-emission technology. From 2030, the industry will not be allowed to operate locomotives that are 23 years old or older, and all newly built models will be zero-emissions by 2035.
The railroads argue that California’s proposal is not only failing, but also unrealistic. They have their own plans – BNSF has promised reduce its emissions by 30% by 2030 and Union Pacific is committed to it Achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The industry has developed zero-emission electric locomotives and fuel cell locomotives, but companies say those technologies won’t be ready as soon as California wants. The industry has also argued that locomotives are the greenest way to move freight, but air quality officials say California regulations have cut emissions from heavy trucks so dramatically over the past decade that they are now the cleaner way to move freight.
California still has the worst air pollution in the country and needs the assurance of a rule to get the railroads rolling out new technology more quickly. It’s the approach California has successfully used for decades to combat air pollution, and trains should be no exception.
As regulators address locomotive pollution, they would do well to focus on those most affected by the damage. This includes Heidi Swillinger, who wrote the Air Council last fall push for adoption of the rules. She lives in a trailer park in San Pablo, less than 100 feet from a railroad track where trains stop every night to change shifts.
“These trains expel diesel fumes so pervasive that they fill homes when windows or doors are open,” Swillinger wrote. “The tracks don’t move, and neither do we, so you’re the only thing standing between us and a healthier future.”
The last time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took action to reduce locomotive pollution was in 2008, and last year the agency said it would review its existing rules to ensure they met California’s authority to improve air quality and not “unnecessarily limit it”. Rules to protect people’s health are overdue, and regulators should no longer wait to help communities that have stood still for years.
Source: LA Times
Roger Stone is an author and opinion journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. He is known for his controversial and thought-provoking views on a variety of topics, and has a talent for engaging readers with his writing.
