[t]ruck drivers face tougher pollution regulations starting Saturday after diesel engine manufacturers lost a court battle to postpone the deadline.The California Air Resources Board adopted the new standards, which apply to any diesel-powered vehicles driving in the state, after a voluntary program of the sort always being promoted and praised by manufacturers and other business interests proved to be a dismal failure: Trucks continued to employ so-called "smog defeat devices" which enabled them to dodge pollution controls by making the trucks appear to meet standards when they are inspected even as they exceed them when on the road.
Judge Loren McMaster refused to issue a preliminary injunction Thursday, saying he sympathizes with the manufacturers' complaint but has no power to intervene because the stricter regulations appear to be constitutionally valid.
Including the devices on new vehicles has been illegal since the 1990s and in fact in 1999 the companies involved in this suit were parties to a consent decree with the EPA acknowledging sale of a million heavy-duty diesel engines in violation of the law. (They almost immediately began lobbying to be released from the agreement, as a result of which in August 2000 - note the date, Bush-haters - the EPA put off imposition of tougher standards from 2004 to 2007, which is what pushed California to act on its own.)
The agreement California and the manufacturers reached called for 35% compliance - that is, 35% of trucks would have removed the devices and instead truly met the standards - by November, with 100% compliance by 2008. But when November came, the Board found that only 18% of California-licensed vehicles had been upgraded.
Caterpillar, Cummins Inc., Mack Trucks Inc. and Volvo Powertrain Corp. complained the new regulations would cost millions. But
[r]emoving the devices from California trucks alone would trim pollution equivalent to that created by 1 million cars, the air board said.So tough.
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