pollution

Opinion: Communities of Color Are Supposed to Be Getting State Money to Reduce Pollution. Where Is It?

In recent years, CalEPA has more explicitly acknowledged how environmental pollution disproportionately impacts Californians of color. But we are still waiting for decisive action to fix it.

When California passed Senate bill 535 in 2012, it mandated that 25 percent of the proceeds generated from the resulting cap-and-trade program go to projects that benefit communities most impacted by pollution.

ARB: fine particle pollution kills 9,200 per year

More than 9,000 Californians are dying prematurely every year because of the health effects of the kind of pollution emitted by diesel trucks and heavy equipment, according to a new study by the Air Resources Board, the state’s air quality regulator. The study is the first released by the state to claim that the microscopic particles emitted by engines burning diesel fuel actually cause early deaths, rather than simply being correlated with them.

Truck rule based on flawed data, ARB staff admits

A computer model that the Air Resources Board used to justify historic restrictions on diesel emissions from off-road construction equipment may have attributed twice as much pollution to those heavy trucks as they actually produce, according to interviews with ARB staff.

Air board might roll back off-road diesel rule

California’s Air Resources Board is coming under increasing pressure from construction industry contractors seeking to roll back regulations adopted three years ago to sharply reduce the amount of diesel pollution from big off-road tractors, scrapers and earth-movers. The agency has acknowledged that it underestimated the effects of the recession on diesel emissions and is also studying claims that assumptions in a faulty computer model further inflated estimates of pollution caused by the vehicles.

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