AGC Releases New Study on California's Air Rule

AGC this week released a new study evaluating the data used by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to justify the imposition of requirements on contractors in California to reduce emissions from their off road diesel equipment fleets. The report shows that emissions from California's construction and other off-road diesel equipment are less than 28 percent of what state officials have estimated, and therefore there is no scientific justification for the rule. The new emissions study is based primarily on data assembled by CARB last year, including how many pieces of off-road diesel equipment are in use and how much they run. The study found that there are 157,000 pieces of this equipment in the state, and not the 192,000 that the staff assumed, and 7.5 percent of this equipment is low use. Other new data came from the state Board of Equalization, the U.S. Department of Energy, and records detailing the actual hours worked by equipment operators. Using this new data, researchers found that state officials have vastly overestimated emissions from the state's off-road diesel fleet. Emissions parallel the consumption of fuel, and in 2009, off-road equipment burned only 164 million gallons of diesel. If the Board's original estimates were correct, that number would have reached 581 million. AGC has been pressing CARB to rescind or significantly alter its rule. In addition, AGC has been urging EPA to not grant California a waiver to implement these new restrictions. The outcome of California's rule has national implications because other states would be free to adopt these restrictions.