Suspend diesel rule, critics urge
Roberts: Researcher’s lie compromises study
By Michael Gardner, Dec. 3, 2009, San Diego Union-Tribune
SACRAMENTO — The state Air Resources Board is under mounting pressure from within its own ranks to suspend a regulation that forces diesel truck owners to gradually replace older rigs that spew toxic soot.
Beyond the possible economic harm to industry, critics of this toughest-in-the-nation rule are convinced that its validity has been compromised by revelations that the lead researcher, who crafted a persuasive study of diesel’s damaging health effects, exaggerated his academic credentials.
Board members Ron Roberts, a San Diego County supervisor, and Dr. John Telles, a Fresno physician, have urged the agency to reconsider its unanimous December 2008 directive or risk a backlash of cynicism toward future clean-air initiatives.
“I don’t think there’s another option,” Roberts said.
But other board members, while conceding that the episode has caused considerable embarrassment, said the peer-reviewed report on diesel soot accurately lays out the health risks. Those include findings that have been common knowledge for years, such as how diesel worsens respiratory illnesses, raises the rate of cancer and causes more premature deaths.
“There’s been an effort in some quarters to say (the agency) cooked the books. … I don’t think the science changed at all, not one iota,” said Dr. John Balmes, a board member and professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
The researcher at the center of the controversy, Hien Tran, has been demoted for fabricating his doctoral degree from UC Davis. But that hasn’t calmed critics, and some members of the air board are angry that several of the agency’s executives and at least one board member knew of Tran’s falsified résumé but kept quiet.
“Failure to reveal this information to the board prior to the vote not only casts doubt on the legitimacy of the truck rule but the legitimacy of the (agency) itself,” Telles said.
Under this cloud, the board will meet Wednesday to receive an update on the diesel regulation.
The rule applies to nearly 1 million trucks and buses and would require ?owners of those vehicles to change out the engines in older models or install anti-pollution devices on newer ones starting in 2011.
The underlying question before the air board is whether changes are warranted because soot emissions have sharply dropped with so many trucks idled by the economic slump.
Board members could tell their staff to craft a new timetable for the mandate, which they probably would vote on next summer.
Roberts and Telles are expected to seize the opportunity to call for a suspension and new health-impact studies. Telles voted for the original rule; Roberts was absent at that session.
Regulators have been meeting with truckers and contractors. They will do so again today at a workshop in Sacramento, where they will collect information for their Wednesday update to the board.
One challenge is figuring out whether California can meet federal clean-air mandates by 2014 without taking aggressive steps such as the new diesel standards, said Tom Cackette, the board’s chief deputy executive officer.
“That date is fixed in time. We can’t easily adjust,” he said.
Still, Cackette said, it’s fair to ask whether the recession has already produced the required soot reductions and would continue to do so as long as the economic slump drags on.
Mike Shaw, president of a recession-battered grading company in El Cajon, said he plans to ask the air board for relief.
“We’re doing everything we can to hang on to our business,” Shaw said.
The payroll at his business, Perry & Shaw, once numbered 175. Now it’s “maybe a dozen,” Shaw said.
The company spent more than $5 million to retire or retrofit dirty engines before the bottom fell out of the market, he said. “We don’t have a dime to spend on it now,” Shaw said.
The gloomy numbers aside, he said the board needs a fresh start given the rising cynicism fueled by the researcher scandal.
“We need an honest look,” Shaw said.
Telles agrees. However, he doesn’t question the health damage caused by diesel emissions. “The legitimacy of the vote may be in question,” he said. “The scientific validity of the report is not the issue.”
Public-health advocates urge the board not to lose sight of the fundamental target, arguing that vast evidence from sources worldwide supports the conclusion that soot is a serious threat.
“The cost of state rules to clean up diesel trucks will be far outweighed by the public-health benefits,” said Fred Herskowitz, an Oakland doctor who specializes in respiratory illnesses.