MEETING
BEFORE THE
CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD
BOARD HEARING ROOM
2020 L STREET
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1998
9:00 A.M.
Vicki L. Medeiros, C.S.R.
License No. 7871
Janet Nichol, C.S.R.
License No. 9764
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MEMBERS PRESENT
John D. Dunlap, III, Chairman
Joseph C. Calhoun
Mark DeSaulnier
Dr. William Friedman
Jack C. Parnell
Barbara Patrick
Sally Rakow
Barbara Riordan
Ron Roberts
James W. Silva
Staff:
Michael Kenny, Executive Director
Tom Cackette, Chief Deputy Executive Officer
Kathleen Walsh, General Counsel
Jim Schoning, Ombudsman
Also Present:
Joan Denton, Ph.D., Director, OEHHA
Dr. Paul Blanc, Scientific Review Panel
Dr. John Froines, Scientific Review Panel
Dr. Anthony Fucaloro, Scientific Review Panel
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I N D E X
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Page
Proceedings 1
Call to Order 1
Pledge of Allegiance 1
Roll Call 1
Opening remarks by Chairman Dunlap 3
AGENDA ITEMS:
98-6-1 Continuation of a Public Hearing to
Consider the Appeal of the City of Los
Angeles from Order No. 070297-04 of the
Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control
District
Introductory remarks by Chairman Dunlap 4
Staff Presentation:
Mike Kenny 5
Public Comment:
Andrea Lawrence 6
Jerry Gene 8
Brian Lamb 9
Philip Shiner 10
Todd Campbell 11
98-8-1 Public Hearing to Consider the Adoption
of a Regulatory Amendment Identifying
Diesel Exhaust as a Toxic Air Contaminant
Introductory remarks by Chairman Dunlap 18
Staff Presentation:
Mike Kenny 23
Robert Krieger 26
Melanie Marty, Ph.D. 36
Robert Krieger 45
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I N D E X (Continued)
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Page
Scientific Review Panel Presentation:
Dr. John Froines 49
Ombudsman Presentation:
Jim Schoning 69
Public Comment:
Ellen Garvey 75
Paul Knepprath 76
Allan Zaremberg 79
Richard McCann 83
Jed Mandel 89
Bill Bunn 108
John Duerr 117
Mohsen Sohi 125
Dave Smith 129
Allen Schaffer 135
Stephanie Williams 145
Janet Hathaway 179
Dan Eisentrager 191
Merlin Fagan 195
Roger Isom 200
Todd Campbell 202
Bonnie Holmes Gen 213
Tim Carmichael 216
98-8-2 Public Meeting to Consider a
Report by the Fuel Cell Technical Advisory
Panel Program
Introductory remarks by Chairman Dunlap 265
Staff Presentation:
Mike Kenny 267
Dr. Fritz Kalhammer 268
Public Comment:
Ken Smith 294
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I N D E X (Continued)
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Open Session to Provide an Opportunity for
Members of the Public to Address the Board on
Subject Matters within the Jurisdiction of
the Board 301
98-8-3 Public Meeting to Update the Board on the Status of
the ARB's Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program and ZEV
Technology
Introductory remarks by Chairman Dunlap 302
Staff Presentation:
Mike Kenny 304
Eileen Tutt 305
Public Comment:
David Hermance 332
Cecile Martin 337
Mike Wirsch 338
Enid Joffe 340
Howard Levin 348
Janet Hathaway 352
Adjournment 354
Certificate of Reporter 355
Certificate of Reporter 356
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1
2 P R O C E E D I N G S
3 --o0o--
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Will this, the July meeting of
5 the California Air Resources Board, come to order.
6 Supervisor Roberts, will you lead the audience and
7 our Board in the Pledge of Allegiance.
8 (Thereupon the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.)
9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Ron.
10 Ms. Hutchens, would you please call the roll.
11 MS. HUTCHENS: Calhoun.
12 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Here.
13 MS. HUTCHENS: DeSaulnier.
14 Edgerton.
15 Friedman.
16 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Here.
17 MS. HUTCHENS: Parnell.
18 BOARD MEMBER PARNELL: Here.
19 MS. HUTCHENS: Patrick.
20 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: Here.
21 MS. HUTCHENS: Rakow.
22 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: Here.
23 MS. HUTCHENS: Riordan.
24 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Here.
25 MS. HUTCHENS: Roberts.
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1 MS. HUTCHENS: Silva.
2 BOARD MEMBER SILVA: Here.
3 MS. HUTCHENS: Chairman Dunlap.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Here.
5 Thank you. I would like to remind those of you in
6 the audience that would like to present testimony to the
7 Board on any of today's Agenda items to please sign up with
8 the Clerk of the Board.
9 If you have a written statement, we would ask that
10 you provide us with 20 copies, so that the Board and the key
11 staff members may track your testimony.
12 Before we begin today's meeting, I would like to
13 take a moment to give some recognition to a Board employee in
14 the Technical Support Division, Mr. Chris Nguyen.
15 I received a letter a while back from Gene Kulesza,
16 the Environmental Manager of Riverside Cement, expressing his
17 appreciation for the immediate help he received from Chris.
18 He was having difficulty downloading the
19 Ceidars-Lite program from the Internet, so Chris sent the
20 update for the file to him by E-mail.
21 Not only did he send it, but he talked to the
22 gentleman. He talked him through getting it installed, so he
23 could use the program.
24 Chris then later called to make sure that the
25 program was working, and Mr. Kulesza expressed his
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1 appreciation for the courteous and timely help and added that
2 it was refreshing to receive it from someone who was as
3 patient, and certainly took the time in his work in
4 government service to make sure that it worked out.
5 Since our Board prides itself on providing quality
6 customer service at all opportunities, it was gratifying to
7 receive such positive comments.
8 Is Chris with us today, by chance?
9 Chris, hi. Come on up here and take a bow, if you
10 would.
11 As I said, we pride ourselves on having fine staff.
12 This letter caught my attention, not so much that it was so
13 out of the ordinary, but it just showed a helpful quality
14 that we just want to recognize, so I want to commend you for
15 that.
16 MR. NGUYEN: I would like to take this opportunity
17 to thank the Board for recognizing for my contribution to the
18 Board and to the members of the public.
19 I would like to also thank my immediate supervisor,
20 Dennis Gudenow, who has given me the opportunity to work on
21 Ceidars-Lite, which brings me to the podium today, and I also
22 would like to thank Mrs. Linda Murchison, who is my Branch
23 Chief and my immediate supervisor, for helping me, supporting
24 me and encouraging me for many the years that I have worked
25 with the Board.
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1 I look around and see many of my friends here today
2 who are also from the same branch. We are supporting actors
3 basically, helping many of the programs with the Board, and I
4 think that many of them could be here today standing here in
5 place of me, but, well, thanks.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You're welcome.
7 That wasn't a bad speech, Chris. I know you didn't
8 know that was going to happen to you.
9 We will move into the Agenda. The first Item on
10 the Agenda today is 98-6-1, the Continuation of a Public
11 Hearing to Consider the Appeal of the City of Los Angeles
12 from Order Number 070297-04, of the Great Basin Unified Air
13 Pollution Control District.
14 This Item is a continuation from our June
15 twenty-fifth meeting. It is an appeal from the City of Los
16 Angeles regarding the Owens Lake Control Measures proposed by
17 the Great Basin District in its 1997 PM 10 Plan.
18 The hearing on the appeal was conducted
19 May 20, 1998. At the close of that hearing, the Board
20 continued the matter for one month and asked the parties to
21 work to gather in the interim in an attempt to resolve issues
22 raised in the Control Measures appeal.
23 On July twenty-fifth, after hearing from both
24 parties that tremendous progress had been made in
25 negotiations since the May twentieth hearing but that
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1 additional time was needed to finalize the process, the Board
2 granted the parties a joint request for further continuance
3 of the appeal hearing to today's meeting.
4 On Tuesday, July twenty-first, I received a letter
5 from the District advising our Board that the District's
6 Governing Board and the City of Los Angeles, through their
7 City Council, have approved a Memorandum of Agreement between
8 the District and the City to resolve the disputes concerning
9 the District's adoption of the Owens Valley Attainment
10 Demonstration SIP.
11 So, very good news. I understand that we have
12 representatives from both parties here to describe the
13 settlement and resultant actions.
14 Before that, however, I'll ask Mr. Kenny if he has
15 anything to add to this Item, and Mr. Kenny, if you would
16 introduce Ms. Barnes, I'd be grateful.
17 MR. KENNY: That would be fine. Ms. Barnes is here
18 again as a representative from the Attorney General's Office
19 as an advisor to the Board.
20 The only comment that I would make is that I have
21 also heard the good news, and I am pleased by it, and the
22 staff in general is pleased by it.
23 We always have thought that the best way to get a
24 solution here is for the parties to basically come to a
25 mutual consensus between themselves.
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1 So, with that, I guess I would turn it back to you,
2 Mr. Chairman.
3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. I guess we are going to
4 hear from the two parties.
5 I would ask them to come forward. We would ask you
6 to introduce yourselves again, though you are familiar to us
7 from a couple of months ago.
8 MS. LAWRENCE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a
9 pleasure to be here today.
10 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board, I am Andrea
11 Lawrence, Mono County Supervisor and a member of the
12 Governing Board of the Great Basin Air Pollution Control
13 District.
14 The District's Chairman, Chris Gansberg, and our
15 APCO, Dr. Ellen Hardebeck, have asked me to address you on
16 behalf of the District.
17 Of course, it is my great pleasure to do so, and in
18 fact, it's nice, furthermore, to be able to start the day off
19 for all of you with some very glad tidings.
20 On Monday evening of this week, our District Board
21 unanimously approved an historic agreement with the City of
22 Los Angeles to settle our legal disputes and to promptly
23 start controlling the extreme particulate pollution
24 experienced by thousands of people in and around the region
25 of the Owens Lake.
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1 This agreement contains a categorical commitment by
2 the City of Los Angeles to attain the Federal Air PM 10
3 Standards by the deadline set out in the Federal Clean Air
4 Act.
5 The commitment is backed up by specific time tables
6 and milestones that assure the effective controls will be
7 promptly implemented and that control efforts will continue
8 unabated until attainment of the Federal Standard is
9 achieved.
10 I must, obviously, take this opportunity to
11 acknowledge some very important players. I'm leaving you for
12 last, Mr. Chairman.
13 I have to start off -- last but not least, I need
14 to say that -- but I need to acknowledge the officials of the
15 City of Los Angeles, whose willingness to address the
16 problems squarely and to work toward a solution.
17 In this regard, I would really like to acknowledge
18 David Freeman, the General Manager, who has just done an
19 outstanding job. In fact, he has been so effective we may
20 absorb him into the east side of the Sierra Nevada.
21 Also, Ruth Galanter, from the City Council, has
22 worked very hard with all of us as well, and very
23 effectively, and they have been tireless in that.
24 And finally, Mr. Chairman, to you who set us on the
25 right track that many months ago on May twenty-second.
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1 I need to tell you that you did exactly the right
2 thing from all of our point of view. You stepped back and
3 let us in the sense of cooperation and collaboration do what
4 we felt we could do all along, and we are enormously
5 appreciative and want you to know that we feel very good
6 about how far we have come and what the results will be, and
7 as you know me, I'm always willing to invite you over to the
8 east side to come and see us.
9 There are other members who will walk you through
10 the agreement briefly, but thank you very much, all of you.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Mr. Jerry Gene.
12 MR. GENE: I am the Director of Water Resources for
13 the Department of Water and Power.
14 I'm here on behalf of our General Manager, David
15 Freeman, who would have liked to have been here for this
16 occasion, but about a year ago he made a commitment to be the
17 keynote speaker in a conference on electric vehicles in
18 Switzerland, and he didn't feel he could back out, so I think
19 that would be near and dear to your hearts as well.
20 We are appreciative also of the opportunity that we
21 have had to work together and the role of your Board and
22 staff in encouraging us to work out the problems.
23 I believe we have reached an agreement that meets
24 the needs of both parties; the City committing to solve the
25 problem, but also in return receiving the opportunity to
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1 extend the timeframe and cooperation in terms of developing
2 the measures as we move forward to solve the problem.
3 I think this has been in the best interest of both
4 parties, and we look forward to 2006 when we can tell you we
5 have reached attainment.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you. Very good.
7 All right. Mr. Phillip Shiner.
8 Brian, I was going to come to you.
9 MR. LAMB: Mr. Chairman, I am District Counsel, and
10 I'm appearing here with Phillip Shiner, Assistant City
11 Attorney.
12 We are jointly appearing to just walk through the
13 legal steps that we need to get from here to there very
14 briefly, and I want to first thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
15 your Board, for the patience and accommodation that you have
16 shown counsel throughout these proceedings.
17 I say this with good feelings that I am hopeful
18 that you will see less of me in the future. Mr. Chairman,
19 this Memorandum of Agreement provides that the District will
20 consider and presumptively adopt a revision to the State
21 Implementation Plan that was adopted by the Board on
22 July 22, 1997, and that provision will modify the timetables
23 and the milestones to provide the City with more flexibility
24 and working in a cooperative and adaptive relationship with
25 the District to attain the Federal Standards within the
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1 deadlines provided by law.
2 At this time what we are asking you to do is, in
3 order to keep our feet to the fire, is instead of dismissing
4 this appeal is to further continue it until the first public
5 hearing, the first regular Air Resources Board hearing to be
6 held after November 30, 1998, and to direct the Clerk to
7 comply with Government Code Section 11129 regarding
8 continuances.
9 We have asked you to serve the formal fee decision
10 that you adopted at the last meeting and to order off
11 calendar any other proceedings and any other pending City
12 appeal.
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. If I could, Ms. Barnes, if
14 I could ask you to track what a motion or resolution might
15 look like, and then we will come back and revisit it with
16 you, so we can capture as much of this as we can.
17 MS. BARNES: Certainly.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Great.
19 Mr. Shiner.
20 MR. SHINER: I'm here on behalf of the City of Los
21 Angeles.
22 I know that staffs on both sides have worked long
23 and hard to reach this agreement, and I'm confident that if
24 this matter is continued that it will make further progress
25 to get this problem solved.
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1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you. Very good.
2 I will ask you gentlemen to stay close. We have
3 one more witness, Mr. Campbell, from the Coalition.
4 We are appreciative of your traveling a great
5 distance to be here, but we also want you to know that we are
6 anxious to deal with this issue, so brevity would be a virtue
7 this morning.
8 MR. CAMPBELL: Brevity you will have. Good
9 morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board.
10 I'm here to represent the Coalition for Clean Air,
11 a nonprofit dedicated to restoring healthful air to the State
12 of California, and I also represent a coalition of groups
13 today, namely the ADRO Environmental Company, the Asian
14 American Drug Abuse Program, the Communities for a Better
15 Environment, Heal the Bay, Korean Youth and Community Center,
16 Mono Lake Committee, Mothers of East Los Angeles-Santa
17 Isabella and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
18 We are all here today to support the negotiated
19 agreement between the City of Los Angeles, Department of
20 Water and Power and the Great Basin Air Pollution Control
21 District.
22 It is our belief that the implementation of the
23 agreement will help to protect the health of those who reside
24 near Owens Lake.
25 We are in full support, and I will keep that brief,
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1 and I thank you for your time.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We have your written comments,
3 and we will make sure they get put into the record. Thank
4 you.
5 Okay. What I think I would like to do at this
6 juncture is do my best to recap this, and Ms. Barnes, I will
7 come to you, we have a letter, and our friend, the counsel
8 from Great Basin, just walked through that.
9 We are basically -- they have come to agreement.
10 They have followed the counsel we gave them to go back and
11 try to work this out.
12 They found the common ground. They need some time
13 to put together this MOA, and you are going through a process
14 to work on the details -- I'm looking to the legal counsel
15 there, a nodding of heads would be fine if I get that
16 right -- where you are going to negotiate the specificity.
17 We are not going to see it today. It's something
18 that you are working on.
19 There is going to be some attendant SIP that will
20 keep our plans whole; is that correct?
21 This will come together in the late November
22 timeframe. It will be all buttoned up, and then there will
23 be a SIP provision and that would come to us, Mr. Kenny --
24 MR. LAMB: Mr. Chairman, sorry, just to be
25 specific, the parties have concluded a Memorandum of
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1 Agreement.
2 The Memorandum of Agreement is what was adopted by
3 the Los Angeles City Council and by our Governing Board.
4 So, it is an agreement. It's a model of
5 simplicity. It's almost two typewritten pages.
6 What it does is it provides that the District will
7 adopt a SIP revision before November thirtieth that conforms
8 to the terms of this Memorandum of Agreement.
9 So, we are going to be doing a SIP revision between
10 now and November thirtieth. At the end of November, then we
11 will submit to you the revised SIP for your consideration,
12 approval and regular course.
13 The only circumstances under which this appeal
14 would have to be resuscitated is if for some reason the
15 process broke down between now and November, which we
16 consider extremely unlikely.
17 We will, just to walk through the timetable, we
18 will give you the SIP by November thirtieth. Our agreement
19 provides that ARB has contemplated to approve it by the end
20 of February of next year, and then it will be sent to EPA.
21 It's contemplated that EPA would approve it by the
22 end of August of 1999 and that the Federal Plan would then be
23 avoided.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good.
25 The reason why, just to remind a couple of my
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1 colleagues here, the reason why we are even engaged in the
2 details of this issue is because that the State law provides
3 that if agreement, common ground cannot be found, then we are
4 the appeal body that they come to. So, that's why.
5 The time process, Dr. Friedman, for example, would
6 be what would be considered normal or reasonable for SIP
7 updates or modifications.
8 Right, Mike?
9 MR. KENNY: Yes.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. So, this is not
11 extraordinary, Dr. Friedman, relative to time.
12 MR. KENNY: May I clarify one thing though,
13 Mr. Chairman, which is that it seems to me that what we are
14 talking about is continuing the Appeal of the Orders until
15 probably the December Board hearing, at which point there
16 would be a determination as to whether the Appeal is to be
17 abandoned or to be maintained.
18 Presumably there will be a SIP that will have been
19 adopted in November by the Great Basin, and so at that point
20 in December the Appeals would be abandoned, and then we would
21 actually go through the regular course of a SIP review
22 process and a SIP approval in January or February timeframe.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Would what I would
24 ask, would it be acceptable to both of your parties to
25 perhaps give us a written update for the September, October
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1 Board meeting, just like you did this last letter, or date it
2 the twenty-eighth, would you do that?
3 MR. LAMB: We will be honored to do so.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think I can speak for the Board
5 on this, we are heartened and enthusiastic about your
6 willingness to sit down and work through this.
7 I think it is very good. We are very pleased, and
8 we also think that there is a lot that can be done by two
9 parties working together working through this issue, and
10 there is great history here, and there has also been the
11 feeling that there has been a new look at this issue, and
12 there has been some new leadership, and I think that has
13 boded well for all of us.
14 Any comments that the Board wants to make before we
15 put this into some form of a motion?
16 All right. I will do my best to get this going.
17 Ms. Barnes, if we were to incorporate what these
18 gentlemen suggested along with some report, we will
19 memorialize that in a resolution or a motion, what would it
20 look like?
21 What would it sound like?
22 MS. BARNES: Actually, the Board could certainly at
23 its discretion just adopt the proposals that have been made
24 to the Board from the parties and the correspondence that you
25 just referred to from July twenty-eighth.
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1 Basically, they are asking to have the Control
2 Measures Order continue until after November thirtieth, and I
3 believe this Board is meeting the first part of December, I
4 want say December tenth; is that accurate?
5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes.
6 MS. BARNES: You could continue it to the date
7 certain of December tenth and then incorporate in that a
8 request for an update, a written update from the parties.
9 The parties are also asking that this Board direct
10 staff to serve on the City and the District the Board's
11 decision, adopted on June twenty-eighth, regarding the
12 District Board Order Number 041697-05, which is the Project
13 Budget Order.
14 They are also asking this Board to take off
15 calendar the City's Appeal of District Order Number
16 040198-02, which is pending Appeal of the District's 1997-98
17 second fee assessment.
18 So, you could certainly just adopt, make a motion
19 to adopt those three requests and go from there.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. The Chair would
21 entertain a motion.
22 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: So moved.
23 BOARD MEMBER PATRICK: Second.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: A motion made by Supervisor
25 Roberts and seconded by Supervisor Patrick.
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1 Any discussion we want to have on the motion?
2 I would ask Supervisor Roberts and Supervisor
3 Patrick that you would accept some written report from them
4 in October being added to your motion or to include that?
5 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I would accept that.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, we will look for a written
7 communication from both parties, hopefully together on one
8 letterhead, if possible, in that early October timeframe.
9 Any discussion on this Item?
10 Further discussion?
11 We will proceed with a voice vote.
12 All those in favor of the motion as outlined by our
13 counsel incorporating the July twenty-eighth request from
14 both the City of Los Angeles and the Great Basin Air
15 District, please, say aye.
16 Any opposed?
17 All right. The motion carries.
18 Thank you. Good luck.
19 It has been recommended to me that we take the
20 Diesel Item up next. I want to make sure that those that
21 have come some distance to be here for either the Fuel Cell
22 Item or the ZEV Item that we take it very seriously,
23 certainly our priority programs for us, but I think we are
24 going to move into the Diesel Item at this juncture.
25 I know we have a healthy witness list, so we will
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1 do our best to get to the witnesses. Before we begin this
2 Item, I would like to let you know how we handle sign-up for
3 testimony on it.
4 There is a Request to Present a Comment Card
5 available on the table outside of the hearing room, and staff
6 is there to assist you.
7 Please fill out the cards completely, giving all
8 requested information, and return them to the staff seated
9 outside, not the Clerk of the Board as is usually done.
10 This will facilitate the sign-up of so many people
11 that seem to be wishing to testify. If you have a written
12 statement, please give the staff the 20 copies.
13 For the other Items, you may sign-up with the Clerk
14 of the Board as has been the usual course.
15 I want to thank you for your cooperation.
16 The next Item on the Agenda today is 98-8-1, a
17 Public Hearing to Consider the Adoption of a Regulatory
18 Amendment Identifying Diesel Exhaust as a Toxic Air
19 Contaminant.
20 This Item for our consideration today is the staff
21 proposal to identify diesel exhaust as a TAC.
22 I want to take a moment and describe the process
23 that we are going to use for this very important Item.
24 It has received a lot of attention from both the
25 public and the Legislature, and many misconceptions have
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1 arisen.
2 Towards correcting these misconceptions, the
3 Legislature Senate Transportation Committee has scheduled an
4 informational hearing on August fourth.
5 They will be hearing from panels on the future of
6 diesel fuel use in California and related health effects
7 topics.
8 A number of Legislators have asked to defer our
9 action today until this Legislative Hearing occurs on the
10 fourth of August.
11 Out of respect for this request, I responded by
12 suggesting that we would proceed with hearing this Item today
13 and taking testimony, but we would defer action to our next
14 Board hearing date of August twenty-seventh.
15 I emphasize in my response that the Air Resources
16 Board's decision to list the substance as a toxic air
17 contaminant must by law focus on the health evidence
18 concerning exposure to the substance and possible adverse
19 health effects associated with this exposure.
20 Of course, we can consider information from the
21 Legislative hearing in our process, but we must base our
22 decision on the scientific evidence before us in order to
23 meet the requirements set out by State law.
24 What do the rest of the Board Members think about
25 deferring our vote on this Item until after the Senate
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1 hearing?
2 I have had some conversation with some of you,
3 there seems to be a consensus that it is a good thing.
4 Okay. With that, I will continue with a few more
5 comments, and then we will get into the presentations.
6 In the past we have heard about diesel exhaust with
7 regards to criteria pollutants, and in fact, great strides
8 have been made in reducing emissions from new engines.
9 These steps have significantly reduced ozone
10 precursors and particulate matter emissions from diesel
11 fueled vehicles and engines.
12 Along with reduction in criteria pollutants, there
13 have been significant reductions in toxic pollutants as well.
14 Today we are going to hear from members of our
15 staff, the staff of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard
16 Assessment, or OEHHA, Dr. Denton is here, welcome, and the
17 Scientific Review Panel, that exposure to diesel exhaust
18 presents a potential public health risk and is being
19 recommended for identification as a toxic air contaminant
20 under State law.
21 Diesel exhaust has been under review for listing as
22 a TAC for almost ten years. The identification process has
23 been a full public process consisting of three formal public
24 comment periods, three workshops, three SRP meetings and
25 numerous individual meetings and conference calls with
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1 interested parties.
2 In April, the SRP approved the report and
3 subsequently sent us their findings. The past 45 days has
4 constituted the fourth and final public comment period.
5 The identification is a listing process. No
6 controls are being proposed at today's hearing.
7 If the Board finds that diesel exhaust meets the
8 State law definition of a toxic air contaminant and adopts
9 the listing as such, that will complete the identification
10 process.
11 Diesel exhaust will then enter what we call the
12 Risk Management Phase. I would like the audience to know
13 that in the Risk Management Phase we will not consider
14 banning diesel fuel or engines.
15 As we will hear from staff, we will use an
16 inclusive process to determine whether any additional
17 emissions controls are needed to further reduce emissions
18 from diesel fueled engines.
19 Meanwhile, I want to emphasize to the audience,
20 again, and to the Board, that what we are deliberating on
21 today is the listing of diesel exhaust, and in our
22 deliberation we need to keep in mind the definition of a
23 toxic air contaminant, which staff will be presenting to us
24 shortly.
25 I would like to acknowledge the three Members of
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1 SRP who are here today, Dr. John Froines, from UCLA -- John,
2 good to see you -- Dr. Paul Blanc, from UCSF, and Dr. Anthony
3 Fucaloro, from Claremont McKenna College.
4 Thank you for coming.
5 The SRP continues to make an invaluable
6 contribution to our Toxic Air Contaminant Program by
7 providing a comprehensive and scientific peer review of our
8 reports.
9 These scientists are nationally and internationally
10 known and respected. We are fortunate to have them as
11 participants in this process.
12 The participation of the SRP along with other
13 stakeholders ensures that the best available scientific
14 information is used in the identification process.
15 At this point, I would like to ask Mr. Kenny, our
16 Executive Officer, to introduce the Item and to begin the
17 staff's presentation, which will be followed by Dr. Froines,
18 who will present the SRP's findings on diesel exhaust.
19 We will also hear the report by the Ombudsman, Jim
20 Schoning on the staff's outreach on the Item, and I
21 understand, Mr. Kenny, that you will begin your introduction
22 with an overview of our TAC Program.
23 MR. KENNY: Yes, Mr. Chair.
24 Before I do begin, I just want to, for the sake of
25 the record, clarify one thing.
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1 When you looked to the rest of the Board Members to
2 determine whether or not there was consensus about deferring
3 until after the Senate hearing, what I observed was
4 essentially that every Board Member was in agreement that, in
5 fact, to defer was appropriate.
6 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, just a
7 procedural question.
8 I have the feeling that there is going to be a fair
9 amount of testimony today. Does that mean that we are going
10 to repeat all of this in August once again?
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: No.
12 We are going to have some management of that. We
13 will check witnesses and whatnot.
14 Ron, my concern about closing the hearing today, I
15 want to leave it open so that if anything emerges from the
16 Legislative Hearing we have an opportunity to have it brought
17 back and be considered in our deliberation, but I will do
18 some management so we do not have repeat witnesses covering
19 the same ground again.
20 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Is it possible to close
21 additional public testimony but have a report on the Senate
22 information that was provided at the Senate?
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Later in the meeting I will get
24 together with our legal counsel, and we will have an
25 opportunity to chat.
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1 It is going to be a full day, I'm sure, and I will
2 come back and address that, but I don't know at this point.
3 We will figure out how to do it.
4 MR. KENNY: The Toxic Air Contaminant Program was
5 established in 1983 by Assembly Bill 1807 and consists of two
6 phases, risk management and risk assessment.
7 During the risk assessment, or identification
8 phase, the potential health effects of exposure to a
9 substance are examined.
10 During the risk management phase, the need for an
11 appropriate degree of controls for the substance are
12 evaluated.
13 As you can see from the slide, the first step of
14 the identification phase begins with a prioritization of
15 substances of importance in California.
16 Factors considered include California specific
17 emissions and exposure, persistence in the atmosphere and
18 potential risks to the public health.
19 Once a substance is selected for evaluation, we
20 prepare the Exposure Assessment Report, and OEHHA prepares
21 the Health Assessment Report.
22 Meanwhile, lead members of the SRP are appointed to
23 work with staff. The lead members are responsible for
24 providing scientific guidance to the staff in developing the
25 reports.
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1 The draft reports are distributed for public review
2 and comment. Public workshops are held where interested
3 parties can discuss issues with the staff and the Scientific
4 Review Panel lead persons.
5 After the public comment periods and workshop,
6 staff of the Air Resources Board and the Office of
7 Environmental Health Hazard Assessment consider the comments
8 received on the Report and revise the Report accordingly.
9 The Report then goes formally to the SRP, which is
10 charged with reviewing the Report to determine whether sound
11 scientific knowledge, methods and practices were used.
12 After the SRP is satisfied with the science
13 presented in the Report, it prepares Findings which are
14 submitted to the ARB.
15 The ARB then prepares a Staff Report that is
16 released for a 45-day public comment period preceding the
17 regulatory hearing to consider identification.
18 After an extensive nine-year effort, this is where
19 we are today with diesel exhaust. Once a substance has been
20 listed as a toxic air contaminant, the ARB begins a second
21 phase of the State's Air Toxics Program, Risk Management.
22 In this phase a needs assessment is conducted to
23 determine a need for an appropriate degree of further
24 controls with full public participation.
25 If diesel exhaust is listed as a toxic air
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1 contaminant, the ARB staff will create a Diesel Exhaust Risk
2 Management Working Group.
3 Participants will include interested industries,
4 associations, environmental groups, other governmental
5 agencies, such as the U.S. EPA, and the air districts,
6 including other interested parties.
7 The Working Group would advise ARB staff and serve
8 as a forum for ongoing communication as additional
9 opportunities to further reduce emissions from diesel engines
10 are examined.
11 I also want to point out that when the Board
12 identifies a substance as a toxic air contaminant, it does
13 not adopt, per say, the risk values included in the health
14 assessment.
15 These risk values are provided to reflect an
16 assessment of the current scientific knowledge on the
17 potential magnitude of the risk posed by a substance and to
18 provide guidelines for risk managers.
19 The ARB and OEHHA staffs recognize that these
20 health values are subject to change based on new peer
21 reviewed scientific studies, and a process is in place to
22 amend these health values should new studies so indicate.
23 During the risk management phase, we would work
24 closely with the risk managers on how the health information
25 is used. So, in many respects the proposed action today is
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1 similar to the action taken almost ten years ago by the
2 International Agency for Research on Cancer, that is to
3 recognize that diesel exhaust is a toxic substance.
4 With that, I would like to call upon Mr. Robert
5 Krieger, of the Stationary Source Division and Dr. Melanie
6 Marty, Acting Chief of the Air Toxicology and Epidemiology
7 Section at OEHHA, to present the exposure and health
8 assessments for diesel exhaust.
9 Mr. Krieger.
10 MR. KRIEGER: Thank you, Mr. Kenny, and good
11 morning, Chairman Dunlap and Members of the Board.
12 My name is Robert Krieger, and I will be presenting
13 a brief history and then an overview of Part A of the
14 Exposure Assessment prepared by ARB staff for diesel exhaust.
15 In my presentation I will provide you with a
16 summary of the proposed action for the listing for diesel
17 exhaust as toxic air contaminant, a background of Diesel
18 Exhaust Identification Program and a brief summary of our
19 Part A Exposure Assessment.
20 At that point, I will be turning my presentation
21 over to Dr. Melanie Marty, of the Office of Environmental
22 Health Hazard Assessment, who will provide a summary of the
23 health assessment for diesel exhaust.
24 Then, I will close with a discussion on the steps
25 that will follow the identification process and our staff
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1 recommendation.
2 Today, the Board will be considering diesel exhaust
3 an a toxic air contaminant. The listing is based on whether
4 diesel exhaust meets the definition of a toxic air
5 contaminant and whether or not a threshold exposure level can
6 be identified, in other words, no significant adverse health
7 effects are anticipated.
8 If diesel exhaust is listed as a toxic air
9 contaminant, the Board accepts but does not adopt the cancer
10 and noncancer health values as presented in the comprehensive
11 risk assessment, in doing so, essential guidance is provided
12 to the risk management process.
13 Next, I will provide a background to our Toxic Air
14 Contaminant Program.
15 As you heard from Mr. Kenny, we have a
16 Comprehensive Toxic Air Contaminant Program in California.
17 A toxic air contaminant, or TAC, is defined in the
18 law as an air pollutant, which may cause or contribute to an
19 increase in mortality or in serious illness or which may pose
20 a present or potential hazard to human health.
21 In October of 1989, we entered diesel exhaust into
22 the identification phase of the Program. The National
23 Institute for Occupational Safety and Health first
24 recommended that whole diesel exhaust be regarded as a
25 potential occupational carcinogen based on animal and human
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1 evidence in 1988.
2 In 1989, the International Agency for Research on
3 Cancer listed diesel exhaust as a probable human carcinogen,
4 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiated an
5 evaluation of both the cancer and noncancer health effects.
6 ARB and OEHHA gave priority to the evaluation of
7 diesel exhaust because it met the Toxic Air Contaminant
8 Program criteria related to the potential risk of harm to
9 public health, emissions, exposure and persistence in the
10 atmosphere.
11 This slide shows the chronology of the extensive
12 nine year process for the evaluation of diesel exhaust.
13 I won't go through each bullet on the slide, but I
14 will summarize for you a few key activities. Diesel exhaust
15 entered the Toxic Air Contaminant Identification Process in
16 1989.
17 Since that time, three SRP versions of the draft
18 report were prepared and provided for public review and
19 comment.
20 Three public workshops were held to discuss the
21 report. Two focused scientific meetings were held, with the
22 most recent being the March 11, 1998 Special SRP Meeting with
23 invited scientists, which culminated in the SRP approving the
24 Report in April of 1998.
25 With the next few slides I will be providing an
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1 overview of the Exposure Assessment Report. Diesel exhaust
2 is a complex mixture of thousands of gases and fine particles
3 emitted by internal combustion engines.
4 Some of the components are suspected or known to
5 cause cancer in humans. Diesel exhaust contains over 40
6 substances that have been identified as toxic air
7 contaminants.
8 Over 90 percent of the particles are much smaller
9 than 2.5 microns in diameter and therefore can be inhaled
10 deep into the lung.
11 This slide shows the 40-plus compounds that have
12 been designated as Federal hazardous air pollutants, or HAPS,
13 and have been identified by ARB as toxic air contaminants; 15
14 of these, marked by asterisks, are listed by the
15 International Agency for Research on Cancer as carcinogenic
16 to humans or as possible or probable human carcinogens.
17 This slide shows the sources in emissions of diesel
18 exhaust in California. Diesel exhaust PM contributes about
19 26 percent of the total statewide PM from all stationary and
20 mobile source fuel combustion sources.
21 Of sources of diesel exhaust, almost 60 percent is
22 from on-road vehicles. Diesel exhaust PM was used as a
23 primary measure of our exposure assessment.
24 It is important to note that many existing Federal
25 and State regulations already provide significant reductions
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1 in emissions from diesel trucks and buses, including oxides
2 of nitrogen and particulate matter.
3 This slide shows the significant reductions in the
4 emission rates from diesel exhaust particulate matter from
5 uncontrolled on-road heavy-duty diesel engines to today's
6 diesel engines.
7 Particulate matter emissions from newer on-road
8 heavy-duty diesel engines are about 90 percent cleaner today
9 than from uncontrolled levels.
10 I would also like to note that hydrocarbon
11 emissions have also decreased as a result of meeting these
12 particulate matter standards.
13 This slide shows the reductions in the emissions of
14 nitrogen oxides from uncontrolled on-road heavy-duty diesel
15 engines to those effective in 2004.
16 NOx emissions from newer on-road heavy-duty diesel
17 engines are about 60 to 70 percent cleaner today compared to
18 uncontrolled levels.
19 The ARB, U.S. EPA and the manufacturers of diesel
20 engines have signed two statements of principles to reduce
21 further emissions of NOx and hydrocarbons from on-road
22 heavy-duty diesel engines and off-road farm and construction
23 equipment.
24 The on-road standard will cut NOx and hydrocarbon
25 emissions from these vehicles in half by 2004, as shown on
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1 this slide.
2 Full implementation of the off-road standard is
3 expected to cut NOx and hydrocarbon emissions by more than 60
4 percent from many off-road engines.
5 Reducing NOx will also reduce particulate matter
6 emissions formed because of the secondary reactions in the
7 atmosphere.
8 Several other regulations or programs have been
9 implemented to reduce the exposures to diesel exhaust.
10 These include the 1993 Cleaner Diesel Fuel
11 Regulation, PM NOx standards for new off-road diesel engines,
12 PM standards for cars and light-duty trucks and a Road-Side
13 Smoke Inspection Program for On-Road Heavy-Duty Diesel
14 Vehicles.
15 New alternative fuel buses on order are about 70
16 percent of the average annual purchase of urban buses in
17 California.
18 ARB staff are currently pursuing programs which
19 would involve the use of reformulated diesel fuel in
20 locomotives, more stringent PM emission standards for
21 off-road diesel engines and further PM reductions for
22 light-duty cars and trucks.
23 In addition, the Administration has proposed a
24 major Incentives Program to assist in the early introduction
25 of cleaner engines.
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1 Currently, the pending budget includes $25 million
2 for this Program.
3 As stated in the previous slides, there have been
4 significant advances in the development of technology to
5 control diesel emissions.
6 This slide demonstrates the projected diesel
7 exhaust PM emissions through 2010. Diesel exhaust
8 particulate matter emissions are expected to decrease by
9 about 30 percent between 1995 and 2010.
10 Although not shown on this slide, diesel exhaust,
11 NOx and hydrocarbon emissions are both expected to decrease
12 by about 15 percent between 1995 and 2010.
13 The projected emissions include the reductions
14 anticipated from not only the heavy-duty diesel truck and bus
15 engine standards, as in the previous slide, but other
16 measures, such as the 1993 Reformulated Diesel Fuel
17 Regulation and off-road engine and light-duty diesel vehicle
18 standards.
19 Some of the approaches used to meet the standards I
20 described in the last few slides include engine
21 modifications, such as exhaust gas recirculation, timing
22 retard, high pressure injection and electronic engine
23 controls.
24 The use of reformulated diesel fuel has also
25 resulted in decreased emissions of particulate matter in
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1 nitrogen oxides.
2 Next, I will present our estimates of Californian's
3 exposure to diesel exhaust. We estimate that in 1995 the
4 population weighted average outdoor concentration is 2.2
5 micrograms per cubic meter.
6 We have also estimated a daily exposure
7 concentration considering the time you spend indoors to be
8 about 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter.
9 Near source concentrations of diesel exhaust PM may
10 be several times average outdoor concentrations. As a result
11 of current control measures already in place, we estimate
12 that the average outdoor concentrations will decrease about
13 30 percent from 1995 to 2010.
14 Emission reductions from adopted new engine
15 emission standards and diesel fuel reformulation were taken
16 into account in calculating these exposure numbers.
17 This table lists the ambient diesel exhaust PM
18 concentration estimates developed by a number of researchers
19 using a variety of data bases and estimation methods.
20 As you can see, ARB's outdoor ambient estimates
21 compare well with the ranges of concentrations presented by
22 these researchers.
23 In the course of developing the Report, we
24 considered how emissions from the use of pre-1993 diesel fuel
25 differed from post-1993 reformulated diesel fuel.
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1 To address this question, we contracted with the
2 College of Engineering, Center for Environmental Research and
3 Technology, at the University of California, in Riverside, to
4 study the differences in exhaust emissions from the use of
5 these fuels.
6 Results show a comparable criteria of pollutant
7 reductions to those estimated for the 1993 Reformulated
8 Diesel Fuel Regulation.
9 Results also show that although the mass of some of
10 the individual compounds may have decreased, the same toxic
11 air contaminants exist in the exhaust from the use of both
12 pre-1993 and post-1993 diesel fuel.
13 We also acknowledge that this study was limited in
14 scope and that further research would be helpful to quantify
15 the amounts of specific compounds admitted from a variety of
16 engine technologies, operating cycles and fuel to better
17 characterize the differences between old and new fuels and
18 technology.
19 Currently the ARB is funding research to evaluate
20 further diesel exhaust. For the fiscal year 1998-1999, ARB
21 has approved three diesel exhaust related studies.
22 These include studies to further improve our
23 off-road diesel emissions inventory, develop analytical
24 methods to add oxides of nitrogen testing to our Heavy-Duty
25 Diesel Inspection and Maintenance Program and to test the
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1 physical and chemical characteristics of size segregated
2 particulate matter emissions from gasoline and diesel powered
3 on-road motor vehicles.
4 That concludes my summary of Part A Exposure
5 Assessment.
6 Now I will turn the presentation over to Dr.
7 Melanie Marty, who will give an overview of the OEHHA's
8 Part B Health Risk Assessment, and then I will close our
9 presentations with the steps that we would take following the
10 identification and our staff recommendation.
11 Melanie.
12 DR. MARTY: Good morning, Chairman Dunlap and
13 Members of the Board. My name is Melanie Marty, and I'm with
14 the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
15 I am here this morning to provide you with a brief
16 overview of the health effects assessment of the diesel
17 exhaust.
18 The proceedings will cover a summary of the process
19 we went through to conduct our evaluation. I will touch
20 briefly on the assessment of noncancer health effects, and I
21 will also describe the cancer Health Effects Assessment,
22 including information on genetic damage, cancer epidemiology,
23 the findings of OEHHA and of other health agencies, our
24 cancer risk estimate and some related concerns.
25 The Health Effects Assessment review process was
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1 extensive. OEHHA reviewed all available health effects
2 studies of diesel exhaust, including studies of animals and
3 studies of genetic damage to cells.
4 OEHHA reviewed and considered all submitted public
5 comments during the four years since the release of our
6 original draft.
7 We coordinated our assessment with the U.S. EPA
8 staff, who are also required to evaluate the health effects
9 of diesel exhaust, and this includes reviewing each other's
10 work and communicating staff to staff.
11 OEHHA jointly sponsored a scientific workshop on
12 the human health effects of diesel exhaust in January of
13 1996.
14 As you have heard, the Health Effects Assessment
15 was discussed at several Scientific Review Panel meetings and
16 workshops.
17 In March of 1998, the Scientific Review Panel
18 invited scientists who worked on diesel exhaust issues to
19 provide testimony to them.
20 The Scientific Review Panel peer reviewed the
21 Health Effects Assessment and approved the document in April
22 of 1998.
23 The noncancer health effects include increased
24 symptoms of throat and bronchial irritation in humans exposed
25 to diesel exhaust.
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1 Recent studies have demonstrated allergic
2 immunological responses in humans and animals. Lung damage
3 has been demonstrated following long-term exposure in humans
4 in the occupational setting and in experimental animals.
5 We estimated a safe level of exposure based on
6 animal studies, and this is for noncancer health endpoints.
7 For long-term exposure, OEHHA estimates that a
8 level of five micrograms diesel exhaust particulate per cubic
9 meter of air would be protective against noncancer health
10 effects.
11 This is in line with the U.S. EPA's existing
12 reference concentration as published in their Integrated Risk
13 Information System of five micrograms per cubic meter, and
14 also falls within the range of estimates of exposures that
15 the World Health Organization considers to be protective
16 against noncancer health effects.
17 The presence of chemicals that cause gene damage
18 provides a basis for the biological plausibility of
19 carcinogenicity of diesel exhaust.
20 Whole diesel exhaust and diesel exhaust extracts
21 were reported to be mutagenic, or to cause genetic damage to
22 bacteria, to human cells and other mammalian cell systems.
23 There is evidence which suggests that diesel
24 exhaust components are bound to the DNA of workers and of
25 animals exposed to diesel exhaust, and finally, mutagenic
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1 components of diesel exhaust were found in the urine of
2 exposed workers and animals.
3 Studies in animals have demonstrated that diesel
4 exhaust exposure induces lung cancer. The U.S. EPA, the
5 International Agency for Research on Cancer and the World
6 Health Organization all concluded that diesel exhaust causes
7 lung cancer in animals.
8 While OEHHA agrees that diesel exhaust exposure
9 induces lung cancer in animals, we did not use animal data in
10 developing the range of risk estimates to humans, because
11 human data were available.
12 Use of human data thus avoids the uncertainty of
13 trying to extrapolate from evidence in animals to people.
14 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean
15 Air Science Advisory Committee also suggested to the U.S. EPA
16 staff that they use human epidemiology data to quantitate the
17 risk to humans rather than using the animals, so we are on
18 the same wave length as the U.S. EPA.
19 There are 30 independent human studies of workers
20 exposed to whole diesel exhaust which consistently show a
21 pattern of elevated lung cancer risk.
22 These worker studies evaluated bus and truck
23 drivers, railroad workers, dock workers, transport workers
24 and heavy-equipment operators.
25 In addition, various diesel fuels and engine types
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1 were used in these occupational settings. I want to
2 emphasize that OEHHA assessed all available human studies and
3 reports which described the relationship between diesel
4 exhaust exposure and cancer risk.
5 The published studies consistently show elevated
6 lung cancer risk in diesel exhaust exposed workers.
7 We concluded that the findings were likely not due
8 to a bias in the studies or to chance.
9 Finally, the results of these studies are
10 biologically plausible, that is, they make sense in light of
11 the constituents of diesel exhaust, which includes a number
12 of carcinogens.
13 This is probably the most important slide. As they
14 say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
15 This graph presents 20 estimates of relative risk
16 from 12 of the human studies that accounted for the influence
17 of cigarette smoking on lung cancer in the workers.
18 A relative risk of one, which used to be indicated
19 by a dotted line in the slide, I don't know what happened to
20 the dotted line.
21 If you look on the left axis, you can see it starts
22 at zero and goes up to one. A relative risk of one means
23 that basically there is no effect, that the incidence of lung
24 cancer in the workers who are exposed to diesel exhaust isn't
25 any different than the incidence of lung cancer in workers
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1 who were not exposed to diesel exhaust.
2 The average relative risk estimates from 12 human
3 studies that accounted for the influence of cigarette smoking
4 on lung cancer are depicted here.
5 We have 20 relative risk estimates from 12 studies.
6 The little dashes on the slide represent the average relative
7 risk estimated from the data.
8 If there was no effective diesel exhaust, the bold
9 dashes would be expected to more or less fall above and below
10 one.
11 One can see that all but one of the dashes are
12 above one, and in many cases, the 95 percent competence
13 interval, which is represented by the vertical bar, is also
14 completely above one.
15 We combined all the information from these studies
16 in what is called a meta-analysis. That point is indicated
17 as the last point on the right by the arrow.
18 It is clear from the meta-analysis that
19 occupational diesel exhaust exposure increases the risk of
20 lung cancer by about 40 percent in the worker study.
21 In 1990, diesel exhaust was listed as known to the
22 State to cause cancer under Proposition 65. The current
23 Report states that the evidence is consistent with a causal
24 relationship between occupational diesel exhaust exposure and
25 lung cancer.
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1 A number of other health agencies have also looked
2 at diesel exhaust. The U.S. EPA produced several drafts, the
3 latest of which was in 1998, and in that they state that the
4 human evidence is highly suggestive of carcinogenicity and
5 characterized diesel exhaust as just short of a known human
6 carcinogen.
7 The International Agency for Research on Cancer in
8 1989, stated there was limited evidence for carcinogenicity
9 in humans and classified diesel exhaust as a probable human
10 carcinogen.
11 The Health Effects Institute in 1995, and the World
12 Health Organization in 1996, wrote reports on diesel exhaust
13 carcinogenicity in which they state the data are consistent
14 in showing weak associations between exposure to diesel
15 exhaust and lung cancer.
16 I'll briefly discuss our quantitative cancer risk
17 estimates. Our unit risk range is based on human data as
18 suggested by the Scientific Review Panel and also are
19 suggested, coincidentally, by the Clean Air Science Advisory
20 Committee to U.S. EPA staff.
21 We estimated cancer unit risk in our document from
22 the summary of all the human studies, that was our first
23 step, just trying to bracket the range of risk.
24 We then conducted a detailed, quantitative risk
25 assessment with data from two railroad worker studies, the
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1 unit risk from our detailed analysis fall within the range
2 estimated from the results of the meta-analysis.
3 The risk to truck drivers calculated by NIOSH,
4 that's the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
5 Health, and recently published, I believe this month, fall
6 within our range of risk.
7 In our document we have thoroughly evaluated
8 uncertainties, especially that associated with exposure
9 estimates.
10 To take into account these uncertainties, OEHHA
11 provides a range of unit risk as required in the statute.
12 Research is always welcome to help reduce
13 uncertainty, and as you have heard, the ARB is supporting a
14 research proposal by the Health Effects Institute, which
15 might produce information to reduce uncertainty, in which we
16 would use sometime down the line.
17 This slide compares other researchers unit risk
18 estimates to OEHHA's estimates. OEHHA's down at the bottom,
19 130 to 2400 per million per microgram per cubic meter.
20 The U.S. EPA range is the top number, falls between
21 30 and 2000 per million persons exposed per microgram of
22 diesel exhaust particulate.
23 Their range includes animal studies, and the animal
24 studies generally provide a lower estimate than the human
25 studies.
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1 The World Health Organization also used animal
2 studies to estimate a range of 16 to 71 per million.
3 NIOSH evaluated risks based on a study of truck
4 drivers, which had relatively good estimates of exposure.
5 Their range is 100 to 1600 per million and is comparable to
6 that developed by OEHHA from the railroad worker studies.
7 Harris, back in 1983, estimated risks of 1400 per
8 million from data in transport workers in England, and Smith
9 in 1998, estimated a risk of 300 per million based on
10 meta-analysis of a variety of workers.
11 In summary then, OEHHA's noncancer risk analysis
12 supports the existing U.S. EPA value of five micrograms per
13 cubic meter as an exposure level that would be protective of
14 noncancer health effects.
15 OEHHA was unable to identify thresholds below which
16 no carcinogenic health effects are anticipated. The range of
17 potential lung cancer risks that we calculated is 130 to 2400
18 per million persons exposed to one microgram diesel exhaust
19 particulate per cubic meter and is based on human data.
20 Just for information, the average daily total
21 exposure is about one and a half micrograms per cubic meter,
22 as we heard earlier in ARB's presentation.
23 Increased lung cancer risk has been observed in
24 numerous studies of diesel exhaust exposed workers.
25 The animal data and studies of genetic damage
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1 support the cancer findings in humans. Noncancer health
2 effects include respiratory irritation, lung damage and
3 allergic responses.
4 Finally, independent assessments, both simple and
5 complex, lead to similar risk estimates using a variety of
6 data sets from different occupational settings.
7 Then, finally, OEHHA believes that there is an
8 increased cancer risk to the public from breathing diesel
9 exhaust.
10 That concludes my presentation.
11 MR. KRIEGER: I will now provide a summary of the
12 steps that we would take following the identification of
13 diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant.
14 If ARB identifies diesel exhaust as a toxic air
15 contaminant, a needs assessment will be conducted to
16 determine if any further regulatory action is necessary.
17 The needs assessment will include diesel exhaust
18 present in future emissions, available control technologies,
19 cost for reducing emissions and the potential adverse impacts
20 to the public and environment associated with the
21 implementation of a control measure.
22 In its assessment, the staff would focus on
23 technological opportunities beyond those already in place to
24 further reduce public exposure to diesel exhaust.
25 If this assessment identifies additional
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1 technically-feasible and cost-effective opportunities for
2 reducing exposures to diesel emissions within the authority
3 of ARB, the ARB would then develop specific control measures
4 in an open, regulatory process with full public involvement.
5 In order to facilitate this process, we plan to
6 create a Diesel Exhaust Risk Management Working Group to
7 advise ARB staff during the process.
8 We also plan to work with OEHHA, the air pollution
9 control districts, affected industries and other interested
10 parties to develop Risk Management Guidelines for the air
11 districts to use when permitting stationary diesel engines.
12 The Diesel Exhaust Risk Management Working Group
13 would be advisory in nature and would provide a forum for
14 ongoing communication and coordination in the development of
15 the needs assessments for diesel exhaust.
16 The group would also identify research needs and
17 share the status of ongoing diesel research. Participation
18 in the Working Group would be open to all interested parties,
19 including interested industries, associations, environmental
20 groups and other governmental agencies, such as the U.S. EPA
21 and air districts.
22 Meetings of the group would be publicly noticed and
23 open to all. If diesel exhaust is listed as a toxic air
24 contaminant, the Working Group could be formed within two
25 months of the listing.
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1 If the ARB determines a need for further control,
2 the Working Group would work with us in prioritizing the
3 effort.
4 Some of the strategies we would look at include
5 tighter emission standards for new vehicles, further
6 reformulation of diesel fuel, maintaining low emissions in
7 use and intensive programs to promote early introduction of
8 cleaner engines, such as the accelerated turnover of in-use
9 diesel engines and alternative engine and fuel technologies.
10 We anticipate that the focus will be on the
11 particulate matter and volatile organic component of diesel
12 exhaust.
13 As mentioned before, during this process, we would
14 not consider banning diesel fuel or engines.
15 In summary, diesel exhaust is a complex mixture of
16 gases and fine particles. Diesel exhaust has widespread
17 exposure and is present in the ambient air.
18 Much has been done to significantly reduce
19 emissions of and exposures to diesel exhaust. As a result,
20 diesel exhaust exposures have decreased and are anticipated
21 to continue to decrease through 2010.
22 The evaluation of diesel exhaust as a toxic air
23 contaminant has been under an extensive nine year public
24 process.
25 OEHHA has reviewed the science and concludes that
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1 an increased lung cancer risk has been observed in numerous
2 studies.
3 Although the current available science is strong,
4 we support efforts for further research on diesel exhaust
5 composition and health.
6 And if the Board identifies diesel exhaust as a
7 toxic air contaminant, we are committed to an inclusive
8 stakeholder process and will form a Diesel Exhaust Risk
9 Management Working Group.
10 We are also committed to developing Risk Management
11 Guidelines for air districts.
12 We conclude that diesel exhaust meets the
13 definition of a toxic air contaminant and recommend that the
14 Board approve our proposal to identify diesel exhaust as a
15 toxic air contaminant with no identified level of exposure
16 below which no cancer effects are anticipated.
17 We recommend that the Board direct staff to begin
18 the risk management phase for diesel exhaust and to form a
19 Diesel Exhaust Risk Management Working Group to coordinate
20 efforts with the U.S. EPA, industry, environmental groups and
21 other interested parties.
22 We also recommend that the Board direct staff to
23 work closely with OEHHA, the air districts, affected
24 industries and other interested parties to develop Risk
25 Management Guidelines that the districts can use for
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1 permitting stationary diesel engines.
2 The staff will report back to the Board within one
3 year on the progress towards developing these guidelines.
4 Thank you. That ends my presentation.
5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Mr. Krieger.
6 I would like to introduce Dr. John Froines, who has
7 been serving as an acting Chair of the SRP. Dr. Froines is
8 the Director of the UCLA Center for Occupational
9 Environmental Health, and he will be providing an overview of
10 the SRP's findings on diesel exhaust.
11 I think he will be shedding some light on the core
12 of the debate as well.
13 Dr. Froines, welcome.
14 DR. FROINES: Thank you. Thank you, Chairman
15 Dunlap.
16 Good morning, Members of the Board. I'm pleased to
17 present the findings of the SRP this morning.
18 Looking over my notes before I got here, I realized
19 that I was a little bit like a graduate student preparing for
20 an exam, and I may have over prepared in terms of the number
21 of materials that I have before me, so I think that what I am
22 going to do is go along for awhile and give you some of the
23 information that I have developed and then stop, and
24 hopefully, I won't then try your patience with me.
25 What I think the first thing that I need to say is
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1 as we talk about the evidence, as OEHHA talks about the
2 evidence, and the ARB, I think it is important to keep the
3 definition of a toxic air contaminant in mind, because the
4 question really comes down to whether the agency staffs and
5 the SRP have met our requirements within the context of that
6 definition.
7 So, I say that at the outset.
8 I want to quote from our Findings the Conclusions,
9 so we know at the beginning what we have agreed upon. I just
10 want to quote three quickly.
11 Based on available scientific information, a level
12 of exhaust exposure below which no carcinogenic effects are
13 anticipated and have not been identified, based on available
14 scientific evidence, as well as the results of the risk
15 assessment, we conclude that the diesel exhaust be identified
16 as a toxic air contaminant.
17 Finally, for these reasons, which are stated
18 throughout the findings, we agree with the science presented
19 in Part A by ARB and Part B by OEHHA, in the Report on Diesel
20 Exhaust, and the ARB staff recommendation to its Board, that
21 diesel exhaust be listed by the ARB as a toxic air
22 contaminant.
23 So, those are the conclusions that we start with.
24 Now, let me go back and begin to fill you in on some of the
25 evidence and other factors that will go into this process.
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1 First, I want to introduce Dr. Anthony Fucaloro,
2 who is sitting at my right. Dr. Fucaloro is responsible for
3 the Part A, the exposure assessment phase of the documents of
4 the SRP review, and so he would be available for answering
5 questions specifically about those general areas.
6 Secondly, Dr. Paul Blanc, from the University of
7 California, in San Francisco, will be joining us sometime
8 between now and 11:00, I think, and so he will be available
9 for questions. Paul is an Occupational Physician whose
10 principal area is in the area of health effects.
11 I am not going to go over the other findings of the
12 SRP in detail, you have them, and I want to focus on some
13 specific issues rather than trying to cover everything.
14 Let me say at the outset that, as you know, and we
15 know, and everybody who is sitting behind me knows, that this
16 has been a very long process.
17 Hopefully we are bringing it to some level of
18 closure, at least with respect to the risk assessment phase.
19 The Scientific Review Panel has been an active
20 participant throughout that nine-year process. We
21 participated in the San Francisco workshop. We participated
22 in a workshop held in this room in Sacramento, and we held
23 our own workshop.
24 I want to say a couple of words about our own
25 workshop. Basically, the Panel recognized how important
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1 diesel exhaust was going to be.
2 Now, you should realize that the Panel has never
3 taken verbal testimony at a meeting since it was begun in
4 1983.
5 We've participated in workshops and hearings or
6 other kinds of scientific venues, but we have never taken
7 public testimony during the course of SRP meeting.
8 We broke that precedent with diesel exhaust. We
9 held our own workshop for the first time in our history,
10 precisely because the issues before us were so important.
11 We held a workshop on the scientific issues related
12 to diesel exhaust on March 22, 1998, to hear from some of the
13 most respected scientists in the United States on the diesel
14 exhaust issue.
15 There were four representatives requested by
16 industry, a speaker from the Natural Resources Defense
17 Council, five scientists not affiliated with particular
18 interests and one speaker from OEHHA.
19 One interesting facet that occurred at the meeting,
20 most of which was devoted to scientific discussion, at one
21 point during the course of the meeting an SRP Panel Member
22 asked if any of the participating scientists degreed with the
23 conclusion that diesel exhaust met the definition of a toxic
24 air contaminant.
25 None, none of the invited scientists disagreed that
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1 diesel exhaust met the definition of a TAC, and as I say,
2 these scientists came from a very wide range of backgrounds
3 and interests, and I think that their views have to be taken
4 quite seriously.
5 I want to comment on some recent research findings
6 that have not been included in the reports, because I believe
7 that they underscore the conclusions made by the staff of
8 OEHHA, ARB and the Panel.
9 These findings became public after the completion
10 of the Report. First, there is the paper by Steenland, which
11 came out just recently, and his colleagues at NIOSH have
12 recently published a study of diesel exhaust and lung cancer
13 in the trucking industry.
14 The full report was not available to us at the SRP
15 meeting. The authors conclude, and I quote, "In summary, our
16 data suggest a positive and significant increase in lung
17 cancer risk with increasing estimated cumulative exposure to
18 diesel exhaust among workers in the trucking industry.
19 "The data indicated that a male truck driver
20 exposed to five micrograms per cubic meter of elemental
21 carbon, which is typical for a truck driver, over a 45-year
22 working lifetime, has an increase in lung cancer risk of one
23 to two percent above the background risk of five percent."
24 That is a risk of lung cancer of one to two in a
25 hundred, which is a very high risk by our standards.
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1 This is a particularly important report, because it
2 carefully evaluates the dose response relationship, and it
3 does a thorough investigation of exposure related issues. It
4 addresses smoking.
5 The increasing trends with cumulative exposure is
6 particularly relevant. It compares exposures to those in the
7 railroad worker study and concludes the risk analysis for
8 truckers is consistent with Cal EPA evaluation of railroad
9 workers.
10 A related paper by Stayner, et. al., reviews the
11 various risk assessments for diesel and finds strong
12 consistency between the various approaches.
13 Quote, "It is noteworthy that the epidemiologic
14 risk assessments lie within a tenfold range, regardless of
15 which data set was used or what modeling approach was taken."
16 And we are going to find that throughout the course
17 of this discussion, that, in fact, the risk assessment
18 estimates really, actually do fall within a relatively narrow
19 range.
20 A recent report presented at the American Thoracic
21 Society meeting at the end of April by German scientists
22 concluded, "All jobs, in this case it's professional drivers,
23 with diesel engine exhaust exposure combined at an odds ratio
24 of 1.4," and it was statistically significant.
25 "The study provides further evidence that exposure
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1 to diesel engine exhaust is associated with an increased lung
2 cancer risk," unquote.
3 Dr. Daniel Greenbaum, of HEI, reported a study of
4 potash miners in Germany from 1997 which found a relative
5 risk of lung cancer as high as 2.2 compared to unexposed
6 workers.
7 So, what we have here is four new studies,
8 essentially, since the April meeting of the Scientific Review
9 Panel, all of which show positive findings with respect to
10 lung cancer and exposure to diesel exhaust.
11 Twelve additional studies of diesel exhaust of
12 varying types were reported at the American Thoracic Society
13 this year. Many of those studies look at the mechanism of
14 diesel exhaust producing adverse consequences to the
15 respiratory system.
16 In general, the studies illustrate noncancer
17 respiratory effects and are associated with diesel exhaust
18 exposure.
19 I really do want to emphasize that. You know, in
20 these discussions we spend a lot of time talking about lung
21 cancer and risk assessment and all of these other very
22 weighty issues, and they are weighty, but I think we can not
23 pay attention to the immense evidence for noncancer effects,
24 and in particular respiratory effects associated with diesel
25 exhaust exposure, and so that is an issue which I think
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1 sometimes doesn't get the focus of attention.
2 Now, I want to turn away from the most recent
3 research and say a few words about the criteria for making
4 decisions.
5 I really want to talk about two criteria. One, is
6 there a biological plausibility, is there a biological basis
7 to think that diesel exhaust would be a lung carcinogen?
8 Secondly, I want to talk about whether or not there
9 is a sufficient evidentiary basis for the decisions that we
10 are making today.
11 Melanie has gone through a lot of this, so I am
12 going go very rapidly through it.
13 First, I think that we can ask the question, are
14 there chemical compounds in diesel exhaust that are known or
15 suspected of causing cancer in humans?
16 The answer is clearly, yes. There are 15 compounds
17 that have been identified as human carcinogens, and there are
18 more than 100 compounds which have been identified in animal
19 or genotoxicity studies as having evidence of mutagenicity or
20 carcinogenicity.
21 So, we have a real soup, contained of a very large
22 number of compounds known to be carcinogens. It is also
23 known that the particle size of diesel exhaust is small, and
24 therefore we have significant deposition of those particles
25 in the alveolar regions of the lung.
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1 Much of what we breathe gets breathed out because
2 it's so small, but that which is breathed in and deposits is
3 deposited in the alveolar region, and the result of that is a
4 very slow clearance process, so that when something is
5 deposited in the alveolar region of the lung, it stays there
6 for a long time, and I'm not talking about 24 hours, or 48
7 hours, I'm talking about months to a year or a half life, and
8 that is when the particle is deeply embedded, it's there for
9 a considerable period of time, and what does that mean?
10 That means that you have a lot of time for PAHs to
11 be desorbed from particles because of the long residence
12 time.
13 So, there is a greater potential for a dose to the
14 lung than one might anticipate unless one thinks about the
15 long residence time in the lung.
16 The data available to us indicates diesel exhaust
17 contains a large number of known animal and human
18 carcinogens. It is genotoxic. It is mutagenic.
19 The carcinogens on the carbonaceous particles are
20 bioavailable, that is, they can be extracted from the
21 particles and enter various cells, and there is animal and
22 human evidence of carcinogenicity.
23 In other words, there is a clear biologic rationale
24 for identifying diesel exhaust as a lung carcinogen.
25 Let me switch and say a few words about the
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1 evidentiary basis for this decision. Dr. Allan Smith
2 reviewed 35 studies and chose 23 which met his selection
3 criteria.
4 The pooled risk estimate was 1.33. He chose 21 of
5 23, pardon me, that had risk estimates greater than one.
6 The two he did not include had less than ten lung
7 cancer cases. Michael Lipsett, who is here, reviewed 30
8 studies and determined 25 had relative risks greater than
9 1.0, although all of them were not statistically significant.
10 The pooled risk estimate for studies that I just
11 spoke of is 1.43.
12 Debra Silverman, of the National Cancer Institute,
13 has discussed Dr. Allan Smith's analysis and made the
14 following conclusions: The scientific contribution of this
15 analysis is that it elucidates the striking consistency of
16 the findings of studies of diesel exhaust and lung cancer.
17 As the authors point out, only 2 of 23 studies had
18 a relative risk of less than one, a finding that is unlikely
19 due to chance.
20 The authors convincingly show that potential
21 confounding by cigarette smoking is likely to have little
22 impact on estimated relative risk for diesel exhaust and lung
23 cancer.
24 Third, this bias, and here she is talking about the
25 exposure assessment issue, this bias due to misclassification
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1 of exposure would probably have been to bias point estimates
2 to the null value, that is, underestimate risk.
3 Let me translate that for you. If we say that
4 everyone up there is exposed to high levels of diesel, and
5 everybody here is exposed to low levels of diesel, but we
6 make a mistake and John and Mike are exposed to high levels,
7 and two of you are exposed to low levels, that's
8 misclassification of exposure.
9 We have mixed up who has high and low exposures.
10 Well, what is the effect of that on the risk
11 estimate?
12 If you misclassify or misestimate exposure, that
13 tends to underestimate risk. So that if you have a, quote,
14 "misclassification of exposure," and exposure has been a
15 major issue throughout all of this discussion, then keep in
16 mind that the bias will tend to underestimate risk rather
17 than overestimate risk.
18 The epidemiologic studies show consistent evidence
19 for a causal relationship between occupational diesel
20 exposure and lung cancer, and as previously stated, this
21 finding is biologically plausible.
22 Now, I was going to go through here and talk about
23 a paragraph about noncancer effects, but let me just quickly
24 say a few words.
25 Essentially, I think that we have to be careful to
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1 not to give -- we have to be careful to give attention to the
2 noncancer effect, because I personally think they are quite
3 important.
4 There is growing evidence that diesel exhaust plays
5 a role in the increasing prevalence of asthma and other
6 allergic respiratory disease, including allergic rhinitis.
7 Much of this work has occurred since 1996, and some
8 of the best work is being conducted by Andrew Saxon and his
9 colleagues in Immunology at UCLA.
10 Allergic reactions have been shown to be increased
11 following exposure to diesel exhaust. The implications of
12 recent work is that natural exposure to diesel exhaust may
13 result in increased expression of respiratory allergic
14 disease.
15 Diesel is also associated with excess bronchitic
16 symptoms of cough, phlegm, wheezing and decrements in
17 pulmonary function.
18 Now, let me say a few words about the range of risk
19 estimates, and these are important. The data from human
20 epidemiologic studies was used to develop a risk range for
21 lung cancer associated with diesel exhaust exposure in
22 occupationally exposed populations.
23 The Scientific Review Panel concluded that a unit
24 risk value is three times to ten minus four.
25 The unit risk value in this case derives from the
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1 Panel, it does not derive from OEHHA, so what you have before
2 you is essentially the range of risk developed by OEHHA.
3 I wrote out a lot of numbers here, and I am not
4 going to give them to you, but I'm going to want to say that
5 when one goes through all the other investigators, whether it
6 be Keil-Steenland, Dale Hayes, Dr. Allan Smith,
7 Dr. Stayner and others, and other agencies, what you find is
8 that the range of risk is extremely narrow, basically running
9 from around 10 to minus four to around ten to minus three,
10 and there is internal consistency within those ranges among a
11 very large number of investigators, and I think that's
12 extremely important, because as you know, the law requires
13 the agencies and the SRP to develop a range of risk and it is
14 very, we take it as a very positive statement that the range
15 of risk from a number of investigators is so close and there
16 is such consistency in the data.
17 I want to say just a couple of words about
18 uncertainty, and then I'll stop. In terms of quantitative
19 risk assessment, further research will assist narrowing the
20 range of risk identified in the Part B document.
21 Particular attention should be given to improve the
22 exposure assessment associated with diesel exhaust.
23 Most of the epidemiologic studies did not collect
24 quantitative information on exposure level. The exposure
25 estimation represents a key area of uncertainty, and this
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1 uncertainty limits identification of the dose response
2 relationship.
3 Evaluation of the changes in fuels and technology
4 on the emissions, both in terms of concentrations and
5 composition, represent important areas for research.
6 The recognition of the ongoing research needs
7 should not impact, however, our determination of diesel
8 exhaust as a TAC.
9 I should caution you when we talk about exposure,
10 because I have written a lot about it, when we are talking
11 about cancer, we are talking about people who are exposed 20,
12 30, 40 years, people who are exposed over a very long period
13 of time.
14 Then we talk about, how do we estimate exposure, so
15 we make sure we know when they were being exposed to diesel
16 exhaust what those exposure levels were.
17 Well, we have before us a problem which is inherent
18 in occupational epidemiology, and that is we always have to
19 go back and do retrospective exposure assessment analysis,
20 because we don't collect information over a 40-year period on
21 exposure.
22 There is no information of that kind being
23 collected in the United States today on these kinds of
24 issues.
25 So, we talk as though doing better exposure
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1 assessments was a kind of panacea, but the fact of the matter
2 is we are always going to have problems with
3 misclassification and estimation of exposure because we don't
4 collect it at a level which is adequate.
5 In some cases it would be far too costly to have
6 the levels of exposure data collection. So, be aware of
7 that.
8 I think that we desperately need to improve our
9 exposure assessment in these epidemiologic studies, but there
10 is also no free lunch.
11 We have to be cautious and work to design studies
12 that will really answer the questions that we have before us.
13 Just on a personal note, I have served on the SRP
14 since 1983. This is the sixth chemical that I have presented
15 to the Board.
16 The five previous were benzene, ethylene dibromide,
17 formaldehyde, perchloroethylene and methylene chloride.
18 I can safely say that all of them were
19 controversial.
20 Each had uncertainly associated with the evidence
21 of its toxicity or carcinogenicity.
22 With benzene it had to do with risk modeling.
23 With methylene chloride it was the use of
24 toxicokinetic models to adjust for differences in species.
25 With perchloroethylene it had to do with the degree
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1 of metabolism and so on and so forth. I won't go through all
2 of them.
3 Of those five that I presented to the Board, four
4 of them the decisions were based on animal evidence and one
5 was based on animal and human evidence.
6 As you can appreciate, in animal studies we can
7 control conditions, we can control exposure and we can
8 control timing and a host of other factors.
9 In human studies we are stuck with the fact that
10 humans eat, drink, move around, drive cars and do all sorts
11 of things they shouldn't, and because of that, when we get
12 around to estimating exposure, we say, well, how do we do
13 that?
14 It becomes very difficult. So, when you do
15 epidemiology, epidemiology is very difficult to establish
16 causality, to establish the relationship between exposure and
17 an outcome precisely because human beings are, unfortunately,
18 not well controlled.
19 Animal evidence is different. We can control the
20 condition, but then we ask questions about the relevance of
21 the animal studies, about the interspecies variability and so
22 on and so forth, and you know all of those arguments.
23 Let me just say, with methylene chloride, we
24 extrapolated from animal studies that were collected at 4,000
25 parts per million and extrapolate down to the ambient levels
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1 of three parts per billion, that's a millionfold
2 extrapolation.
3 With diesel we are using human data, and we are
4 extrapolating down from around a value of 60 micrograms per
5 cubic meter to 70 micrograms per cubic meter, down to levels
6 of one, two and three micrograms, so we are extrapolating in
7 a range of 30.
8 In this case, we have a narrower range of
9 extrapolation than any other chemical that I am aware of,
10 that I have had to deal with as precisely, because we are not
11 going from the high dose animal studies to low dose human
12 atmospheric conditions.
13 So, in some respects with diesel we have very
14 consistent data in terms of the number of epidemiologic
15 studies and the quality of those studies. We have consistent
16 risk of range findings, and we have very strong biological
17 plausibility.
18 I think that, basically, that is the reason that
19 the SRP unanimously concluded that the State had met the
20 requirement of AB 1807 in preparing their Report, and we
21 agree that diesel should be listed as a toxic air
22 contaminant.
23 Thank you for your patience.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Dr. Froines. I
25 appreciate that overview and the time you put in to give us a
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1 context. That was important.
2 All right.
3 Do any of the Board Members have questions at this
4 juncture?
5 I will perhaps lead with one.
6 Dr. Froines, I'm asking for an opinion in your view
7 about what is the CASAC situation, what is going on there,
8 substantively?
9 We have heard some things about them.
10 DR. FROINES: I am not the person to answer that
11 question.
12 I have not been involved in the CASAC.
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, what I was getting at,
14 perhaps you are not, but it was having to do with animal
15 versus human studies and the like, I wanted to try to get
16 that clarified for me.
17 DR. FROINES: I could just say one thing.
18 I think that in this case the evidence around the
19 human studies is extremely strong and consistent and all of
20 the other things that I said.
21 I think that one of the problems with the animal
22 studies, and they are certainly very, very strong animal
23 studies, especially in the rat, but there are also positive
24 findings in the mice, I think the problems with those studies
25 is that there is still considerable debate about the
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1 mechanism of the carcinogenicity of diesel exhaust in the
2 rat, and I think that CASAC recognized that and felt that
3 essentially the risk assessment that was to be done should be
4 done on the basis of the human evidence for which there is
5 less controversy around mechanistic detail, and I think that
6 is the underlying basis.
7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. That is what I was looking
8 for, kind of a context.
9 We have a healthy witness list. It seems to be the
10 Board's druthers to move into the witnesses.
11 We will take up questions as they come.
12 DR. FROINES: We will be here in case you have
13 questions after the testimony.
14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good. Thank you.
15 I would like to recognize Dr. Fucaloro as well.
16 You are patiently sitting there. If there anything
17 that you wish to add, please pipe up.
18 DR. FUCALORO: Actually, I'm not shy.
19 DR. FROINES: He is the newest member of the Board.
20 I'm not sure he would have gone on the Panel if he
21 knew his first test was coming.
22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, it is that high pay, I
23 know, that keeps you involved.
24 All right, Mr. Kenny, or staff.
25 Genevieve, Dr. Froines' quick overview on the CASAC
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1 thing, do you want to add to that at all?
2 MS. SHIROMA: Yes.
3 Dr. George Alexeeff can provide some additional
4 brief insights.
5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: The reason that I bring it up is
6 that I noticed in some of the correspondence we received, it
7 is likely going to be covered by some of the witnesses, and I
8 just want to kind of get a context for the Board before we
9 got into the witnesses, and when it comes up we will have
10 some reference point.
11 That's all.
12 DR. ALEXEEFF: My name is George Alexeeff. I'm
13 Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs at OEHHA.
14 And just to give you also a little bit of context,
15 CASAC is the Clean Air Advisory Committee for the U.S. EPA,
16 performs a similar function to the Scientific Review Panel in
17 this case.
18 U.S. EPA has had a health document that they have
19 been developing for three years longer than us. So, they
20 have been going through a long process as well.
21 They presented their document to their science
22 committee a couple of months ago, I believe in May.
23 At that meeting, in my perspective, what the CASAC
24 concluded, and the guidance they gave the U.S. EPA staff, was
25 similar to the guidance that our Scientific Review Panel gave
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1 us last October.
2 Last October we went to the Science Panel, and we
3 said, we have received a large number of public comments,
4 particularly about the use of animal data and whether the
5 animal data was really a relevant or the best use of
6 information.
7 The Science Panel told us, you have an ample
8 evidence of human information, use the human information.
9 So, that is what we did for our side. Now, U.S.
10 EPA went to their Science Panel with the animal data and
11 heavily relied on that animal data.
12 So, what happened at the CASAC meeting is CASAC
13 told their staff, use the human data.
14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. All right. Very good.
15 What I think we will do is hear from our Ombudsman
16 and then go to the witnesses.
17 MR. SCHONING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members.
18 As you have heard, the Item before you has traveled
19 a lengthy road before arriving in your laps.
20 In 1989, with Board approval of ARB staff commenced
21 developing the risk assessment for diesel exhaust, and on
22 March nineteenth and twentieth of 1990, the ARB conducted a
23 public meeting, the first, to discuss risk assessment of
24 diesel exhaust.
25 Some 25 stakeholders participated this time. More
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1 than 300 were notified.
2 I might add that as briefings and meetings
3 progressed, the item drew additional interest, and the
4 mailing list grew to 1600 stakeholders.
5 In addition, meeting workshop notices have also
6 been posted on ARB's Website. In June of 1993, stakeholders
7 representing more than 20 organizations were given a risk
8 assessment progress briefing, and in December of that year,
9 ARB conducted a diesel fuel task force organizational meeting
10 pertaining to cleaner diesel fuel.
11 In June of 1994, the ARB conducted the first of two
12 public briefings on its diesel exhaust risk assessment work.
13 The first public comment began two days later on
14 June 19, 1994, when ARB released Parts A and B of the Diesel
15 Exhaust Risk Assessment.
16 In September of that year, the ARB conducted a
17 public workshop about the proposed identification of diesel
18 exhaust as a toxic air contaminant.
19 This drew more than 100 stakeholders. Staff took
20 the comments received, did further work on the risk
21 assessment, and this was followed by the second ARB conducted
22 workshop in January of 1996.
23 Comments received at this workshop, again, resulted
24 in additional staff work. ARB conducted a second public
25 briefing on the risk assessment on May 9, 1997, just last
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1 year, and this commenced the second public comment period on
2 the assessments document.
3 Yet a third public workshop was held in July of
4 1997, and the second public comment period closed in August
5 of 1997.
6 This was followed by the first of three SRP
7 meetings, which Dr. Froines described to you, on
8 October 16, 1997, to consider the Diesel Exhaust Risk
9 Assessment document.
10 As Dr. Froines indicated, the format of these
11 meetings and the purpose is to enable the Panel Members to
12 receive the risk assessment document and all written public
13 comments in advance.
14 Some of the Members read the comments, I'm told,
15 before they read the actual risk assessment document.
16 The SRP meeting function is to enable the Panel
17 Members to discuss the adequacy of the document among the
18 nine disciplines, which are represented on the Panel.
19 OEHHA and ARB staff made presentations about
20 particular parts and aspects of the report, and dialogue then
21 ensues among panelists and agency staff.
22 Although the statute authorizes the Panel to
23 receive verbal testimony, the Panel has opted instead to
24 receive public comments in writing before its meetings and to
25 consider them during their deliberations.
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1 ARB and OEHHA staff made some changes in the risk
2 assessment in response to public and SRP comments, and
3 published a revised risk assessment document on the
4 twenty-third of February of this year for public comment.
5 During this comment period, the SRP held its first
6 ever Invited Scientist Public Workshop on March 11, 1998.
7 The Panel invited ten world renown scientists with
8 diesel exhaust expertise to discuss various aspects of the
9 science.
10 Eight were in attendance, one participated from
11 Florida by teleconference and another from Cambridge,
12 Massachusetts, by video conference.
13 The audience included two especially keen
14 observers, Board Members Calhoun and Friedman.
15 This was followed by the closing of the public
16 comment period on the twelfth of April, this year, 1998.
17 ARB and OEHHA staff further revised the diesel
18 exhaust risk assessment in response to public and SRP
19 comments, and the SRP met for the third time on this subject
20 on the twenty-second of April of 1998, to consider the
21 revised risk assessment and all received public comments.
22 This SRP meeting resulted in the approval of the
23 report and agreement on the Panel's findings.
24 These are the Appendix 2, I believe, in the yellow
25 Initial Statement of Reasons for Rulemaking.
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1 The fourth public comment period on this Diesel
2 Exhaust Risk Assessment document commenced on the twelfth of
3 June 1998, and brings us to today.
4 As you are well aware, an extensive and
5 comprehensive outreach program has occurred, and clearly, by
6 virtue of those present today, interested and affected
7 stakeholders have had extensive opportunities to participate
8 in shaping the report and the recommendation which is before
9 you.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Schoning.
11 For those of you that haven't been to our Board
12 meetings in a while, we have asked Jim to give us an overview
13 on the public process that any item has gone through before
14 it gets to the Board for decision. So, I appreciate that
15 perspective.
16 All right. We have some 20 witnesses or so that
17 have signed up.
18 Yes, Dr. Froines.
19 DR. FROINES: I have written comments, and so I
20 will give them to staff so the Board might have them, because
21 I didn't cover everything that I have written down.
22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That will be fine. We will make
23 sure that gets distributed.
24 We will ask the Board Clerk to do that.
25 All right.
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1 When I call your name, if I could get you to kind
2 of cue up on the wall there. I don't know where we are with
3 seating. I know the seating is short, but we will have you
4 cue up on the wall, and we will move --
5 I am not going put a time limit on people, but I am
6 going to ask that as a courtesy you try to limit your
7 remarks, particularly those that follow some of the earlier
8 speakers, so that you are not redundant, and try to limit
9 them in the neighborhood of five minutes or so per speaker.
10 If you need more time, we will give it to you, but
11 I would prefer that you try to limit it for that period of
12 time.
13 We will start with Ellen Garvey, from CAPCOA, and
14 then Paul Knepprath.
15 Ellen, please come forward, and then a panel that
16 is headed up with eight or so speakers, Allan Zaremberg will
17 be the third.
18 Allan I will let you kind of broker that panel, if
19 you would, of the speakers.
20 Yes, Ms. Garvey.
21 ///
22 ///
23 ///
24 ///
25 ///
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1 MS. GARVEY: Good morning, Chairman Dunlap and
2 members of the Board. My name is Ellen Garvey, and I am the
3 executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management
4 District in San Francisco.
5 I'm here this morning representing the California
6 Air Pollution Control Officers' board of directors. The
7 California Air Pollution Control Officers' Association
8 represents the 35 local air districts throughout the State
9 of California.
10 We would like to express our support for the ARB
11 staff recommendation for the identification of diesel
12 exhaust as a toxic air contaminant. This position is also
13 provided to your Board in the form of a letter,
14 Mr. Chairman.
15 The Air Resources Board has a long tradition of
16 basing decisions on sound science. In the case of diesel
17 exhaust, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the health
18 of many Californians is adversely impacted by this source of
19 emissions.
20 The California Air Pollution Control Officers'
21 Association looks forward to working with the Air Resources
22 Board, as well as with OEHHA, during the risk management
23 phase of this process.
24 It is our understanding that potential control
25 measures will be developed in a full public forum where
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1 concerns of affected businesses and industries will be
2 addressed.
3 We support this public process as well and stand
4 ready to assist you and members of the Air Resources Board
5 and OEHHA in any way we can.
6 I thank you very much for the opportunity for us
7 to express our position. I'd be happy to answer any
8 questions.
9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
10 Those of you who are not familiar with Ellen know
11 that she's the air pollution control officer for the Bay
12 Area district and works with Mark over there.
13 Any questions for her?
14 All right. Very good. Thank you.
15 Mr. Knepprath from the American Lung Association.
16 Come on, Paul, you've got to step it up there.
17 MR. KNEPPRATH: Good morning.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Supposed to be queuing up.
19 MR. KNEPPRATH: All right. Let's queue up.
20 Good morning, Chairman Dunlap and members of the
21 Board. My name is Paul Knepprath. I'm here representing
22 the American Lung Association of California and our medical
23 section, which is the California Thoracic Society.
24 We appreciate the opportunity to be here today and
25 to comment on the proposed identification of diesel exhaust
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1 as a toxic air contaminant.
2 We congratulate the Board for its leadership in
3 guiding a very comprehensive and exhaustive scientific
4 investigation and examination of the human health impacts of
5 diesel exhaust. I think the presentations this morning by
6 Dr. Froines and others clearly showed that over this last
7 nine-year process there has been an exhaustive, no pun
8 intended, review of the health data, including six public
9 workshops, public meetings, forums and at least three draft
10 reports of what you have before you today.
11 As public health and scientific organizations, the
12 Lung Association and the Thoracic Society have long been
13 concerned about the adverse health consequences of diesel
14 exhaust, particularly as it relates to the lung cancer and
15 the other respiratory adverse health effects which have been
16 identified also for you today.
17 We strongly believe that the overwhelming
18 scientific evidence presented in the proposed identification
19 document warrants listing diesel exhaust as a toxic air
20 contaminant.
21 As the previous speaker said, we believe that this
22 recommendation is based on sound science, that the human
23 health studies have consistently showed a pattern of
24 increased lung cancer risk, and the occupational exposure
25 studies, we think, raise serious concerns about people who
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1 work around diesel exhaust.
2 There may have been, and I know that there's
3 criticism of some of the studies or a particular study in
4 this body of work, but we think that the collective science
5 and the data that the SRP has looked at, clearly, along with
6 their unanimous recommendation, support listing diesel as a
7 toxic air contaminant.
8 The lung cancer risk assessment in this document
9 is a serious one, I think, and we're very concerned that
10 people in California who are exposed to diesel may die, and
11 I think the numbers are somewhere in the neighborhood of
12 12,000, based on the cancer risk assigned to this.
13 Clearly, diesel exhaust meets the definition, the
14 legal definition, that sets forth this process, and I just
15 want to state what that definition is, if you haven't
16 already heard it, that it's an air pollutant which may cause
17 or contribute to an increase in mortality or in serious
18 illness which may pose a present or potential health hazard
19 to human health.
20 Clearly, diesel exhaust, from everything we know
21 and everything that's put before the Board, meets the
22 requirements of that definition.
23 The American Lung Association recognizes that the
24 listing process is the beginning of a public investigation
25 to examines avenues to reduce public exposure and risk from
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1 diesel exhaust. We support the process that has been
2 outlined for you today, that we will be providing our input
3 into this process, along with other stakeholders, and we
4 urge you and the ARB to follow your duty to protect public
5 health by listing diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant.
6 Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Mr. Knepprath.
8 Any questions of Paul?
9 Very good. Thanks.
10 Allan, the CEO of the California State Chamber.
11 I'll let you be the floor manager, if you would, for the
12 next speakers on your panel.
13 And those in the audience may not be familiar with
14 this, but I have it up here, he's got a handful of speakers
15 that are going to give overviews of various parts of this
16 issue.
17 MR. ZAREMBERG: My chairman, members of the Board.
18 I'm Allan Zaremberg, the president of the California Chamber
19 of Commerce.
20 And I'm kicking it off because diesel engines, as
21 you all know, are an integral part of our economy in
22 California, whether they transport goods or food or help in
23 the manufacture of all those products that have produced
24 jobs in California.
25 So what you do here today may have a significant
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1 effect.
2 And let me step back a little bit, because I want
3 to put everything in perspective. This is not the first
4 time I've been here. And I think it's through a cooperative
5 effort between the regulated community and the Air Resources
6 Board that we have been able to reduce emissions in
7 California in the most cost-effective manner.
8 I think one of the best examples was when we had a
9 federal implementation plan on the Clean Air Act that we
10 thought was extremely costly, would have cost jobs to
11 Californians, would have sent business elsewhere, and
12 through a cooperative effort we were able to achieve those
13 same emission goals at a much reduced cost without impairing
14 the California economy, and that's evident in the state
15 implementation plan. And part of that was dealing with
16 diesel engines and diesel fuel.
17 You know, I find that to be a process that works
18 well, and in fact the previous speaker, and I'll paraphrase,
19 was quoted in the paper today as saying there's much already
20 underway to regulate emissions from diesel engines. In
21 fact, there's little else we can do.
22 So what are we doing here today and what are the
23 consequences?
24 And I submit to you that in some circumstances the
25 consequences may be worse than the cure. And let me go
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1 through and give you a couple examples of what I'm talking
2 about.
3 First of all, I understand that this is the first
4 time you've listed a complex compound, rather than
5 individual chemical elements.
6 So what are the consequences of that?
7 And, to me, the consequences of that may be that
8 this is not the best thing to reduce pollution in the future
9 and emissions in the future.
10 And the reason why is because it's vague and it
11 doesn't provide certainty for the incentive for people to
12 provide fuels and engines in the future that are going to be
13 less polluting.
14 Let me give you a good example there. As I
15 understand this, this is a rule that requires any exhaust
16 that comes out of any diesel engine that's powered by any
17 fuel to be a toxic air contaminant.
18 And I think that's a rhetorical question.
19 So let's take this situation. The railroads are
20 experimenting right now with using natural gas in
21 conjunction with current diesel fuels or reformulated diesel
22 fuels to power their engines. Is that what's intended here
23 to list that as a toxic air contaminant, because if it is,
24 is that an incentive to continue to produce that particular
25 type of engine, that particular type that uses that kind of
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1 fuel? Are the consequences exactly the same? No.
2 And is the fuel tomorrow that's reformulated or
3 the fuel today the same fuel that the studies were done 10
4 and 20 years ago? And you know the answer to that question
5 too, it is not.
6 So if we know the elements that your staff and you
7 can tell us are what's causing the risk to cancer, then we
8 can work together to reduce that exposure. But if we don't
9 know that and if it's any fuel burned in any diesel engine,
10 how can we move forward and provide a cleaner fuel?
11 Let me say one other thing that I think expands
12 upon our ability to work together, and it's happened in the
13 past that provides the same reductions in emissions at a
14 more cost-effective basis, is that it's through working
15 through a coordinated effort of one agency.
16 You know, I've probably 100 members of mine in the
17 South Coast District that would probably shoot me if they
18 heard me talking about this, but it's, you know, we do work
19 together better than if it's a fragmented system and it may
20 not always be happy with what you do and some of what the
21 control districts do, but it's better than having it done
22 through a system of litigation and each individual
23 community.
24 I submit to you that when you list this as a toxic
25 air contaminant, as the previous witness said in the paper,
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1 there may not be much else we can do to control it, but we
2 sure can get an awful lot of litigation.
3 And you lose control over a coordinated effort to
4 reduce air pollution and to make cleaner engines and cleaner
5 fuels.
6 And that is the appropriate way to go and you
7 don't have to list it as a toxic air contaminant to continue
8 to work with us to produce the most efficient engines with
9 the cleanest fuel and reduce emissions and risk to public
10 health.
11 I'd be happy to answer any questions before we
12 move on to our next witness.
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Allan, do you want to --
14 you're comfortable with calling them up --
15 MR. ZAREMBERG: Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: -- and introducing them.
17 MR. ZAREMBERG: Our next one is Richard McCann,
18 from M-Cubed. He's going to give a little bit of an
19 economic analysis.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Richard, good to see you.
21 MR. McCANN: Good seeing you again.
22 Mr. Chairman, Board members, I'm Richard McCann.
23 I'm an economist and partner with the firm M-Cubed.
24 We stood before you in 1994 reviewing the economic
25 impacts of the 1994 state implementation plan, and we also
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1 authored a guide for reviewing environmental policy studies,
2 which was produced for Cal EPA, and distributed to all the
3 member departments of the agency.
4 I'm going to talk today about the economic
5 impacts, or the potential economic impacts, of the proposed
6 identification of diesel exhaust as a TAC.
7 And what I want to begin with is discussing how
8 trucking is an integral part of the California economy.
9 Trucks transport almost three quarters of all goods measured
10 by weight and in fact virtually all goods are transported by
11 trucks at some point in their product life cycle.
12 Trucking and the warehouse sector may be
13 responsible for as much as $35 billion of the state's gross
14 product, which is a substantial amount when compared to
15 other industries. For example, agriculture is the largest
16 sector with about hundred billion dollars of the gross state
17 product.
18 About one million Californians, or one out of
19 every 15 workers, are employed in the trucking and
20 warehousing industry and they earn about $5 billion in
21 wages.
22 And over two thirds of the firms in the trucking
23 and warehousing sector employ fewer than ten people and 95
24 percent of them receive less than $5 million in revenues.
25 In other words, this industry is dominated by
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1 small businesses, and that should be an important
2 consideration.
3 What we looked at were possible responses to
4 designation as a TAC for diesel exhaust. And this, the
5 responses are not contingent on the Air Board doing anything
6 further than designating diesel exhaust as a TAC. That is,
7 we did not assume that the ARB has adopted any type of
8 control measures in the future in order to control diesel
9 exhaust, any further than the control measures which are
10 already on the board.
11 What we were looking at is potential responses to
12 increased legal liability resulting from the designation as
13 a TAC.
14 What we saw were possibilities of increased risks
15 of lawsuits. There's already 350 lawsuits which have been
16 filed against heavy-duty truck users who rely on diesel
17 fuel.
18 We also saw that there would be risks from induced
19 need to purchase costly alternative fueled vehicles, for
20 example, liquid natural gas engines, as defensive measures
21 to limit legal liability exposure or to settle impending
22 suits.
23 We also looked at whether this was a signal to
24 employees and consumers that it was unsafe to work or shop
25 anywhere around any level of diesel exhaust.
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1 And that also affected facilities may be required
2 to pay additional permitting fees to local air districts.
3 Some of those costs we could quantify, some of
4 them we couldn't go any further than to identify them, and
5 that is because these scenarios cannot be yet fully
6 developed. We don't have sufficient information.
7 But we did construct two possible scenarios in
8 response to increased legal liability, using the analytic
9 methods that derive the least cost approach to meeting the
10 stated objectives that we have in the scenarios. And this
11 methodology is a similar methodology to what we used in
12 evaluating the 1994 SIP.
13 In our first scenario we assumed that only new
14 trucks were required to be fueled by liquid natural gas and
15 that these purchases would be phased in over a five-year
16 period by 2003, so that basically it would match with the
17 phase-in of trucks meeting the new federal standards by the
18 year 2004.
19 In that case, the truck fleet costs increased from
20 92 to 144 million dollars annually between 1999 and 2005,
21 and this would cost increased truck fleet costs by about one
22 percent.
23 Now, there's the other alternative, which is that
24 all trucks are required to be fueled with liquid natural gas
25 over a set period of time, and again we looked at the
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1 five-year phase-in period. In this case, the truck fleet
2 costs increased from 1.5 to 2 billion dollars per year
3 between 1999 to 2005, or between 16 -- 11 to 16 percent of
4 total fleet costs for operations. These would be
5 significant cost increases that would almost certainly be
6 passed on to consumers in increased consumer prices and
7 businesses in terms of increased production costs.
8 We did not account for some other potential costs,
9 which would be significant to the State of California.
10 Costs to construction, because we did not look at off-road
11 vehicle engine emission controls. Costs to agriculture,
12 because again we did not look at costs for controlling
13 tractors or for switching from diesel pumps to natural gas
14 or electricity.
15 For truck fueling operations, we did not look at
16 the individual retrofit costs at various truck fueling
17 stations around the state.
18 The cost to oil refining, because oil refiners
19 would probably have to off-load a large portion of their
20 diesel fuel out of state or reconfigure their refining
21 process in order to limit the amount of diesel that they
22 produced in the State of California.
23 We also did not look at the overall impacts of the
24 California economy, in part because we weren't able to
25 identify these other costs within various sectors and that
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1 we also did not have sufficient information in construction
2 of our scenarios in order to identify specific economic
3 impacts, but they would be substantially greater than the
4 direct costs impacts that we have identified in our
5 scenarios.
6 One of the things that happens with a decrease in
7 economic activity in the state is in fact recent studies
8 have found that mortality rates increase as economic
9 activity falls. That is that wealth makes health. That was
10 reinforced this morning by a study that was released and
11 published in The Sacramento Bee, which indicated that a
12 large increase in income actually increased life expectancy
13 a substantial amount. That's a very important
14 consideration.
15 What that means is that as you decrease economic
16 activity, you increase the death rate within the population.
17 And working through the calculations that are available in
18 the studies that are available, you find that basically that
19 there would be an increase of about 14,000 deaths over the
20 life of an individual from the high-end costs of the direct
21 costs that we have identified in this study.
22 That happens to be about the amount of increased
23 deaths caused or identified as being caused by diesel
24 exhaust as identified by the ARB staff. In other words, the
25 decrease in economic activity almost exactly offsets the
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1 improved life expectancy from eliminating diesel exhaust.
2 That's a very important consideration in how you deal with
3 this particular substance in your rulemaking process.
4 One thing I wanted to point out is that these
5 studies were preliminary in nature and that there is much
6 work that would have to be done in order to resolve the
7 economic questions and clearly identify what the economic
8 impacts are, and that a full assessment of the economic
9 impacts is necessary before proceeding further on adopting
10 the proposed regulation, that you need to consider those
11 balances of risks that occur in this whole rulemaking
12 process, considering how ubiquitous diesel fuel is in the
13 California economy.
14 Thank you for your time.
15 I would like to introduce Bill Bunn, who is going
16 to talk about the science issues of identifying diesel
17 exhaust as a TAC.
18 MR. MANDEL: Actually I'm not Bill Bunn and I
19 don't play him on TV. But if, Mr. Chairman, you'll allow
20 us, we're going to slightly alter the order.
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That's fine. My intent was to
22 allow you guys the flexibility to do that.
23 Were there some slides that we were supposed to
24 see that didn't make it up on the screen, Richard? Richard,
25 were there some slides that didn't get up on the screen that
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1 you wanted? Was there --
2 MR. McCANN: To tell you the truth, I wasn't
3 looking.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I guess what I'm asking staff,
5 there were some things that were going to be on the screen
6 that didn't get on the screen. What I'd like to do is make
7 sure we get hard copies in real time so we can look at them.
8 MR. McCANN: Right. There is available fully
9 written testimony in effect --
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I just ask staff --
11 MR. McCANN: -- that has that testimony.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I'd ask somebody to get it to us
13 and then we may have a couple questions. I want to look at
14 it a little bit, Richard.
15 MR. McCANN: Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Jed, I'm sorry to do that
17 to you. Please come back.
18 MR. MANDEL: That's all right.
19 Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board.
20 I'm Jed Mandel speaking on behalf of the Engine
21 Manufacturers Association.
22 I do have extra copies of my statement. I believe
23 it was provided to you in advance, but I do have copies up
24 here if somehow our delivery system didn't work.
25 Thank you.
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1 As you know, the Engine Manufacturers Association,
2 EMA, is the principal organization representing the
3 manufacturers of diesel engines used in trucks, buses, farm
4 and construction equipment, marine vessels, locomotives and
5 stationary applications.
6 Today we are here to discuss the proposed
7 identification and listing of diesel exhaust as a toxic air
8 contaminant.
9 There are substantial problems with such a
10 listing. Diesel exhaust is a complex mixture of gases,
11 particles and vapors, 99.9 percent of which is harmless,
12 nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor and carbon dioxide.
13 Significantly every other substance currently
14 listed as a toxic air contaminant under California law is a
15 specific identifiable chemical. Indeed that is the very
16 intent of the TAC statute, identifying a specific substance
17 that may pose health risks and then assessing and crafting
18 specifically targeted emission controls for that specific
19 substance.
20 That purpose cannot be met with a TAC listing for
21 whole diesel exhaust. So long as there are engines burning
22 diesel fuel, there will be diesel exhaust.
23 What was emitted from locomotives and other diesel
24 vehicles in 1965 before the advent of stringent regulations
25 was called diesel exhaust, just as what comes out of today's
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1 technologically advanced diesel engines running on cleaner,
2 reformulated fuels, also is called diesel exhaust.
3 However, the emissions from those engines are not
4 the same. To the contrary, diesel exhaust is comprised of
5 thousands of gases and fine particles, the composition of
6 which will vary, depending on engine type, operating
7 conditions, fuel composition, lubricating oil and whether
8 and what type of emission control system is present.
9 Consequently, listing whole diesel exhaust
10 provides no help whatsoever in identifying what specific
11 constituent of diesel exhaust might cause adverse health
12 effects and provides no guidance as to what specific
13 constituent of diesel exhaust, if any, should be reduced or
14 eliminated to protect public health.
15 Further, the underlying epidemiological studies of
16 railroad workers, drivers, miners and dock workers from the
17 1960s and 1970s, the health studies relied on in the staff
18 report, studies compositions of diesel exhaust that are no
19 longer being emitted and thus are not relevant to assessing
20 the potential health risks from today's technologically
21 advanced engines and vehicles.
22 Consequently, those old and out-of-date studies
23 cannot justify the listing of today's diesel exhaust as a
24 TAC. Those studies do not even justify a listing for the
25 diesel exhaust that was representative of what was examined
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1 in those old studies.
2 The staff report acknowledges this problem by
3 describing diesel exhaust as, quote, a complex mixture
4 emitted by a diesel fuel internal combustion engine, close
5 quote.
6 The report, however, does not attempt to
7 characterize diesel exhaust in terms of specific chemical or
8 physical properties, but rather from where it comes.
9 As such, the proposed TAC listing for diesel
10 exhaust is really not a substance listing at all. It's a
11 source listing, targeting diesel-fueled engines.
12 Significantly, such an improper listing has never
13 been attempted before. Of the more than 200 substances
14 identified as TACs to date, all are specific chemical
15 compounds. Not one is a complex mixture or, as in this
16 case, a de facto source listing.
17 There is then no basis for the proposed source
18 listing at issue, a listing that in essence turns the TAC
19 statute on its head by first identifying a source and then
20 presumably attempting to identify the specific substances to
21 be controlled.
22 There's also no basis for singling out diesel
23 engines from the many combustion sources that operate
24 throughout the state and to produce a similar set of
25 byproducts. Needless to say, eliminating or reducing all
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1 sources of diesel exhaust is not feasible, practical or
2 desirable. Diesel-fueled engines are essential to
3 California's economy and its standard of living.
4 Diesel-fueled engines move goods, transport
5 people, harvest crops and perform many other types of work,
6 all with a level of efficiency and durability unmatched by
7 other sources of power.
8 All of these essential jobs require a power
9 source, which necessarily will have some kind of emissions.
10 Only by identifying the specific emission's
11 constituents to be specifically eliminated or reduced can
12 regulators, manufacturers and users work to build and use
13 products which minimize potentially harmful health effects.
14 Indeed, only by obtaining this necessary data can
15 well-reasoned public policy choices be made.
16 Whole diesel exhaust was identified in the 1980s
17 as a potential source of adverse health effects. However,
18 based on scientific research carried out over the past
19 decade, it is clear that new studies must be undertaken to
20 determine whether emissions from today's advanced and
21 highly-regulated diesel engines, using current fuels, pose a
22 risk and, if so, to identify specifically what substance in
23 diesel exhaust might be responsible for such risks and to
24 quantify the risks.
25 EMA is not alone in concluding that the existing
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1 data are scientifically inadequate to support the
2 conclusions articulated in the staff report.
3 The recent actions of US EPA's Clean Air Science
4 Advisory Committee unanimously recommending further work on
5 a report similar to that at issue here confirms the
6 inadequacies of the current data.
7 Indeed, the principal scientists upon whom OEHHA
8 relies all have gone on record establishing that the
9 underlying data are insufficient to justify the risk asset
10 that staff has constructed.
11 EMA has detailed those inadequacies in its written
12 comments and we urge you to review them.
13 New studies then are clearly needed to determine
14 whether there is any actual causal link between constituents
15 found in diesel exhaust and adverse health effects, and to
16 determine the degree of that potential risk at real world
17 exposure levels.
18 The fact that diesel exhaust contains trace
19 amounts of certain substances already listed as TACs in
20 California is not enough to justify a separate TAC listing
21 for diesel exhaust. Those substances are present in other
22 sources.
23 Moreover, listing diesel exhaust on a TAC on the
24 basis that it contains substances previously identified as
25 TACs is redundant and does nothing to protect public health.
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1 The prior listings, in fact, are a reason why a
2 separate listing for diesel exhaust is unnecessary.
3 The real question remains what, if any, specific
4 substance in diesel exhaust might be demonstrated to cause
5 potentially adverse health effects and whether that
6 substance is present in a sufficient quantity in today's
7 diesel exhaust to justify reduction or elimination of that
8 substance from diesel exhaust.
9 Unfortunately, the pending proposed TAC listing
10 for diesel exhaust does not address, let alone answer, that
11 critical question.
12 The importance of this question is magnified by
13 the significant changes in the composition of diesel exhaust
14 over the past 20 years. As this Board well knows, and I've
15 appeared before you many times on these issues, the engine
16 industry has reduced PM emissions from heavy-duty on-highway
17 trucks and buses by 90 percent from unregulated levels. At
18 the same time, hydrocarbon emissions have been reduced by
19 over 90 percent and NOx emissions have been reduced by 70
20 percent. NOx emissions are slated for another 50 percent
21 reduction in 2004.
22 Similar significant emission reductions have or
23 will soon occur for non-road farm and construction equipment
24 engines, locomotives and marine engines.
25 Those significant emission reductions are resulted
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1 from major redesign of the diesel engine combustion process,
2 the addition of new emission control technologies and
3 reformulation of diesel fuel, all of which affect the nature
4 and composition of diesel exhaust. And, of course, more
5 changes and improvements will be coming.
6 As a result of these efforts, California air
7 quality has improved and will continue to improve for the
8 foreseeable future, and as already noted, today's and the
9 future's diesel exhaust are substantially different from
10 that which has been studied.
11 But all of those good efforts mean nothing in the
12 effort to manage potential health risks without any guidance
13 as to what specific substance, if any, should be controlled
14 or eliminated.
15 Consequently, listing diesel exhaust as a TAC
16 simply makes no sense, especially given the adverse
17 consequences that can be anticipated from such a list.
18 Those consequences include the fostering of inappropriate
19 public alarm and costly proceedings alleging unfounded
20 duties to warn and personal injuries and burdensome
21 permitting and hot spot evaluation requirements.
22 Instead of proceeding with this ill-advised
23 listing, we encourage the Board to recognize the need for
24 research, focus toward an identification of what specific
25 substance in diesel exhaust might cause potential health
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1 problems.
2 That research also should focus on what levels of
3 exposure for that substance might be problematic.
4 Specific recommendations on the needed scientific
5 studies are contained in our written comments.
6 The Board also should clarify the import and
7 meaning of any TAC listing for diesel exhaust that it might
8 adopt. In that regard, it should be noted that a TAC
9 listing concerns assessment of the potential health risk
10 associated with lifetime exposures to diesel exhaust in
11 ambient air, not risk associated with intermittent or
12 short-term exposures to emissions from a specific source or
13 group of sources.
14 Indeed, we hope that the Board will caution
15 against any extrapolation of data or conclusions from the
16 TAC report.
17 That report is based on lifetime exposures to
18 ambient air concentrations of diesel exhaust, assessed
19 principally on the basis of estimated high-level
20 occupational exposures that may have been experienced during
21 the 1960s and the 1970s to old technology, unregulated
22 engines, burning high sulphur, high aromatics diesel fuel.
23 That's not today's situation.
24 Given the inappropriateness of listing whole
25 diesel exhaust as opposed to a specific identifiable and
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1 controllable substance, given the need for additional
2 studies, and given the fact that ARB has and will continue
3 to regulate the emissions from diesel engines to the
4 greatest degree possible, I'm confident of that, we believe
5 that there is no need to list diesel exhaust as a TAC.
6 We expect that EPA and CASAC will be taking
7 further action on essentially the same studies and issues as
8 are in the OEHHA report within the next several months.
9 As the Governor's Executive Order states,
10 consistency and uniformity among state and federal risk
11 assessments must be assured. Accordingly, ARB should wait
12 at least until EPA takes action before proceeding with an
13 inappropriate and inconsistent action listing whole diesel
14 exhaust as a TAC.
15 In addition, the initial recommendations from the
16 Health Effects Institute's diesel epidemiological study are
17 expected this fall. Those recommendations also should guide
18 any further action on this matter.
19 I would be pleased to answer any questions that
20 members of the Board might have.
21 We do have a couple of other EMA members who are
22 prepared to testify after me.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes, Mrs. Riordan.
24 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Mr. Chairman.
25 First of all, Mr. Mandel, thank you very much for
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1 your presentation.
2 There is a larger document, very large, that came
3 in today, and I'm not sure that the staff has had an
4 opportunity to look at some of those issues that were
5 raised, as well as the scientific panel, but it would seem
6 to me prior maybe to either the conclusion of today's
7 hearing or perhaps when this is taken up again it would be
8 helpful for the Board to look at the issues that were raised
9 and maybe have a response to them by our staff and maybe
10 utilizing the Scientific Review Panel. I think that would
11 be very helpful, at least for me, to have, but I appreciate
12 the fact that it's so clearly delineated.
13 Thank you very much.
14 MR. MANDEL: We thank you for that comment. And I
15 hope that the additional time that the Board is going to
16 afford itself will give you and your staff time to carefully
17 look at those comments, because we think that they do merit
18 your review.
19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: But I'm not going to let you off
20 the hook. What's the deal? We're getting this big package
21 today. You're usually working us over pretty good weeks
22 ahead of time.
23 MR. MANDEL: Well, I'm not sure which way to take
24 that, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure if that was a compliment
25 or not.
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1 But we have worked with your staff, with the
2 Scientific Review Panel very closely throughout this
3 process, and we, throughout the process, have made an effort
4 to provide our technical expertise, not only always
5 directly, we have asked for special expertise to be brought
6 into play.
7 So to some degree we are disappointed that the
8 Scientific Review Panel didn't try to assess in its
9 evaluations that they presented to you all of the different
10 views that we presented.
11 I am not the expert to assess that. There was
12 some people coming behind me who have scientific expertise.
13 But we think that there could have been more of a
14 balance to try and assess all of the expertise that's been
15 brought to bear.
16 Having said that, we are going to continue to work
17 with the members of the Scientific Review Panel, if there's
18 that opportunity, and certainly with the ARB and OEHHA staff
19 on these issues.
20 And we tried, in recognition that the hearing was
21 today, to pull together all these materials so they would be
22 in one place for you.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. I certainly would
24 support my colleague in saying we ask staff to run through
25 this, we have some time between now and next month to go
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1 through it. I appreciate that.
2 And, you know, I want to acknowledge and
3 appreciated your comment also about the fact that you know
4 how seriously we've taken controlling the sources that your
5 member companies produce and that we do have a number of
6 things that are going to be coming on line in the relatively
7 near future. They're going to have an impact in this area.
8 We acknowledge that and we know that. We've had, I think, a
9 good working relationship with you and, again, those
10 companies you represent.
11 MR. MANDEL: I just want to add to that, that
12 because of substantially the efforts of this Board, emission
13 regulations are getting more stringent.
14 Mr. Chairman, as you know, because I think you
15 visited some of my members' facilities, the work that's
16 being done is truly fantastic to reduce emissions from
17 diesel engines and to make them even cleaner than the
18 engines today.
19 We also think that there's more that needs to be
20 done with fuels, so that California will continue to have
21 the best fuels available in the world.
22 It is a little strange in this process that now
23 we're facing a listing of diesel exhaust, which as I've
24 indicated in my comments, is a complex mixture. We don't
25 know what in there presumably causes the concerns. We are
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1 investing literally multimillions of dollars to improve the
2 emissions from diesel engines and yet we've having a listing
3 that doesn't recognize what it is in diesel exhaust, if
4 anything, that should be further reduced. It doesn't make
5 sense to us.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Dr. Friedman.
7 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: I've been listening pretty
8 carefully. You have cleaner diesel fuel today and on that
9 basis you think that all previous studies may be invalid.
10 You have no idea, neither do we, whether the components that
11 arise now in cleaner diesel fuel are carcinogenic or not.
12 And that is the nature of the complexity of the
13 exhaust is recognized by us, it's recognized by you, and you
14 don't have any evidence either for the comment you made.
15 Let me just finish.
16 Then you would suggest that we study it more.
17 Now, I'm not sure what would satisfy you, but I
18 know what can't be done. You cannot subject humans to
19 compound by compound of known potential carcinogens for X
20 years to a stimulus and then wait 20 or 30 years for the
21 results while there is a truly obvious increase in risk,
22 poorly understood all the reasons, but a clear increase in
23 risk.
24 Now, if the human studies, which would take three
25 to four decades to complete, might satisfy you, but no one
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1 would enter a human into such a study, and animal studies
2 are not good enough, what would you have us do?
3 MR. MANDEL: I think your question really focuses
4 us on the problem. There are substances, specific
5 identifiable chemicals in diesel exhaust, which are toxic
6 air contaminants. I forgot what the number was, but I think
7 it was --
8 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: 30.
9 MR. MANDEL: 30.
10 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN At least.
11 MR. MANDEL: That you all have previously
12 identified as being toxic air contaminants. As part of that
13 process, under the risk management phase, you're obligated
14 to look at the sources of those toxic air contaminants and
15 determine what, if anything, should be done.
16 Those are essentially trace amounts in diesel
17 exhaust. They were trace amounts in diesel exhaust 30 and
18 40 years ago. They're trace amounts now under the CE-CERT
19 study. They are in fact been reduced. There's still some
20 trace amounts.
21 But if you feel that those toxic air contaminants
22 cause a problem, let's identify those particular chemicals.
23 What the scientists have been studying when they
24 look at diesel exhaust in fact is particulate matter, which
25 I think is a source that we ought -- substance that we ought
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1 to be looking at, we ought to be studying, we ought to be
2 determining what, if anything, about particulate matter
3 causes a problem.
4 But, in fact, as you've heard both from your own
5 staff, from myself today and, as you know, from your role as
6 a regulator, you have caused the particulate matter
7 emissions from diesel engines to be reduced by 90 percent
8 from when those studies were conducted.
9 So it's unclear if particulate matter is the
10 problem, whether it continues to be a problem today. If
11 that's the problem that's identified, let's work to address
12 it.
13 My members are certainly able to focus their
14 efforts to see what, if anything else, can be done to reduce
15 that particular chemical compound. If there is formaldehyde
16 or arsenic or 1,3-butadiene or something else in diesel
17 exhaust that's a problem that you've already listed, tell us
18 and we'll work to address it.
19 But listing this whole complex substance doesn't
20 help us, it doesn't help you as regulators, it doesn't help
21 the public. We don't know what to reduce.
22 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: We can talk more, but not
23 right now.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: John, thanks. Dr. Froines.
25 DR. FROINES: We have always had very positive
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1 relationships with the Engine Manufacturers Association and
2 we would hope to continue that. So we're open to further
3 evaluation of the material that they may provide. And
4 hopefully that will go on.
5 I should say, however, that at some point we would
6 like an opportunity, whether it be at the next meeting or in
7 between now or later today, to respond, because I think, let
8 me say this as nicely as possible, I don't agree with many
9 of the suggestions, comments, he's made. I think it's a
10 misstatement of science, the way it's being described, and I
11 think we should address what I consider to be incorrect
12 views of the scientific issues.
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Then that's a good point,
14 Dr. Froines.
15 It's my hope that we can hear from these witnesses
16 today. Mr. Kenny has come to me and said there's a point or
17 two he'd like to clarify, and what I've asked him to do is
18 keep the list. What I'd do at the end, and folks will still
19 be here when we finish up, I'd like to do at the end, and I
20 think we'll have folks still here when we finish up, I'd
21 like to be able to go through some of those points, not so
22 much in a point-counterpoint format, but address some of
23 them thematically and then if there's some specific things,
24 we can take those up.
25 And so I want to encourage interaction with the
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1 Board for points of clarification like I tried to do with
2 you at the outset on the CASAC issue, just because I knew
3 that was going to come up. I wanted to have a context.
4 We'll come back at the end and --
5 DR. FROINES: I should say that the chair of CASAC
6 is a fellow named Joe Mauderly. Joe Mauderly was asked at
7 our workshop did he think diesel should be declared a toxic
8 air contaminant, and the answer was yes. So that the chair
9 of CASAC has a consistent view with the other scientists at
10 our workshop and he is the chair of CASAC and he did express
11 the interest that this should be a TAC.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That's certainly information
13 that I had either forgotten or hearing for the first time, I
14 can't recall. I remember he was the key participant.
15 Okay. Yes. Mr. Parnell, do we need Jed to
16 remain?
17 BOARD MEMBER PARNELL: Only that a comment that he
18 made, and I'm not going to ask for clarification today, but
19 as this hearing moves along, I would like clarification, and
20 that is this is a precedent-setting event if we were to list
21 diesel exhaust as a category, as a group of constituents.
22 So in essence he says, makes sense to me, that
23 there is a concern that we're identifying a source as
24 opposed to those issues that they, engine manufacturers and
25 others, are really trying to get at.
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1 So as we unfold the hearing I'd like someone to
2 rationalize to me why we're moving in that direction as
3 opposed to each individual constituent.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Also along those lines, Jed, and
5 I felt we've had, I think, as I mentioned earlier, a good
6 working relationship with your members, and we've seen you
7 willing to tackle some things in concert with us in
8 aggressive time frames and all that, and I'm not sensing in
9 your comments the reluctance to follow through and to make
10 sure that we attack the issue by getting better and cleaner,
11 more efficient engines. I'm not seeing any reluctance.
12 It's just you want us to be fully aware of what the impact
13 would be by identifying the soup rather than the individual
14 chemical compound.
15 MR. MANDEL: Give us the right direction so we can
16 continue to do the things that we've been doing.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think that's an important
18 point.
19 Do you have a couple --
20 MR. MANDEL: As always, thank you for your
21 patience with me.
22 Next speaker will be Dr. Bill Bunn from Navstar.
23 DR. BUNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 I would like to briefly go over some of the
25 chronology of the scientific events that led to this meeting
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1 today.
2 I know there will be differences in perspectives
3 with the SRP. We have had discussions with OEHHA and the
4 SRP over time, and I think it's important to hear both sides
5 of this issue.
6 There were studies in the '50s and even into the
7 '70s in cell cultures that identify potential health effects
8 of diesel exhaust.
9 In the 1980s, maximum tolerated dose studies in
10 rats showed that there were increases in lung tumors at very
11 high dose levels, 800 times the ambient air level.
12 In addition, human studies, epidemiologic studies,
13 suggested weak but exposure-related effects related to
14 diesel exhaust. As we've seen in 1988 and 1989 through this
15 significant event, the International Agency for Research on
16 Cancer found that diesel exhaust was a probable carcinogen.
17 This was based on sufficient animal data, but limited human
18 data.
19 A risk estimate was later given by another agency
20 of the World Health Organization suggesting that 3.4 times
21 10 to the minus five would be a unit risk value that was
22 consistent with that data set.
23 In 1989, as you see, US EPA and California EPA
24 began proceedings under authoritative bodies'
25 recommendations coming from IARC.
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1 So the question is what's happened since that time
2 that brings us here today?
3 First, we must remember the primary studies that
4 led us to the conclusion at IARC were the rat studies which
5 were found to be sufficient.
6 Since that time, further studies were conducted in
7 other animal species, in mice, in hamsters and later we've
8 used monkey models, and we have also looked at pathology in
9 human species and compared them to these models. All of
10 these studies have been found to be negative. It did not
11 support the rat data.
12 Some equivocation in mice, but it was not
13 repeatable and the majority opinion at this point is that
14 the mice studies are negative.
15 Further, in looking at the rat studies, work has
16 been conducted by Dr. Mauderly and others, which has shown
17 that in the rat studies the tumors were only produced at
18 what were called overload conditions, extremely high doses
19 of diesel, and that this was not dependent on diesel. Any
20 inert dust produced similar results.
21 Therefore, the findings in the rats were not found
22 to be significant and these studies are not suitable for use
23 in risk assessment.
24 In addition, these rat studies showed something
25 else. At the very highest dose levels the DNA changes that
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1 one would expect, if the PAHs of diesel exhaust were truly
2 available to the animal, were not shown even at 500 times
3 ambient air levels and higher. So the bioavailability, the
4 best studies we have at the highest doses, was not shown.
5 Regarding the epidemiology. Looking back and
6 remembering there were key studies in the '80s, particularly
7 the studies at Harvard by Dr. Eric Garshick, and also the
8 study at NIOSH previously referenced, Dr. Steenland.
9 In 1991 US EPA looked at the Garshick studies,
10 particularly the cohort study, to see if they were suitable
11 for risk assessment. In that study it was found that a
12 large number of deaths were missing from the cohort in key
13 years.
14 In addition, the researcher found no association
15 between increasing exposure to diesel exhaust and lung
16 cancer. In fact, he found a negative association.
17 Recently, this debate was concluded, in my
18 opinion, when Dr. Garshick, at the CASAC meeting, stated
19 that he agreed with the finding that there was no exposure
20 dose relationship in his data set. And I think that is very
21 probative as we look at risk assessment, because even with
22 some increase in risk, it does not appear in this data set
23 to be related to exposure to diesel.
24 In 1997 and 1998, to clarify this issue two
25 extremely large and expensive epidemiologic studies have
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1 been initiated, one by Dr. Garshick at Harvard, and one by
2 the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
3 and the National Cancer Institute.
4 For the first time we will have extensive exposure
5 data, and I would agree wholeheartedly with John as the
6 exposure data is the key here, we've not had concurrent
7 exposure data, we have had almost no exposure data. I think
8 that's very important in the scenario where we have a very
9 weak association. And, again, the authoritative bodies have
10 been consistent in saying this is a weak association at this
11 level and it's very hard in these cases without good
12 exposure data to be sure about the scientific findings.
13 John also mentioned some recent studies that came
14 out. I know Kyle Steenland relooked at his data. As you
15 know, John, that was original research, and since you threw
16 out the potash study, which is again an unpublished study,
17 it should also be noted that the Australian group has
18 presented twice data in miners, 24,000 miners, with diesel
19 exposure data and in that study the SMR is 30 percent less
20 than what would be expected. That is, there's less cancer
21 than one would expect.
22 Again, there are difficulties with this data and
23 we have to wait for publication.
24 But these are important observations in a scenario
25 where the epidemiology is said to be consistent with good
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1 science.
2 On May 5th, US EPA reviewed and rejected 13 to
3 nothing a document very similar to the document that you see
4 today. It was not based -- the risk assessment there was
5 not based on animal data, it was based on human data and
6 risk estimates.
7 I think it's very important that rather than
8 speculate that we actually look at this transcript, which we
9 have to be made available to you, and discuss it with
10 Dr. Mauderly, as John has suggested, and find out what
11 exactly the final rulings would be. But it is very clear
12 that this was a human risk estimate and the document was
13 rejected.
14 So where are we in 1998?
15 First, if IARC met today, and this has been stated
16 by several members in public places, the result would be
17 different, and I don't believe we'd be having this meeting
18 if we had all the data that's currently available. The
19 animal data has changed substantially.
20 In fact, we believe the animal data does not
21 support the finding of lung tumors in animals, and this is
22 an extensive database at very high exposure levels in
23 multiple species. I, in fact, find it rather reassuring we
24 have such a large database and haven't been able to identify
25 a cancerous effect.
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1 The human data originally found to be limited by
2 IARC is less convincing today. There are significant
3 problems with exposure and with other factors. We're
4 clarifying that with the research that's going on with these
5 very expensive and very large studies, and the reason we're
6 doing these studies is not because we have extra money, it's
7 because we really need to know the answers. The very
8 researchers who conducted the first studies are going back
9 and saying we need something where we have large exposure
10 banks in order to define this issue.
11 So the question from a scientific perspective that
12 we have is that given the changes in the data and the
13 findings since 1988 and 1989, CARB has come forth with a
14 document that now suggests a causal effect, suggesting a
15 known carcinogen. This has not been present in previous
16 documents.
17 In addition, the risk level that is suggested in
18 this document is ten times greater than what was suggested
19 at the point in time when it was originally reviewed.
20 We find that inconsistent with the changes in the
21 science.
22 Finally, we would mention that with newer
23 technology and newer fuels, we think it extremely important
24 that the science evaluate exactly what these risks may be,
25 because these risks may have changed and regardless of which
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1 direction they go it's extremely important that we have good
2 science, and I think we would all agree on that.
3 Thank you.
4 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Are there any questions for
5 this particular witness by the Board?
6 Seeing none, would you introduce then the next
7 person in your group.
8 DR. BUNN: John Duerr.
9 MR. KENNY: Chair.
10 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Yes.
11 MR. KENNY: Is it appropriate at this point to
12 have the SRP members respond to some of the issues that were
13 raised by Mr. Bunn?
14 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: There were other issues
15 earlier by other witnesses that I thought that perhaps the
16 chairman had indicated that we were going to respond to in a
17 series of issues.
18 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: No. Let me suggest -- he's
19 back.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I heard it.
21 My only reluctance in -- by the way I was
22 listening in the back -- to doing a point-counterpoint every
23 time is I'd rather take them as themes and then deal with
24 them at the end more efficiently. That's my only
25 reluctance.
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1 Now, I don't want to, if you want -- if my
2 colleagues on the Board feel strongly they want to take it
3 up individually, we can do that. I think I have kind of
4 done this for a little while and I think that's the way to
5 do it. Then we can deal with it. And I'll make sure
6 witnesses get a chance to have some back and forth if you
7 feel your themes have been misrepresented.
8 DR. FROINES: We'd be happy to do it however the
9 Board decides. I'd just ask one question.
10 I'm developing a rather long list at this point.
11 So if you would go so long and then give us a chance before
12 it gets to be one of those things that you've got a two-page
13 list and it sounds like you're going over and over and over.
14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. And we haven't had
15 enough witnesses yet to be completely redundant, but we
16 will, and we'll -- I'll try to catch that.
17 So if that's okay.
18 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: That's fine.
19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: But my intent is not to preclude
20 some back and forth, just to manage it better, that's all.
21 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Mr. Chairman, there seems
22 like there's a natural break after the listed witnesses in
23 this panel where you can wrap up all of those --
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Be happy to do that.
25 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: -- with similar philosophy
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1 and issues.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: And I'd ask the folks that are
3 going to follow that wrap-up to pay attention to the back
4 and forth and we can go from there.
5 DR. BUNN: John Duerr, Detroit Diesel.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Now is this the -- Jed, where
7 are you, Jed? Don't go too far. Is this your last from
8 your group, your last --
9 MR. MANDEL: This is our last member.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good. Thank you. Please
11 proceed.
12 MR. DUERR: Good morning. I'm John Duerr and I'm
13 here today representing Detroit Diesel Corporation.
14 Detroit Diesel is a major manufacturer of
15 heavy-duty diesel engines. Our engines are used to power
16 on-highway trucks, buses and a variety of off-road and
17 stationary equipment in California and throughout the world.
18 With the purpose of protecting public health, the
19 California Health and Safety Code specifies a two-step
20 process for the identification and control of substances
21 that may be harmful to the public health.
22 As has already been noted, the first step is the
23 identification phase, and concludes with the decision by the
24 Air Resources Board whether or not to list a substance as a
25 toxic air contaminant or TAC.
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1 The second step of the process is the risk
2 management. This phase involves a determination and ranking
3 of emission sources of the TAC, and then, if the Board
4 determines that reductions in exposure are needed, the
5 implementation of suitable controls.
6 Step two follows logically from step one, and
7 together the two steps in sequence constitute a rational and
8 effective public process for making the oftentimes tough
9 public policy decisions associated with environmental
10 controls.
11 Unfortunately, in this instance the staff's
12 recommendation to list whole diesel exhaust as a toxic air
13 contaminant not only fails to follow this established
14 process, but effectively turns it completely upside down.
15 The result of this flip-flop is to replace a
16 process which provides a strong assurance of good public
17 policy decisions with a process which, if allowed to
18 proceed, will almost certainly result in poor public policy
19 choices.
20 Let me explain.
21 As I've already noted, the staff is recommending
22 that whole diesel exhaust be listed as a toxic air
23 contaminant.
24 The staff reports supporting this recommendation
25 does not attempt to describe diesel exhaust in terms of
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1 specific chemical or physical properties, properties which
2 in theory could be associated with human health effects.
3 To the contrary, the report states that diesel
4 exhaust is a complex mixture of thousands of gases and fine
5 particles, and further acknowledges that the composition
6 will vary depending on engine type, operating conditions,
7 fuel composition, lubricating oil and whether an emission
8 control system is present.
9 In short, diesel exhaust, as it is described for
10 the purposes of the proposed TAC listing, is not an
11 identifiable substance and is not even a consistent or
12 reasonably well-defined mixture of substances.
13 As such, diesel exhaust does not meet the
14 definition of the Health and Safety Code, which identifies a
15 toxic air contaminant as an air pollutant and refers to a
16 TAC as a substance.
17 The full description of diesel exhaust in the
18 staff report is a complex mixture of thousands of gases and
19 fine particles emitted by a diesel-fueled internal
20 combustion engine.
21 Therefore, the common feature of the proposed TAC
22 listing is not chemical composition or a physical property,
23 but rather it is the source of the material, namely, a
24 diesel fuel internal combustion engine. Through this
25 subtle, but all important distinction, the proposed TAC
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1 listing effectively becomes a source listing and not a
2 substance listing.
3 Thus, the proposed listing not only fails to
4 identify a substance as required in step one of the Health
5 and Safety Code procedure, but it names a source which is
6 appropriate only as part of step two of the procedure
7 defined in the code. This is the first half of the
8 procedural flip-flop.
9 If the Board accepts the staff's recommendation
10 and proceeds with this inappropriate listing, the Board must
11 then decide if and how to regulate diesel exhaust under the
12 step two management phase of the process.
13 Before discussing the Board's options under step
14 two, and the reasons why all of these options lead to poor
15 public policy, it is useful to provide a more complete
16 description of what is actually in diesel exhaust.
17 For modern heavy-duty diesel engines that are in
18 compliance with on-highway emission standards, over 99.9
19 percent of the total exhaust mass is made up of nitrogen,
20 oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapor. These species all
21 occur naturally in the environment.
22 Oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide constitute
23 several hundreds of one percent of the exhaust mass. They
24 are criteria pollutants and their health effects have been
25 well understood for many years. As a result, standards
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1 protective of the public health have been set and met.
2 Oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide are not
3 unique to diesel engines, but are emitted by essentially all
4 combustion sources.
5 The remaining few thousandths of one percent of
6 the exhaust products is comprised of hydrocarbons,
7 particulate and other miscellaneous species. Clearly, if
8 there are species in diesel exhaust that could justifiably
9 be listed as toxic air contaminants, they are among the
10 literally thousands of chemical species in this subfraction.
11 Indeed, the staff report claims that over 40
12 species that have been already listed as TACs are or may be
13 present in this tiny fraction of diesel exhaust.
14 Just as clearly, if hazardous species do exist in
15 this fraction of diesel exhaust, they are present only in
16 extremely minute amounts.
17 If a decision is made to list diesel exhaust as a
18 TAC, the Board has three choices in the control phase.
19 The first option is to impose no additional
20 regulations beyond those already in place or under
21 consideration for diesel-fueled engines. This could be the
22 most cost-effective outcome of such a listing.
23 However, there would be considerable public and
24 private expense associated with completing the necessary
25 studies and making the determinations required in step two
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1 of the process.
2 And, of course, if the net result of this activity
3 is no change in regulations or controls, there must be zero
4 benefit for this added cost. Costs without benefit is
5 clearly bad public policy.
6 The second option is to take regulatory action to
7 limit public exposure to whole diesel exhaust. This option
8 is particularly troubling for those of us who work in the
9 diesel engine industry. Our engineers and designers have
10 worked and continue to work tirelessly to reduce regulated
11 constituents from the exhaust of our engines.
12 We are committed to working toward the goal of
13 achieving the ideal exhaust of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon
14 dioxide and water vapor, but we realize that even if we
15 could attain this, there is no way we can design a diesel
16 engine to operate without producing diesel exhaust, as it
17 has been defined in the staff report.
18 There simply are no technical solutions available
19 for limiting public exposure to diesel exhaust, short of
20 banning or limiting the use of diesel engines in the state.
21 Because replacement engines will not meet the
22 standards for performance, durability, safety, utility and
23 fuel economy set by diesel engines in many applications,
24 restricting the use of diesel engines will have significant
25 economic and social implications and will handicap
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1 California's economic growth.
2 Furthermore, given the fact that specific toxic
3 substances have not been identified, there is no assurance
4 that conversion to alternate power sources will reduce the
5 threat to public health.
6 The third option would be to attempt to identify a
7 particular species found in diesel exhaust which may be
8 harmful to public health and then put controls on this
9 species. Note that this option is effectively the
10 identification of a particular substance which was
11 improperly deferred in step one of this process.
12 Identifying a substance in step two effectively
13 completes the procedural flip-flop which I referred to
14 earlier. One might argue that the flip-flop is simply a
15 resequencing of steps and leads to the same end results.
16 This is not true.
17 If, as has been proposed, diesel fuel engines are
18 first identified as the source, then it is clear that under
19 such a listing only diesel engines can ultimately be
20 regulated, and if a particular substance X were targeted for
21 control in step two, only substance X from diesel engines
22 would be controlled.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Duerr, if I can encourage
24 you maybe to close, I would be grateful. We're following
25 the logic, but again we're -- I'm hearing you kind of
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1 mention that economic impact of banning diesel, and we've
2 heard all that stuff. So just, what would you have us take
3 away, what would be the final point you'd want to make on
4 the Engine Manufacturers' position on this?
5 And we have, I'm sure there's written testimony we
6 have it here.
7 MR. DUERR: Yes. Detroit Diesel believes the
8 Board must reject the staff's recommendation to list diesel
9 exhaust as a toxic air contaminant, because it is an
10 improper source listing and because it leads to poor public
11 policy choices.
12 If the Board feels that there is sufficient
13 evidence that there are harmful substances in diesel exhaust
14 which are not already listed as TACs or regulated criteria
15 pollutants, that it should direct the staff to identify
16 these substances for appropriate listing.
17 Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good. Thank you. And I
19 appreciate the effort that went into packaging those remarks
20 and coordination with your colleagues.
21 Any questions for the last EMA witness?
22 Very good.
23 MR. DUERR: I believe the next speaker is
24 Dr. Mohsen Sohi, Allied Signal.
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I was kind of looking for the
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1 Chamber to kind of introduce them, because I know there have
2 been some deviation. I guess the Chamber is not here to do
3 that.
4 Mr. Sohi, I guess you're up, from Allied Signal.
5 MR. SOHI: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, my
6 name is Mohsen Sohi, and I'm the vice president of
7 engineering and technology for Allied Signal Turbocharging
8 Systems, headquartered for over half a century in Southern
9 California. On behalf of our business and its many
10 California employees throughout California, I appreciate the
11 opportunity to provide comments on the proposed listing.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You can't just say Southern
13 California with this Board. You've got to tell us where in
14 Southern California.
15 MR. SOHI: Torrance, California.
16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: LA County.
17 MR. SOHI: At Allied Signal we are proud of our
18 history in developing some of the world's most advanced
19 environmental and safety technologies such as ozone-friendly
20 HCFCs, and emission control technologies, including catalyst
21 turbochargers and charger coolers.
22 As the world's largest manufacturer of
23 turbochargers, Allied Signal Turbocharging Systems has a
24 vital stake in the outcome of the proposed listing.
25 As the Board is aware, over the past two decades
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1 the composition of diesel exhaust has changed dramatically,
2 as we've heard repeatedly. Diesel engine PM emissions and
3 NOx emissions are down dramatically.
4 We're proud that California-made Allied Signal
5 products have played a major role in this success story,
6 which began some 50 years ago.
7 In 1955 Allied Signal produced the first
8 turbocharger for diesel-powered construction equipment,
9 dramatically reducing PM emissions.
10 Since that time we have developed numerous
11 break-through technologies including compact high-speed,
12 high-efficiency turbo machinery designed to improve
13 turbocharger response time and PM emissions. Also ways for
14 turbochargers to further reduce turbocharger response time
15 and PM emissions and charger coolers to reduce NOx
16 emissions.
17 More recently our development of valuable geometry
18 VNT turbochargers has revolutionized the passenger car
19 diesel market in Europe by significantly reducing PM
20 emissions, improving engine response and cutting vehicle
21 weight through engine downsizing. The VNT is quickly
22 becoming the turbocharger of choice across much of Europe.
23 We expect similar environmental benefits for
24 heavy-duty diesel engines as we transition this technology
25 to heavy-duty engines.
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1 Our emissions control technologies have also
2 helped heavy-duty diesel engines to become more efficient,
3 improving their fuel economy by 20 percent over the past two
4 decades.
5 In light-duty and medium-duty vehicles, fuel
6 consumption may be cut by as much as 35 percent with
7 associated environmental benefits, while the emissions that
8 cause global warmings are also reduced.
9 But as positive as these developments have been,
10 we continue to search for new technology enhancements. And
11 others are developing innovative product design to even
12 further increase efficiency and reduce emissions.
13 For example, in the near future we'll be bringing
14 to market hydraulically-driven or electrically-assisted
15 turbochargers that offer improved air-fuel ratio control on
16 demand and reduce PM emissions.
17 Also electronic control systems which reduce PM
18 emissions to more precise air-to-fuel ratio.
19 And also in the very near future, exhaust gas
20 recirculation system designed to integrally work with the
21 VNT technology to reduce NOx while minimizing the impact on
22 PM emissions.
23 The diesel engine has come a long way since we
24 produced the first diesel turbocharger in 1955. These
25 technological achievements at Allied Signal and throughout
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1 the industry are not by accident. They are the product of
2 our and the diesel OEM's continuing commitment to enhance
3 diesel engine performance by reducing emissions and
4 increasing engine efficiency.
5 We are particularly proud of what our products
6 have done to help the environment. We know that in some
7 segments of the economy it is not always the
8 environmentally-friendly products that win, rather it is
9 sometimes the technology that provides the economic and
10 competitive performance advantages that carry to date.
11 Fortunately, the new technologies satisfy both the economic
12 and environmental issues.
13 Any action that would have a chilling impact on
14 the demand for diesel engines would stifle the development
15 of advanced turbocharger technologies that could hold the
16 key to further emission reductions.
17 Certainly, listing diesel as a TAC would have such
18 an impact.
19 Our view is that in light of what's already in
20 progress, we believe that the consequences will be worse
21 than the proposed cure. Therefore, we urge the Board to
22 reject the proposed listing of diesel exhaust as a TAC.
23 Thanks for the opportunity to appear before you.
24 I'll be happy to answer any questions.
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any questions of this witness?
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1 Very good. Thank you.
2 MR. SOHI: I would like to introduce Dave Smith
3 from Arco.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Hello, David.
5 MR. SMITH: Hello, Mr. Chairman.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You have a visual for us.
7 MR. SMITH: I have a visual.
8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Will that get on our clothing?
9 MR. SMITH: If you drop it, it might.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We had that problem one time.
11 MR. SMITH: We'll try to be very careful. I was
12 wondering how that would work.
13 Let me just say that I'm Dave Smith from Arco
14 Products Company. I'm representing the Western States
15 Petroleum Association, and we're part of a coalition that
16 the Chamber has set up to support to oppose the listing of
17 diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant today.
18 The coalition has asked me to talk about two
19 issues specifically. You could imagine that as a
20 representative from WSPA my comments are going to be
21 directed towards fuels, principally.
22 As many of you know, or some of you know, I
23 currently chair the diesel task force within WSPA, and
24 several years ago in the '80s I had the privilege to also
25 lead a task force within WSPA that worked with your staff,
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1 Peter Venturini and Dean Simeroth, on creating the
2 reformulated diesel that we're currently enjoying today.
3 But, you know, the CARB diesel that we're using in
4 California is probably, or is, the cleanest diesel in the
5 United States, if not the world. There's probably just a
6 few other fuels in the world that are cleaner in the sense
7 of emissions.
8 I thought just for you to get an example of
9 this -- and this is where I hand out my visual aid. I'll
10 also pass around a piece of paper to describe this. Why
11 don't I do that, the paper first. And then I'll kind of
12 point this out so the rest of everyone can see this.
13 What this is is samples of various diesel fuels
14 that we currently produce within most of the refineries in
15 California.
16 You'll see this clearest fuel is what we call a
17 No. 1 diesel. It's used in engines or sources that need a
18 very light fuel.
19 This kind of yellowish fuel is CARB diesel. This
20 is a diesel that's used in the majority of diesel engines
21 throughout the state.
22 The red one is fuel that we call off-road diesel.
23 It's dyed red for tax purposes.
24 And these last two are referred to as No. 4 diesel
25 and No. 6 diesel. They are heavier diesels. They sometimes
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1 get used in marine vessels, in locomotives.
2 And we believe, and we're not sure about that, but
3 we believe that the fuel that was likely used in the '50s
4 and '60s that resulted in the health, alleged health
5 effects, was probably closer to one of these two fuels.
6 Now, it's interesting to note that the fuels we
7 used today are much cleaner than what they were in the '80s
8 or '90s, but importantly for today they are probably a lot
9 cleaner that what was used in the '50s, the '60s and the
10 '70s, during the time that the railroad workers and other
11 individuals were exposed it resulted in the results that
12 we've heard about earlier.
13 I am no health scientist, but as they talk about
14 the health studies that were completed in the '80s and the
15 '90s, most of those are based, as I understand it, on
16 exposure that resulted during the '50s and '60s probably
17 using the fuel on -- the darker fuel.
18 Why is this so important?
19 You know, if we were listing, like you have
20 benzene or hexavalent chrome, this probably wouldn't be an
21 important issue. But inasmuch as we're listing diesel
22 exhaust, whole diesel exhaust, fuel formulations do make a
23 difference.
24 If it didn't, it would seem funny that over the
25 last 10 or 15 years we, as well as your Board and staff, has
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1 spent so much time trying to reformulate diesel and also
2 CARB gasoline.
3 I think we all understand that one way or another
4 the formulation of the fuel that's burned in whatever engine
5 or source can make a significant difference in the
6 emissions.
7 Now, if we were able to really quantify the
8 difference between the fuels used back then and the fuels
9 used now, I'm afraid that we really still don't have enough
10 information about how the emissions would vary.
11 Now, ARB in their comments and in their testimony
12 today referred to the CE-CERT study.
13 Now, it bears worthy to make some comments about
14 the CE-CERT study. Most importantly for the purposes of
15 time, the CE-CERT study looked at three different fuels.
16 Two of the fuels were actually fuels that would qualify as
17 reformulated diesel in California. So that's the cleanest
18 fuel in the United States, with regards to diesel.
19 The third fuel is something called pre-'93 diesel
20 fuel. Now, in fact that fuel would be considered a
21 low-sulphur diesel, it would be kind of like something like
22 the red diesel that you're seeing here.
23 So really the CE-CERT study looked at a very
24 narrow type of fuels and really never got to the really
25 types of fuels that are really at the heart of, at least the
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1 question in my mind, what kind of fuels were used in the
2 '50s and '60s.
3 The other point about the CE-CERT study was I had
4 the privilege, I guess, of serving on the advisory committee
5 to that group. And although I have to admit I didn't
6 understand a lot of the discussions about the technical
7 nature of it, I did bring up concerns about how those test
8 results would be used, because of the study was very
9 limited, and it only had one engine, three fuels, and the
10 study was really more of a preliminary assessment or a pilot
11 study to determine how, in fact, would we get a better
12 handle with regards to fuel formulations and toxic
13 emissions. And it really wasn't to be used in the way that
14 I think that the ARB is using it today.
15 In fact, there's a quote in the final draft that
16 I've seen, and I haven't seen the final report, so I can't
17 tell you that it's there, but the ARB indicated in that
18 report that this study was only supposed to be used as a
19 baseline study, and it was not to be used in any way to
20 formulate new rules with regards to diesel fuel.
21 Now, to me, it seems like this question about what
22 fuel was used and when and the impact and the emissions is
23 very important. And at least in their presentation it
24 seemed like the staff tried to answer those questions by
25 referring to the CE-CERT study.
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1 Now, I've asked to comment on one other point, and
2 that has to do with the economic impact on our industry.
3 Now, it's been made a point several times that
4 today's -- what we're considering today is only listing
5 diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant, that we're not
6 proposing any type of control measures that would ultimately
7 have some kind of drastic effect on my industry or the users
8 of the diesel feel.
9 And within the staff's report, let me quote a
10 couple things, they say the listing of toxic -- diesel
11 exhaust as a toxic air contaminant will not require any
12 private person or business to incur any cost in reasonable
13 compliance with the proposed action.
14 Now, it's interesting that the staff goes on to
15 say some other things that seem to contradict that finding.
16 Also, you've already heard testimony from M-Cubed
17 that seems to raise questions about the true economic impact
18 from just listing diesel exhaust in California.
19 On page 14 and 15 of the staff report they say
20 that there could be an economic impact on stationary sources
21 with regards to district rules and permits, South Coast AQMD
22 1401 and 1402 rules, AB 2588 hot spots programs. They raise
23 the possibility of increased permit fees.
24 Finally, there's really no mention of the pending
25 and future lawsuits that might occur from the listing of
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1 diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant.
2 It's also noteworthy to find that the ARB staff is
3 recommending that a task force be set up to establish
4 guidelines to help the districts implement the listing of
5 this toxic air contaminant.
6 So to sum this up, WSPA and the coalition is
7 committed to working with the staff on both these issues
8 with regards to the issues of fuels and also the economic
9 impact of the listing of toxic air contaminants.
10 Really the two questions that I leave you with is
11 should we label the exhaust from California's reformulated
12 diesel fuel and current technology vehicles as a toxic air
13 contaminant, which is based on estimated health risks from
14 emissions from fuels that very likely had very different and
15 arguably dirty formulations, and should we also list diesel
16 exhaust as a toxic air contaminant without clearly knowing
17 the economic impact of its listing.
18 Thank you very much.
19 I get to introduce Allen Schaffer from the
20 American Trucking Association.
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: David, don't leave. We have a
22 question for you.
23 Dr. Friedman.
24 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: David, do you know what
25 specific substance is responsible for the color?
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1 MR. SMITH: No, I don't. But I do know that as we
2 reformulate the diesel and hydro treat it and do various
3 things to it, it tends to change the color of the fuel. So
4 I don't mean to, by passing this around, that the color and
5 the emissions have a one-to-one correlation.
6 But you can tell by looking at them and sloshing
7 them back and forth these are very different fuels.
8 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: But I mean to say that the
9 color and the risk to cancer bear no relation to one another
10 either.
11 MR. SMITH: And I'm not suggesting that, Doctor.
12 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Thank you.
13 MR. SMITH: I'm just suggesting that the fuels
14 used today and the fuels used back in the '50 and '60s were
15 very significantly different, not only in color, but also in
16 formulations, and we also believe very different in the
17 sense of emissions.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Schaffer, all the way from
19 Washington to visit us.
20 MR. SCHAFFER: Good afternoon. Thank you,
21 Mr. Chairman, members of the Air Resources Board.
22 Sorry I don't have any exciting visuals to hand
23 out, like our previous speaker. I guess all the visuals
24 that I have you're all using. Everything in this room all
25 of us have, we eat, we wear, are brought to you by trucks.
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1 So trucking is among us.
2 My name is Allen Schaffer. I'm vice president of
3 environmental affairs with the American Trucking
4 Association, ATA. We are the national trade association
5 representing the trucking industry. Our members, including
6 our state affiliates, including the California Trucking
7 Association, number over 37,000 that do business all across
8 the country and in North America.
9 ATA has been an active participant and partner
10 with the ARB over the years in developing solutions to
11 improve air quality in California and we remain committed to
12 doing so. And especially to chart an environmentally and
13 economically responsible course of action for the continued
14 use of diesel fuel in California.
15 And we are encouraged by the fact that the ARB has
16 deferred its decision until after the hearing in the
17 California Senate next week.
18 However, we believe firmly that based on our
19 review of the information that the ARB has no choice to
20 adopt the position that diesel does not meet the criteria
21 for being listed as a toxic air contaminant.
22 I would like to focus my remarks on the pages 7 to
23 14 of my written statement, which you all received in
24 advance, which is the inconsistencies between the state and
25 federal process and findings on the health effects of diesel
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1 exhaust.
2 First of all, we believe that OEHHA's risk
3 assessment is deficient and inconsistent with state mandates
4 that proscribe there to be consistency with US EPA risk
5 assessments. Let me try and explain that.
6 EPA's Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, which
7 you've heard about this morning, has recently returned the
8 staff's draft report on the basis that the scientific
9 evidence is inadequate. All of CASAC's specific concerns or
10 recommendations are applicable here in this venue to
11 California's risk assessment.
12 And based on what appears to be a determined path
13 of the ARB to list diesel as a TAC, it appears that there
14 will be inconsistency between the findings and
15 recommendations of the ARB and the US EPA.
16 This development would be wholly inconsistent with
17 the finding and recommendations of California's Risk
18 Assessment Advisory Committee, or RAAC.
19 We don't believe that CARB should rely on OEHHA's
20 health risk assessment for diesel exhaust, the May 1998
21 publication, as a basis for identifying it, because OEHHA
22 has failed to fully justify the discrepancy between its
23 assessment of health risks from diesel and that of EPA.
24 The RAAC -- state legislation conducted in 1993,
25 Senate Bill 1082, directed OEHHA to convene a Risk
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1 Assessment Advisory Committee to review the risk assessment
2 practices of Cal EPA agencies and to recommend changes, and
3 some of those, the language specifically directing that, is
4 referenced in my comments.
5 RAAC conducted that review in October 1996, issued
6 a review of the California Environmental Protection Agency's
7 risk assessment practices, policies and guidelines, herefrom
8 referred to as the RAAC report, which found some differences
9 in risk assessment prepared by Cal EPA and US EPA that are
10 difficult to explain, including discrepancies in cancer
11 potency factors for certain chemicals, and conclude that it
12 is important that such differences are justified, and this
13 has not always been the case, unquote.
14 The RAAC has specifically noted that the parallel
15 federal and state efforts to assess the health effects of
16 diesel exhaust, commenting that US EPA's participation in
17 the CARB OEHHA diesel exhaust workshop in February of '96
18 was laudable, but such efforts lacked of process to resolve
19 conflicts.
20 December 1996, Governor Wilson issued Executive
21 Order W-137-96 requiring all agencies within Cal EPA to
22 implement the RAAC's report recommendation and to take
23 immediate steps to enhance consistency and foster
24 agency-wide state and federal uniformity with risk
25 assessment methods and practices.
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1 And Cal EPA and OEHHA have taken those steps.
2 Three steps in particular have prepared plans for
3 carrying out the RAAC recommendations, calling for
4 harmonization of state and federal risk assessment programs
5 to reduce the potential for conflicting approaches and
6 methods and for close cooperation and collaboration between
7 the two bodies in application of new scientific advances and
8 risk assessment.
9 CARB's plan specifically provides that the program
10 for identifying toxic air contaminants will be conducted
11 consistent with US EPA practices. That's in CARB's final
12 draft action plan for implementation of the SB 1082 RAAC
13 recommendations, May 8th, 1997.
14 Secondly, a risk assessment coordination work
15 group was formed, chaired by OEHHA, whose task was to ensure
16 that risk assessments which are used for the basis of risk
17 management reflect the best available science.
18 And, third, OEHHA and EPA's National Center for
19 Environmental Assessment entered into a memorandum of
20 understanding, an MOU, committing the agencies to work
21 towards harmonization of state and federal hazard
22 identification, the exposure evaluation and risk assessment
23 programs, including the development of annual work plans and
24 a process to resolve disputes.
25 The most recent work plan in '96-97 specifically
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1 provides for harmonization of risk assessment approaches for
2 diesel exhaust.
3 So pursuant to the Executive Order's mandate,
4 consistency with EPA's risk assessments is clearly
5 established policy goal with both CARB and OEHHA. While
6 consistency does not require OEHHA and EPA's risk
7 assessments always must reach the same results, some
8 justification must be offered for departures from the goal
9 of federal and state harmonization.
10 For example, differences in the information
11 available to the agencies at the time the risk assessment
12 decisions must be made or whether lifestyle and/or
13 population demographic differences between California and
14 the United States as a whole might justify OEHHA's adoption
15 of a more conservative approach than EPA's.
16 Unfortunately, though, OEHHA does not even offer
17 such state-specific rationalizations in the case of diesel
18 exhaust. What is it that is different in California than
19 the other 49 states?
20 Instead, CARB and OEHHA and the SRP wrongly assert
21 that OEHHA's risk assessment for diesel exhaust is
22 consistent with EPA's CARB OEHHA initial statement for
23 reasons of rulemaking and the staff report.
24 This claim of consistency is unsupportable because
25 it is based on EPA's February '98 draft health assessment
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1 document. What the June '98 CARB OEHHA staff report failed
2 to mention is that EPA's CASAC had recently rejected the
3 February '98 draft risk assessment on many of the same
4 grounds. And I won't go over those. They've already been
5 mentioned in great detail, changes in the nature of diesel
6 exhaust over time, extraordinary small quantities of
7 compounds being available, et cetera. There's a whole range
8 of those on pages nine and ten of my comments.
9 For these and other reasons, CASAC concluded that
10 the February '98 draft risk assessment did not provide a
11 scientifically adequate basis for regulatory decision
12 making, requiring substantial revision and further review of
13 the revised draft by CASAC.
14 Yet, OEHHA's risk assessment, on which CARB
15 proposes to rely in identifying diesel exhaust as a toxic
16 air contaminant, suffers from the same flaws and over
17 extrapolations from inadequate data.
18 The RAAC report called on Cal EPA to take the lead
19 in developing consistency with EPA's risk assessment
20 practices, to refrain from placing industry in double
21 jeopardy where EPA has estimated the risk of the same
22 chemical and to justify any differences between Cal EPA and
23 US EPA risk assessments, specifically including estimated
24 cancer potency factors.
25 Such harmonization is mandated by Executive Order
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1 and by policy. But consistency with US EPA's demands that
2 CARB must reject rather than rely on risk assessment
3 approaches that EPA's reviewing body now rejects as plainly
4 inadequate.
5 What does this mean for the trucking industry and
6 other transportation providers that are interstate
7 businesses?
8 We are particularly troubled by the possibility
9 that we may find ourselves looking at two very different
10 classifications of diesel exhaust.
11 For the trucking industry, which is by definition
12 a very mobile interstate industry, an ARB decision to list
13 diesel as a TAC creates a very uncertain environment for the
14 hundreds of thousands of trucks that deliver goods into
15 California and all across the nation each and every day.
16 Aside from the clear competitive issues where
17 California-based carriers would be at a disadvantage, there
18 are other serious concerns about inconsistent federal and
19 state interpretation of the health effects of diesel
20 exhaust.
21 We are particularly concerned because, at the
22 federal level, we are using diesel fuel that is even
23 different and perhaps less refined than you are here in
24 California.
25 So by establishing an inconsistent standard here,
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1 the effect on the trucking industry could be severe.
2 Presumably the ARB may be compelled alone or from
3 legal action to adopt and impose control measures on
4 California-registered trucks that could compel changes in
5 diesel trucks, engines, fuels or operations.
6 In this circumstance, what would be required then
7 of non-California registered trucks with shipments for
8 delivery in California, on locomotives burning
9 non-California diesel fuel across the border?
10 Could there be a violation of the interstate
11 commerce clause of the United States Constitution that
12 arises out of control measures or impacts of a listing?
13 We're very concerned about that and we're also
14 concerned about whether or not we're going to need to have
15 permits as well.
16 In conclusion, we appreciate the opportunity again
17 to be here today.
18 There are significant gaps still in the scientific
19 knowledge about critical aspects of this potential listing,
20 exposure levels of dose, and we need to take time to look at
21 those and understand those completely.
22 The cost of listing diesel exhaust as a TAC will
23 reverbrate well beyond the reassurances offered by the ARB
24 that the listing is, quote, just a listing and that no
25 control measures will be needed, unquote.
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1 These words offer very little encouragement to the
2 hundreds of trucking companies, many of whom are ATA
3 members, delivering the goods and providing things to you
4 right now this very minute, who are now facing the frivolous
5 litigation based on allegations of public harm from exposure
6 to diesel exhaust brought by parties in this room.
7 Again, we implore the ARB to look at the science
8 thoroughly as in the eyes of EPA, and recognize presumptions
9 and postulations are not the foundation of effective public
10 policy.
11 Thank you very much.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
13 Any questions for the witness?
14 Very good.
15 MR. SCHAFFER: I'd like to introduce our final
16 speaker on this panel, last but not least, Stephanie
17 Williams of the California Trucking Association.
18 MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Allen.
19 Good afternoon, Chairman, and members of the
20 Board.
21 First of all, I'd like to thank you for deferring
22 your vote until the Legislature can review this very large
23 policy issue. We appreciate it.
24 As you had heard from the Chamber coalition today,
25 which we are a part, this listing is more than just a simple
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1 TAC listing. There are huge policy implications and we
2 recognize that you are listening to that, and we thank you.
3 Just to tie things up, we, CTA, have submitted
4 written comments that we hope that you will read. We don't
5 want to go over the same thing that has been said, in the
6 interest of time.
7 We do have one interest in a due process issue.
8 We've requested documents that have been denied. It's in
9 our written comments and you can find our concerns there.
10 Also we have concerns with California diverting
11 from the federal particle standard, PM 2.5 standard, that
12 has been adopted by CASAC and federal EPA is 15 micrograms
13 per cubic meter. There really is no reason to have five for
14 diesel. A particle is a particle. We've heard this from
15 Art Pope and six city studies. There's no difference
16 between a diesel particle and any other particles. And
17 there's really no science that's been put forward that says
18 that it should be three times more stringent for the diesel
19 particle than any other particle.
20 Also we'd like you to evaluate the Australian
21 study. There are two studies that could be used for the
22 risk assessment. The Australian study has 20 years of
23 exposure in its documented exposure.
24 The Garshick study does not have documented
25 exposure and all of the participants died by 1983. Some of
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1 those people that passed away had only five years of
2 exposure, and it takes a little more than that to get
3 cancer.
4 So we would ask that you reevaluate the Australian
5 study as the risk assessment study.
6 Also, there's a study that was introduced and has
7 been talked about by Bhatia, et al, if you would refer to
8 our written comments. The Bhatia study was done under
9 contract with OEHHA. It is not an independent study.
10 Dr. Allan Smith is the author.
11 We have been unable to locate Bhatia and wonder
12 who he is, so we would like that into the record.
13 And really just to close things up, the Chamber
14 coalition, as well as the members, there are a lot of
15 unintended consequences. The California Trucking
16 Association and our members are using the cleanest fuel in
17 the world. We go to the gas station, we fill up, we get
18 sued. We know these are unintended consequences. We want
19 to move forward with the clean-up of diesel. We like being
20 out front and looked at as the clean air truckers in
21 California, but we also want to keep our jobs.
22 So we ask that you consider these things.
23 Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
25 Ms. Walsh or anybody from legal staff, it always
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1 troubles me when somebody says they can't get public
2 documents. What's being asked for and what's not being
3 supplied if, in fact, that's the case?
4 MS. WALSH: I can assure you that your staff here
5 takes that responsibility very seriously as well.
6 All of the documents related to this rulemaking
7 have certainly been made available to all of the
8 participants.
9 There have been a number of Public Records Act
10 requests submitted by the California Trucking Association,
11 some to the Air Resources Board and some to OEHHA and other
12 state agencies.
13 We have been responding to those Public Records
14 Act requests as they come in as quickly as possible. We
15 have responded fully to each and every one of those Public
16 Records Act requests.
17 I believe that requests submitted to OEHHA have
18 involved some discussion of documents that were privileged
19 or confidential and that there are exemptions in the Public
20 Records Act request that provide for some nondisclosure of
21 documents that, for example, would reveal deliberative
22 process, those kinds of things. These are well-established
23 principles of public records and documents.
24 I will tell you that from your staff's
25 perspective, we basically give folks everything when they
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1 ask for it.
2 I do believe that that is the nature of the
3 comment that was submitted on behalf of the CTA by
4 Ms. Williams.
5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Any questions for
6 the witness?
7 Supervisor Roberts.
8 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Yeah. One question,
9 Mr. Chairman.
10 Ms. Williams, our staff and our scientific panel
11 laid out some risk factors for us in some very thorough
12 fashion at the beginning of the meeting.
13 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes.
14 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: And you're quoted by one of
15 the newspapers as saying that is junk science.
16 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, we believe that.
17 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: It's junk science and the
18 report is bogus.
19 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes.
20 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Do you want to elaborate on
21 that?
22 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, I do. Actually thank you for
23 that opportunity.
24 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I don't want you to take
25 all afternoon.
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1 MS. WILLIAMS: We do have the original scientist
2 opposing a document, and you were using a literature search.
3 It is easy to identify that as junk science. When you have
4 the head of CASAC come forward and say you can't use my rat
5 data, please take it out, that is the scientist that you're
6 depending on, that alludes to junk science.
7 When you have Eric Garshick, who did the railroad
8 study, come out and say you can't use my data like this, and
9 you do it anyway, then you can say junk science.
10 You're using other people's work and you're
11 interpreting. Why not just use it the way they did it?
12 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Thank you.
13 MS. WILLIAMS: You're welcome.
14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Now --
15 MS. WALSH: Excuse me.
16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes, Kathleen.
17 MS. WALSH: To clarify on my response on the
18 Public Records Act request and due process, counsel, general
19 counsel for OEHHA, is also here and could provide some
20 information about their response to the Public Records Act.
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I just -- people want to get on
22 the record, I just want to get on the record on behalf of
23 our entire Board and the administration, when people want
24 documents, they're to be provided. And I just want to make
25 sure that we are being up-front and getting material out to
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1 people who have requested it, and within those guidelines we
2 have about confidential or proprietary. That's all. Just
3 want to reiterate. I don't need a legal argument about
4 that.
5 You guys, matter of fact, if anybody is
6 interested, I personally read, and you know this, Kathleen,
7 because you provide it to me with some other staff input, I
8 look at all the Public Records Act requests we get
9 personally. I'm interested in that. I want to make sure
10 those requests get filled.
11 MS. WALSH: Absolutely.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: So I have a commitment to that
13 program. And I know you share it.
14 Let's make sure that if we're not providing people
15 with documents, they understand why and the rationale behind
16 it, and the legal elements to it. That's all.
17 MS. WALSH: That's certainly where your staff is
18 and I believe that OEHHA just wanted to indicate that they
19 also are there with that.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I know Ms. Denton shares that
21 same view.
22 Okay. Now, it's been suggested that we have a
23 break, not so much a break for the Board and/or the
24 audience, per se. Our Board is going to take their lunch
25 kind of staggered. It's in the back. So we will be
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1 disappearing and there will be some food back there that
2 people will be eating quickly to get back out here, because
3 we want to get through this, we want to give people an
4 opportunity to say what needs to be said.
5 But is this a good time, Mr. Kenny, for us to take
6 a break and try to address some of the themes and some of
7 the issues that have been asserted thus far?
8 MR. KENNY: I think it would be.
9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: My Board member colleagues
10 support that? Okay.
11 Mike, why don't I turn to you, and I know
12 Mr. Venturini is busy back there writing, taking notes, if
13 you would attempt -- now the reason I'm imposing this theme
14 concept on you is it will allow us to lump them together,
15 which we've tried to do with some of the witnesses today.
16 So, Mike, I'll let you broker it.
17 I know Dr. Froines and his colleagues have a few
18 things I want to make sure get covered as well.
19 So, Peter, if you need to get up and consult with
20 Dr. Froines while Mike kicks this off, this is fine with me,
21 but let's get some things out.
22 Mr. Kenny.
23 MR. KENNY: That would be fine. Thank you,
24 Mr. Chair, members of the Board.
25 What I've tried to do is look at the different
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1 themes as the chairman has suggested and it seems to me that
2 the themes really break down into three primary areas.
3 One is the question about diesel exhaust and the
4 issues of source and substance, whether it is a source or
5 whether it is a substance. And I think that actually has
6 subparts to it in the nature of there's a legal aspect to
7 that, whether or not the identification of diesel exhaust is
8 precedential or whether there has been, has kind of been an
9 approach in the past, whether there's consistency with
10 regards to what is occurring here today with what has
11 happened with US EPA and how that fits into the context of
12 the RAAC process that was identified.
13 In the nature of the science, there are questions
14 about how this fits into what CASAC has done. I know that
15 was briefed, briefly mentioned earlier today. I think it's
16 probably appropriate to go back into that at least a little
17 bit and talk about what CASAC did or did not do.
18 There was mention as to specific studies,
19 particularly the Australian study and what the Australian
20 study does or doesn't mean.
21 Mr. Bunn talked about that a little bit, or
22 Dr. Bunn, excuse me, talked about that a little bit, and I
23 think it's appropriate probably for the SRP and OEHHA to
24 look at that.
25 There have also been a lot of questions about old
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1 versus new diesel and whether or not we are looking at a
2 substance today that is consistent with what the studies in
3 the past have basically told us. So I think that issue
4 ought to be identified.
5 And then there have been the questions that have
6 been raised just very recently about whether or not what has
7 been presented to you today by the staffs of OEHHA and ARB
8 and the SRP as junk science. So I think it's appropriate to
9 respond to the allegation of junk science.
10 And then finally the last theme really is one of
11 the identification consequences. What happens if in fact
12 this Board does identify diesel exhaust as a TAC.
13 And there are issues there really with regard to
14 permitting and hot spots and what would happen with regard
15 to the permitting process and the identification of the hot
16 spots process, whether or not there should be some guidance
17 in the use of the risk numbers that are associated with this
18 report, the economic impacts that are associated with any
19 kind of identification, and the legal impacts that are
20 associated with any kind of identification, what kind of
21 lawsuits would we be looking at potentially, and what is the
22 likelihood of legitimacy of those lawsuits.
23 So that is kind of a brief outline of really the
24 three main areas that I think are important to look at and
25 then the subparts of those three main areas.
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1 And with that in mind I'd suggest that Peter
2 Venturini look at the first question and coordinate with the
3 OEHHA staff and then we go to the Scientific Review Panel
4 for the issue of science and then come back to ARB staff
5 primarily for the last issue, which was the identification
6 consequences.
7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Peter, we have a new
8 court reporter here, so identify yourself.
9 MR. VENTURINI: Good afternoon. I'm Peter
10 Venturini. I'm chief of the Stationary Source Division.
11 What I suggest is Mr. Kirk Oliver, our legal
12 staff, will start off with the legal basis on the source
13 versus the substance. And my staff can follow up on that.
14 And then if OEHHA wants to respond, go through each of these
15 in order.
16 MR. OLIVER: Thank you, Mr. Venturini.
17 Members of the Board, the law envisions and
18 specifically authorizes you to identify complex mixtures as
19 toxic air contaminants. And the law even establishes how
20 controls are to be developed of emissions of TACs from
21 vehicular sources.
22 Now, let me specifically enumerate what those
23 provisions of law are and tell what you they say.
24 Toxic air contaminant is defined in Health and
25 Safety Code Section 39655, and it says the toxic air
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1 contaminant means an air pollutant which may cause or
2 contribute to an increase in mortality or in serious illness
3 and which may pose a present or potential hazard to human
4 health.
5 Throughout the air toxics law we call AB 1807, air
6 toxics are repeatedly called substances.
7 And the law goes further, substance would
8 certainly incorporate the vehicular emission known as diesel
9 exhaust.
10 But the law goes further and specifically defines
11 air contaminant for you to mean any air contaminant or air
12 pollutant means any discharge, release or propagation into
13 the atmosphere and includes, but is not limited to, smoke,
14 charred paper, dust, soot, grime, carbon, fumes, gases,
15 odors, particulate matter, acids or any combination thereof.
16 I think that lays to rest any doubt about your
17 authority to call diesel exhaust a toxic air contaminant
18 under our law. It clearly authorizes you to do that.
19 The law goes even further and establishes a
20 process whereby these kind of air toxics, once they've been
21 identified by you, if they come from a vehicular source that
22 there's a specific process that's developed in our law for
23 coming up with the control measures to handle these kinds of
24 emissions and the exposures to them.
25 That provision is in Health and Safety Code
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1 Section 39667 where it specifically provides a process for
2 how toxic air contaminants that come out of vehicular
3 emission sources are to be incorporated in our vehicular
4 emissions standard and in our standards that we set for the
5 cleanliness of the fuel that's burned in California
6 vehicles.
7 So I guess the argument that's being made here
8 that you've been evaluating is kind of like saying that you
9 can't call something an egg because it comes from a chicken.
10 And I'd submit to you that that doesn't really make any
11 sense in raising poultry and it doesn't make any sense in
12 the context of our air pollution laws, which, as you've
13 seen, give you clear, repeated authority to name something
14 like diesel exhaust a toxic air contaminant.
15 MR. VENTURINI: I'd like to ask Ms. Shiroma on my
16 staff to provide some perspective on the issue of mixture
17 versus substance, and then we'll have some response from
18 OEHHA.
19 MS. SHIROMA: Thank you, Peter.
20 For the record, my name is Genevieve Shiroma. I'm
21 chief of the Air Quality Measures Branch.
22 The Board has in fact identified almost 200
23 substances as toxic air contaminants, and within those
24 listing there are mixtures. A few examples are cresols,
25 cresyfic acid isomers and mixtures, coke oven emissions,
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1 chlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans, chromium compounds
2 and so forth.
3 So actually the Board has adopted mixtures in the
4 past as toxic air -- or identified mixtures in the past as
5 toxic air contaminants.
6 MR. OLIVER: I would only add this, that all of
7 the vehicular emission standards that this Board has
8 developed have treated a number of different air pollutants
9 in their control strategy. Every one of the emission
10 standards that we have deal with a number of different
11 chemicals that are found in vehicular emissions. So we have
12 a long history of controlling mixtures here. The law is
13 very clear on that.
14 MR. VENTURINI: I think it might be appropriate as
15 well if OEHHA would provide the Board their perspective on
16 why the listing is being proposed as a listing of diesel
17 exhaust. Of course the members of the SRP would like to add
18 their comments on that. They certainly could as well.
19 DR. ALEXEEFF: Yes. This is George Alexeeff.
20 I'll just be very brief.
21 The studies on which we based the risk estimates
22 and evaluated the health effects of diesel exhaust, both the
23 non-cancer health effects, everything from allergic
24 hypersensitivity to the cancer effects that occurred in
25 truckers or railroad workers or other occupational sources
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1 were based on exposures to whole diesel exhaust. So for
2 that reason our health effects are based on whole diesel
3 exhaust.
4 Now, in terms of addressing the issue of new fuel
5 versus old fuel, all of the studies that we looked at also
6 realize this concern of trying to figure out how can we
7 compare this study with another study.
8 For that reason, all the studies in some way when
9 they're looking at measurements base their exposure per
10 microgram per cubic meter of particulate. So that helps by
11 basing everything on microgram per cubic meter of
12 particulate allows us to normalize the exposures. So in
13 that sense we have a way of comparing the exposures.
14 MS. SHIROMA: To follow on to George's indication
15 that with risk assessment the information is normalized, we
16 did in fact look at this issue of old technology, old fuel,
17 versus new technology and new fuel.
18 And in the presentation that you saw today in our
19 staff report we have accounted for all of the advances that
20 have come about. So the emissions inventory and ambient
21 exposures that you see presented today do fold in all of
22 those advances and are reflected in the emissions numbers
23 and ambient numbers.
24 Now, numbers of years ago this issue arose and so
25 we funded a research study, which Dave Smith referred to,
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1 for Arco, called CE-CERT, the College of Engineering at
2 Riverside.
3 The intent of that study was to take a look at
4 gram for gram, understanding that in fact the emissions have
5 come down, gram for gram is the thumbprint very similar. We
6 knew that we wouldn't have the definitive study. There are
7 many steps that are needed for this kind of thing, but we
8 looked at were the same toxic components in the old exhaust,
9 the exhaust from the old fuel, as we would see in the new
10 fuel.
11 And in fact the study did show the same toxic
12 components, the 40 that we had on the table, and then some
13 were in the old fuel and the new fuel exhaust.
14 We do acknowledge that there is much more to learn
15 about the characterizations and so forth, but our key goal
16 was to see did you have that same complex mixture, the very
17 similar thumbprint before and after, and that's what the
18 study showed.
19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Calhoun.
20 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: What about the
21 concentration in these exhaust of these different studies
22 conducted at CE-CERT where comparing the old with the new
23 fuel?
24 MS. SHIROMA: Again, for the most part -- well,
25 first of all, we showed very nicely that the new fuel
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1 complies with the regulations, that in fact you do see less
2 emissions of the particulate, and that was the goal of the
3 new fuel.
4 In terms of concentrations, for the most part the
5 various constituents are very similar. There were some
6 compounds that were higher or lower, but not in a
7 statistically significant concentration.
8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Dave.
9 MS. SHIROMA: In some cases higher, some cases
10 lower.
11 MR. SMITH: It's somewhat terminology. When we
12 use the word old fuel, the old fuel that's being talked
13 about is what is in the CE-CERT test was they referred to as
14 a pre-'93 fuel. It was a low sulphur fuel. It was a fuel
15 that would almost meet EPA's low sulphur requirements. It
16 was not anywhere near or modeled -- there was no attempt, I
17 was on the advisory committee, I participated in those
18 meetings, there was no attempt to model the fuels that were
19 used in 1950 or 1960.
20 So as long as you understand what they say by old
21 fuels, the old fuel in this CE-CERT study was actually in
22 1990.
23 And the other thing is that because of the way the
24 study was done, only one engine, these three fuels, ARB told
25 us those results would not be used in the way of formulating
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1 new regulations. So the use of it in this context is
2 surprising.
3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Dave, I don't mean to quibble
4 over words, but certainly you don't believe that this
5 discussion today is one about regulation, do you?
6 MR. SMITH: I think that's what you are doing,
7 adopting a regulation to list diesel exhaust as a toxic air
8 contaminant.
9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: No. The regulatory element, if
10 in fact we were to identify it as a -- diesel exhaust as a
11 TAC, if that would emerge at all it would be many years down
12 the road, a couple at least, with a bunch of process
13 involved.
14 And I might remind you and others that are pretty
15 adept at watching what regulators do, I think you have a
16 pretty good confidence level about the fact that with our
17 '94 SIP we put forward just about everything we thought
18 could reasonably be done to control the source.
19 I'm not going to let you get away with asserting
20 that this is some kind of a regulatory action or regulatory
21 discussion, because it isn't.
22 And I don't think you need to hear from legal
23 counsel to describe again what this hearing is about, but
24 it's just not a regulatory hearing.
25 MR. SMITH: As you probably know, I'm not an
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1 attorney, so I won't argue the point. It just seems like a
2 regulatory action that the Board is taking. And I find that
3 from our perspective --
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Feels like it.
5 MR. SMITH: It just feels like it.
6 And irrespective of that, irrespective of that,
7 it's very important that it be understood that the CE-CERT
8 study initially when we talked about it, it was supposed to
9 have a number of different engines, a number of different
10 fuels, but because of a number of reasons, time and cost
11 being the most precedent, that scope of the test was very
12 much reduced to where we only had one engine, a modern
13 engine, and these three fuels, two of which were CARB
14 diesels. So I just find it hard that ARB is trying to use
15 the results from that study, whether they should or
16 shouldn't, to try to explain whether or not we are actually
17 looking at the fuels that were used in 1950 or 1960, because
18 I don't think they did.
19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Genevieve, anything else?
20 MR. VENTURINI: Mr. Chairman, if I can bring a
21 little closure on this CE-CERT from my perspective.
22 Basically, we were questioned that new fuels were
23 going to be substantially different from older fuels in
24 their makeup, and somehow that would affect the toxicity, so
25 we undertook this study.
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1 The bottom line was the newer fuel contained the
2 same profile and the same kinds of constituents in it as the
3 older fuel, admittedly in lesser quantities, which is good
4 news. It means we're reducing emissions and we are reducing
5 particulates in some of the organics, so that's the good
6 news. But it did contain the same substances.
7 We did recognize that that study was one engine
8 with three fuels. In fact, we acknowledge, and even the SRP
9 in their findings acknowledged, that some additional work
10 would be very helpful to further quantify the amounts of
11 some of these specific compounds from a variety of engine
12 technologies, operating cycles and so forth to provide some
13 additional information.
14 But the initial purpose of this is to try to get a
15 perspective, was there a substantially different profile.
16 What we found was, there wasn't.
17 And I just wanted to get that summary perspective.
18 MR. SMITH: The only thing is that that didn't
19 come as a big surprise to me, because all the three fuels
20 looked in many ways a lot of the same. If we had the
21 ability to take a No. 6 fuel, which was used in railroads in
22 1950, and submit it to the same type of testing, I think
23 we'd see a much different result.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. I think we've covered
25 that.
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1 Mr. Parnell.
2 BOARD MEMBER PARNELL: Actually, I wanted to just
3 belabor that point. It seems as though his feeling on our
4 staff's part, the constituencies found in the two fuels
5 after the test, albeit a one-engine test, were substantially
6 the same.
7 But what obviously your belief is is that it would
8 have been substantially different had they been able to test
9 1960 fuels.
10 MR. SMITH: Actually I was really surprised that
11 we did see a significant difference between what they called
12 the pre-'93 fuel and the post-'93 fuel, because in many ways
13 they weren't as different as I hoped that they would be.
14 When I was giving them advice on it I said let's really try
15 to make these different.
16 But based on the time and the fuels that were
17 available, they got a fuel that wasn't that much different.
18 So I was actually surprised that they came up with
19 the reductions that they saw. I was pleasantly surprised.
20 So I mean I guess our coalition would very much
21 like to see a continuation of the CE-CERT study, to continue
22 that study not only looking at other types of fuels, the
23 older fuels, but maybe looking at the old technologies that
24 were available. That would help us define are these health
25 studies that are based on those old fuels and old engines
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1 applicable to today.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yeah. My concern, you know, if
3 there were commitments made by our staff relative to the use
4 of certain information and that there's a trust relationship
5 that one needs to have with people we work with, if that's
6 been violated, Dave, and I'm hearing you say it has, at
7 least in the context of how you view this whole
8 deliberation, that's something that we'll deal with as a
9 Board with our staff.
10 I can assure you that's not an operating process
11 that we encourage or condone here. So I take that
12 seriously. And I'm going to have the right conversation to
13 make sure that that doesn't happen again and it's very clear
14 about in the future when we do collaborative research that
15 people are very clearly aware of what is going to emerge and
16 how it's going to be used.
17 MR. SMITH: Sitting on the advisory board, I've
18 been through enough of these things that I appreciate that
19 where you sit that you have to make decisions based on the
20 available information. So that's why I was very sensitive
21 about how this report was going to be used. And that was my
22 understanding after we agreed on the test.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Anything else, Jack, on
24 that other point?
25 BOARD MEMBER PARNELL: Just briefly, it's
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1 concerning to me that unless my understanding is incorrect,
2 that much of the data that we relied on was a result of
3 prior-1960 fuels being burned and we take that and then we
4 take a set of different fuels and try to prove up something
5 that seems to me is very frail at the best.
6 MR. SMITH: If, you know, if we actually do the
7 studies, maybe it will substantiate what ARB staff believes
8 to be true now, but I don't believe they can make those
9 findings based on the test results they have.
10 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Excuse me.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Dr. Friedman.
12 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: I understand the question
13 very well, but what confuses me is I know of no studies that
14 can, in any fuel at any age, in this heterogeneous mix in
15 which a specific carcinogen is not identified, can answer
16 your question. Can't be done. At least not now by current
17 technology.
18 So, you know, the notion of let's study fuel from
19 1914, let's study fuel from 1940, it's not going to help.
20 It will not provide an answer. It's very straightforward.
21 MR. SMITH: My sense, and I'm not the scientist,
22 the health scientist, but you do know that CARB has
23 regulated cleaner burning gasoline where they're
24 specifically regulating toxics and they're specifically
25 looking at very specific toxic emissions from that fuel.
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1 And by doing that, we are formulating our fuel
2 under cleaner burning gasoline rules to limit those specific
3 toxic emissions. We're not trying to limit gasoline exhaust
4 emissions, hopefully to try to get the right one.
5 So I think it's been done.
6 DR. FROINES: Can I comment?
7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes, Dr. Froines.
8 I didn't mean to cut you off, Bill.
9 DR. FROINES: I wanted to follow up.
10 Bill, I think that his comments are right to the
11 point, because at some level it's very clear we should be
12 looking at the fuels and the technologies and look at what
13 happens when combustion occurs and what products are
14 produced, and we should be doing that over a long period of
15 time. No problem.
16 But at another level, this has nothing to do with
17 what we're talking about today also, because let's assume
18 that there is a qualitative change in the levels of
19 emissions, the size of the particulate, the PAHs on the
20 particulate, the other vapors that have been formed, let's
21 assume that there are significant differences.
22 Well, what do you do with that?
23 You don't do anything with it. All you can say is
24 those changes have occurred. What you have to then do is to
25 do some kind of studies, whether they be epidemiologic
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1 studies or animal studies or in vitro studies, but you then
2 have to relate those changes to -- you have to relate the
3 changes that you find to changes in health effects. That's
4 fine too. I think we should do that too.
5 But you have a problem. Those are going to take
6 somewhere between 10, 20, 30, 40 years to do all that.
7 We're not talking about something that's going to happen
8 next week. You're talking about looking at changes in
9 technology in fuels, evaluating these changes, doing major
10 epidemiologic studies. Remember, we're talking here about
11 40 studies. 40 studies. Not one.
12 And so when you look at the scope of what we're
13 doing here, this is all well and good, but keep in mind what
14 has to be done. You must look at the changes and you must
15 then look at the impact of those changes on the health
16 effects. You can't do one versus the other.
17 So you're talking about a very very major
18 undertaking in the very least.
19 I want to say one thing more about this. Two
20 things.
21 One, mixtures. Smoking is a mixture. It causes
22 lung cancer.
23 Coke ovens is mixture. It causes lung cancer.
24 Coal gasification is a mixture. It produces PAH,
25 it causes lung cancer.
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1 Aluminum smelters produce lung cancer in workers
2 who are part of the electrolytic process of aluminum
3 reduction.
4 If you use smoky coal in China you have excess
5 lung cancer.
6 In other words, everywhere you have a complex
7 mixture made up of products of incomplete combustion, you
8 have excess lung cancer risk. Period. Across the board.
9 Smoking, smoky coal, coal gasification, coke ovens
10 and the list goes on and on. Complex mixtures produce lung
11 cancer.
12 The evidence for diesel is that diesel produces
13 lung cancer. It is consistent. There are a large number of
14 studies and those studies are very very good.
15 That's what you have before you.
16 That, ladies and gentlemen, is the definition of a
17 toxic air contaminant. You don't have to go one step
18 further. Forget everything that's been said about risk
19 assessment.
20 What's been said here today is that diesel exhaust
21 as a complex mixture causes lung cancer and that's a TAC.
22 And then the law says OEHHA has to come up with a
23 range of risk, and that's what they've done. In fact, they
24 have come up with about five to ten ranges of risk, all of
25 which are in the same ballpark and all of which are
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1 reasonable and all of which have uncertainty, but they've
2 met that statutory responsibility. So they have met their
3 responsibility within this context.
4 And finally I want to say something about biology.
5 When you're exposed to five different carcinogens, they
6 don't act by themselves. The cancer of the lung you get
7 happens from the mutations that occurs in the lung from one,
8 from two, from three, from four, from five and from the
9 hundreds that you're exposed to.
10 In other words, what you have is a multicausal
11 phenomenon. Those multiple carcinogens are causing cancers.
12 You're getting mutations in different parts of your genes.
13 You're seeing the effects of the multiple exposures and you
14 may even be seeing the effects of interactions.
15 It's impossible, it is fundamentally impossible to
16 separate diesel constituents into individual components
17 within all of our lifetimes and ever reach anywhere. But it
18 would be wrong to do so, because the stuff that produces the
19 cancer are the hundreds of compounds that enter the lung
20 and cause genetic changes.
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Appreciate it,
22 Dr. Froines. We want to come back. You did a good
23 summation, but say that we want to hear more about some of
24 the specifics of that.
25 Dave.
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1 MR. SMITH: Am I done?
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yeah, you're done. Thank you.
3 Peter, you're moving swiftly through your list
4 here.
5 MR. VENTURINI: The next items really relate to
6 health issues and they are the consistency with our US EPA,
7 the RAAC findings.
8 CASAC, which I should probably reiterate once
9 again, CASAC there was the Australian study and then the
10 point about junk science. So I'll ask OEHHA and I'm sure
11 Dr. Froines will also want to address this.
12 DR. ALEXEEFF: This is George Alexeeff.
13 Let me first talk a little bit about consistency.
14 I think we've -- actually our slides really address this
15 issue fairly well.
16 First of all, all the agencies we've talked about
17 that have taken some action on diesel exhaust, whether it's
18 the State of California for Prop 65 or IARC or NIOSH or WHO,
19 have all done that action based upon whole diesel exhaust.
20 There's consistency right there.
21 In terms of now getting into what are the health
22 effects, is there consistency on what the health effects
23 are? No, there are not.
24 The difference that might exist is very small. As
25 you saw in terms of the cancer -- the non-cancer levels, we
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1 proposed five. US EPA proposed five. World Health
2 Organization is 2 to 14. That is very very consistent.
3 We go now to the cancer effects. Okay. Let's
4 talk about consistency.
5 First of all, is there consistency that there is
6 some cancer risk to humans? Yes. There's a lot of
7 consistency. Do they all use the exact same words? No.
8 Everybody states it a little bit different, because a
9 scientist just states it slightly different.
10 But it's essentially very very close to being a
11 known human carcinogen, if not a known human carcinogen.
12 And how one states is really not relevant here,
13 because all we have to know is if there is a risk.
14 So US EPA is consistent with that and the World
15 Health Organization is consistent with that, NIOSH is
16 consistent with that, and so are we.
17 The next question comes down to the range of risk,
18 what is the consistency of that? We had a slide on the
19 range of risk consistency.
20 Now, the only inconsistency within that range of
21 risk is whether you included the animal data.
22 We can all -- we have a study, we can all do the
23 calculations the same and come up with the same number.
24 So in our range of risk, we did not include the
25 animal data. And that's the only difference.
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1 As it turns out, humans are more sensitive than
2 animals to the cancer risks.
3 Now, let me get to the issue of the Clean Air
4 Advisory Committee, the CASAC report. As I indicated
5 earlier, I felt that US EPA's report was about six months
6 behind ours, and I still think that is the case, because
7 what happened at the CASAC meeting?
8 Well, first of all let me just step one step
9 further back, because it was mentioned, a representative
10 from the epidemiologist from US EPA came to our workshop,
11 the workshop that we had here, and testified that the US EPA
12 report is consistent with the Cal EPA report. That
13 testimony was given and it is the case.
14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That was Mauderly?
15 DR. ALEXEEFF: No. This was a representative from
16 US EPA. Mauderly is a private individual.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. But he's the chair. It
18 wasn't him, it was --
19 DR. ALEXEEFF: He's the chair of CASAC. No, I'm
20 actually talking about the staff --
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: To the committee. Got it.
22 Okay.
23 DR. ALEXEEFF: Okay. Now, with regards to that,
24 the staff made a presentation to their science panel
25 recently and their science panel suggested that there should
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1 be more discussion regarding the non-cancer health effects,
2 the immunologic effects.
3 Well, we were given that same advice six months
4 ago and we incorporated that into our report.
5 Now, in terms of the cancer health effects, the
6 science panel told -- the US EPA science panel told their
7 staff to not use the animal data in the range. They voted
8 the use the human data in the range. That is what our
9 science panel told us six months ago.
10 So the science panels are actually also
11 consistent, as well as the EPA staff reports. It's simply a
12 timing issue of when things are being told.
13 So in many ways what has happened at the CASAC
14 meeting is that US EPA's CASAC has told their staff to make
15 efforts to be more consistent with the Cal EPA report, and
16 our staff went there and testified in support of US EPA to
17 clarify what the issues are.
18 So I don't think there's inconsistency, and I
19 think that we are working very very closely with US EPA.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay.
21 DR. ALEXEEFF: I think that it's also -- the Risk
22 Assessment Advisory Committee asked us to work towards
23 consistency and harmony and we have had many workshops
24 together, we've testified for each other, we have phone
25 conversations. So I think we've worked as hard as we can to
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1 be consistent.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: What I'm going to do is exercise
3 some prerogative. It seems to me that we're never going to
4 get to the other witnesses unless I break it off and we hear
5 from the rest of the witnesses and then we'll come back.
6 Does anybody on the Board want to argue with me
7 about that? Okay.
8 MR. MANDEL: Mr. Chairman, one point of response
9 to the debate. You did say there would be an opportunity
10 to --
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I'm not going to do this right
12 now, Jed. What I'm going to do is call up the rest of the
13 witnesses. We're going to run through and then at the end
14 we're going to finish with the summary and you'll get a
15 chance to have some back and forth. I'm not precluding the
16 back and forth, I'm just going to continue with the
17 witnesses.
18 MR. MANDEL: I only want the back part, not the
19 forth part.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right.
21 DR. FROINES: John, I do think, I won't do it now,
22 I'll wait --
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We've chewed up an hour and
24 we're only through, Peter, as far as the themes, I think
25 you're halfway through the first theme of the three.
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1 So I got to hear from the rest of the witnesses,
2 because we're going to be coming back to the same thing.
3 They're going to be rebutting what's been said thus far.
4 I'm going to go with the witnesses, finish the witness list.
5 DR. FROINES: I just want to say that at some
6 point, and there's no hurry, or I'll write you a letter
7 afterwards, however you want to do it, but at some point I
8 would like, as the chair of the Scientific Review Panel, to
9 respond to Stephanie Williams' claim that what's been done
10 is junk science. I don't think this is junk science and I
11 think that I would like to respond to that, because I think
12 it's inappropriate.
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay.
14 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I had asked
15 that question and I was going to bring us back to that, but
16 I'd like to hear the rest of the witnesses first.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We'll go through the witnesses
18 and then we'll come back.
19 And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to
20 announce the rest of the witnesses. We're going to have
21 them run up.
22 Now, there is going to be some Board members who
23 are going to be missing, so I don't want anybody to take it
24 personal. We're going to go have a bite to eat and then
25 we're going to come back out here. So I'm going to excuse a
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1 few of my colleagues to go back and start taking care of
2 that more personal need, which is nourishment. But we'll be
3 listening and we have the sound piped in.
4 So, Janet, you're up.
5 Then Dan Eisentrager from the Bus Association.
6 Merlin Fagen, from the Farm Bureau. Roger Isom from the
7 Nisei Farmers League. And Todd Campbell from Coalition for
8 Clean Air. Bonnie Holmes Gen from the Sierra Club. And Tim
9 Carmichael from the Coalition.
10 So, Janet, I didn't mean to steal your thunder,
11 but we are going to do that simultaneously.
12 Can I step out for a minute?
13 Hold her if she goes on for more than five
14 minutes, give her a bad time, and we'll follow up.
15 //
16 //
17 //
18 //
19 //
20 //
21 //
22 //
23 //
24 //
25 //
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1 MS. HATHAWAY: My name is Janet Hathaway. I'm the
2 with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental
3 group here in California and also nationwide.
4 We're very supportive of what you have done here.
5 Go to the next slide, please. Sorry.
6 We're very supportive of the listing of diesel
7 exhaust. We feel that the process has been anything but
8 hasty and would urge you to move to the risk management
9 phase.
10 This slide, which you can't see entirely, is to
11 point out that ARB and OEHHA have been very careful in their
12 examination of the noncancer hazards as well as the cancer
13 hazards of diesel exhaust.
14 On the noncancer hazard side, ARB would be
15 justified just looking at the noncancer effects in listing
16 diesel exhaust.
17 Not only is there diminution of lung function in
18 people that are exposed over a long period of time, but there
19 are new data that suggest an allergic or asthmatic response,
20 and those alone would be a sufficient reason for listing.
21 These are very fine particles, and the third point
22 here is that these fine, fine particles.
23 Most of them much less than a micron in length,
24 lodge deeply into the lungs and remain in the lungs much
25 longer than coarser particles.
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1 Next slide, please.
2 This is who we are. NRDC.
3 Diesel exhaust, as you have heard, it's a complex
4 mixture. Many of these substances in diesel exhaust, in
5 addition to the fine particles, are identified as
6 carcinogens.
7 Some of those you know as formaldehyde, benzene,
8 potent carcinogens. The nitro PAHs are coming up again and
9 again in evaluations of what is in diesel exhaust, and they
10 are not all being reduced by this reformulation of the fuel.
11 I've looked at the Riverside data, and it does not
12 suggest that there is an across-the-board diminution in the
13 micro PAHs, which are the most likely to be of concern of
14 some of these substances in diesel exhaust.
15 So, it's not at all clear that there is a direction
16 toward eliminating a risk, even though the particle
17 concentrations are going down.
18 The particles are becoming finer, and the
19 concentrations are going down, so they may actually still
20 pose a similar risk, and that is something that should be
21 examined in the next phase.
22 Next slide, please.
23 The new evidence on asthma and immunological
24 responses is very, very important, and it is piling up.
25 The last couple of years have just been a
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1 proliferation of studies about asthmatic responses, and
2 there has been a world wide increase in asthma. As I am sure
3 many of you are painfully aware, the deaths from asthma have
4 been increasing very greatly, and that is happening not just
5 in this country but Japan and in Western Europe, and many,
6 many people are engaged in trying to understand this
7 phenomenon.
8 Diesel exhaust may play a significant role,
9 especially in combination with other allergens. It seems
10 to -- in some of these studies there has been a demonstrated
11 interaction between other allergens and the diesel exposure.
12 Next.
13 As it's been said before, health agencies
14 throughout the world have been looking at the question of
15 diesel exhaust and lung cancer.
16 NIOSH in 1988, International Agency on Research on
17 Cancer, 1989, World Health Organization, these organizations
18 are all looking at the same kind of data, coming to the same
19 conclusion that the Air Resources Board has, so the
20 consistency here is kind of overwhelming.
21 The U.S. EPA is revising their data, but they
22 continue to agree that there is a probable human cancer risk
23 from diesel.
24 The studies are very convincing on cancer, because
25 they are so diverse, and they are so consistent. It is
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1 important to understand that, yes, the fuel has been changing
2 over time, but the fuel is different in different parts of
3 the world, and it is different in different occupational
4 settings.
5 The occupational settings did not all involve
6 railroads, did not all involve number six diesel oil. Some
7 of the occupational settings were mines. Some of them were
8 truck drivers, and some of them were fairly recent.
9 They all indicate a similar kind of increase in
10 cancer, about a 40 percent increase in cancer for the people
11 occupationally exposed.
12 This would suggest that there is something similar
13 going on. Even when you have low sulfur fuel in some parts
14 of the world and high sulfur fuel in other parts of the
15 world, you are having some similar effects.
16 So, I think that is very, very strong evidence
17 that there is a consistent health problem that isn't resolved
18 simply by the reformulation that we have done.
19 Again, constituents have consistently been shown to
20 damage DNA, our genetic material, by extracts from the diesel
21 exhaust and by full diesel exhaust.
22 That again suggests that this is causing changes in
23 our genetic material that are biologically then likely to
24 result in cancers.
25 Again, it is another piece of the puzzle coming
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1 together. The animal studies supply some information. The
2 workers study supply some information. They all point in the
3 same direction.
4 Again, the workers data, one has to keep in mind
5 concurrent exposure data. Concurrent meaning that while
6 these people were being exposed, were they wearing monitors,
7 that kind of thing.
8 It virtually never can be done that you really
9 track how much exposure occurred over a many-year process as
10 people work in an occupation like mining or trucking or
11 whatever.
12 There are almost always reconstructions after the
13 fact. That's occurred here, and that is not unusual.
14 It's imperfect, but it's the kind of data that we
15 use for all of our regulatory processes, and so I think that
16 those who suggest that it's somehow anomalous or insufficient
17 data are simply wrong.
18 Again, in the EPA, the Cal EPA, and ARB
19 assessments, the consideration of the improvements in diesel
20 fuel and diesel engines has been done.
21 I think that that is very important to emphasize,
22 because I think the impression might be taken from some of
23 the comments that have been made that there is an over
24 estimate of risk here; not so.
25 The estimate of risk is based on today's fleets.
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1 That means the engines that are in use today, and there is a
2 projection in the ARB Exposure Assessment of the reductions
3 that are likely in the future, because of increasingly
4 improved engines.
5 That's very important to keep in mind.
6 So, we are really looking at the kinds of vehicles
7 that are likely to be on the road now until the year 2010 in
8 this assessment.
9 Furthermore, the fuel changes which have reduced
10 particle emissions have also been evaluated and are a part of
11 this overall assessment, and were that not done, you would
12 have a much higher risk that you would be calculating.
13 Total miles traveled from heavy diesel is
14 increasing. So that somewhat counterweighs the fact that we
15 have improved the fuel, and we have improved some of the
16 engines.
17 You have to keep in mind a lot of these engines
18 stay on the road a very long time. Some of them are capable
19 of staying on the road for three decades or more.
20 So, it's important not to assume that simply
21 because new engines can be clean that all the engines are
22 rapidly becoming new.
23 The transition period for heavy-duty engines is
24 much slower than for light-duty engines or personal computers
25 or those kinds of things.
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1 These are durables, and they last a long, long
2 time. There are still first generation engines that are in
3 use in agriculture and off-road and other places.
4 Next slide.
5 Nothing about this decision that Air Resources
6 Board is to make will end controversy, and it certainly will
7 not end new studies.
8 There are studies that will need to go on to answer
9 further questions. It would be very helpful to understand
10 better what mechanisms are going on, but keep in mind the
11 debate still continues about the exact mechanisms involved in
12 cancer caused by cigarette smoke.
13 So, we can't expect to resolve all those issues
14 before we begin risk reduction.
15 Next.
16 Here are some of the studies that are ongoing that
17 we will get some answers from, and they will be incorporated
18 into risk reduction processes.
19 There is a further study of truckers' exposures,
20 and the trucker exposures were very similar to ambient level
21 exposures.
22 Many of the truckers were exposed to an average of
23 around 10 micrograms per cubic meter, and that's like being
24 on the side of a heavy freeway and that's not very much
25 different from ambient levels of 1.5 or 2.
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1 That study is supposed to be published this month,
2 but it's not yet out. There will be some studies on diesel
3 and asthma further refining the question of whether there is
4 a causation role there, or whether there is something that
5 exacerbates already existing asthma, and that will help us
6 understand the asthma problem better.
7 Health Effects Institute has talked about their
8 study, which will, again, take many years, but when it is
9 done it will be part of the database that will help us
10 understand diesel better, but that is not a reason to wait.
11 Next slide.
12 The goal here from the environmental community is
13 not to ban diesel. I think that many people have
14 mischaracterized the purpose and the motivation of
15 environmental groups as to attack or ban diesel.
16 That is simply not true. Our goal is to identify
17 high risk situations and to reduce that risk.
18 We know, as well as everyone in this room, that
19 gasoline combustion also poses real risks. We would like to
20 have the gasoline combustion further controlled.
21 We know that there needs to be alternatives there
22 as well. There are no easy answers, but there are risk
23 reduction methods.
24 Cleaner alternatives are available for heavy-duty,
25 including newer, cleaner diesel, but all these things need
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1 incentives and support.
2 Among the things that we would like to see happen
3 after listing is further incentives for the transformation of
4 old fleets by actual financial assistance.
5 There is legislation and an initiative, Proposition
6 7, which will be on the November ballot here in California.
7 The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural
8 Resources Defense Council have helped to get that on the
9 ballot, which will provide money precisely for this purpose,
10 so that the old engines can be replaced with cleaner, new
11 engines, and the differential cost will be paid for by the
12 public, since this benefit is going to be enjoyed by us all
13 of having cleaner air to breathe.
14 We support legislation and initiatives that would
15 help to provide financial incentives for this rapid turn-over
16 that we are talking about.
17 But the goal here, again, is to reduce the use of
18 the dirtiest, oldest diesel engines, and it is not to ban
19 diesel.
20 Now, there has been a lot said in the way that
21 lawsuits are going to be generated by listing. I think it is
22 important to note that lawsuits have already been filed on
23 the diesel exhaust issue.
24 There are not hundreds of lawsuits that have been
25 filed. As a matter of fact, there are only a handful.
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1 There are notices that have gone to many people,
2 but there are only a handful of lawsuits that have been
3 filed, and those lawsuits are not going to be affected in any
4 way by the listing.
5 They are filed under Prop 65, which is a law that
6 requires that if you exceed a certain risk, you have to
7 provide notice to the people that you are exposing to that
8 risk, and ARB's listing would have no effect on those
9 lawsuits.
10 So, I think that is important to keep in mind. We
11 would welcome OEHHA taking a role in providing guidance on
12 how risk numbers such as those that they are providing about
13 diesel exhaust should be used in Prop 65 lawsuits, but ARB's
14 listing results in no regulation, nothing that would actually
15 foment or change the outcome of lawsuits.
16 ARB's listing, as you've heard over and over again,
17 just begins the process. That process will include the
18 industry that uses diesel to determine cost effective risk
19 reduction.
20 The best solution for those people who are
21 concerned about litigation is to find a way to reduce risk.
22 That's the one thing that is guaranteed to reduce litigation.
23 If people are feeling at risk, their likelihood of
24 getting involved in a contentious lawsuit is very small.
25 Next.
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1 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Well, just while you have
2 sort of taken a slight breath there, and I'm mindful of the
3 time, and I'm mindful of our Chairman's admonition, maybe we
4 could get some of the conclusions.
5 MS. HATHAWAY: I just have a few more slides.
6 Listing other substances as toxic air contaminants
7 has not resulted in either bans or in floods of lawsuits.
8 The claim that there is going to be a flood of
9 lawsuits is not grounded in reality. Toxic lawsuits, or any
10 kind of personal injury action, are extremely costly.
11 You have to prove not just that you were exposed to
12 something or other, but you have to prove that you have an
13 injury that was caused by that exposure, by that precise
14 exposure, which virtually could be done for something like
15 diesel when the injury, lung cancer, is a commonplace injury,
16 1 in 100 persons or so develops lung cancer over a lifetime,
17 and there are many, many more frequent -- many, many other
18 things, especially smoking and environmental tobacco smoke,
19 which more readily cause that injury.
20 So, in other words, because smoking can increase
21 your risk ninefold, it is going to dwarf any effect that
22 diesel has in a lawsuit type setting.
23 So, you simply are not going to have people
24 bringing lawsuits on this ground, and indeed you never have
25 had people bringing lawsuits for injury, for a lung cancer
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1 injury on these grounds. Next.
2 So, the goal here, the purpose of listing is to
3 reduce risk.
4 For diesel, what does this mean?
5 Further improvements of the fuel can be examined.
6 Improved engine designs, that can be examined.
7 Some of those engine designs are already out there,
8 but no one has an incentive to purchase them until there is,
9 in fact, an acknowledgment that we have a problem with diesel
10 exhaust.
11 We also need to look at reducing idling in the
12 populated areas. Truck idling, bus idling, all of that kind
13 of thing increases risk and increases exposure.
14 We also have to examine ways of increasing
15 alternative fuels, like natural gas. These are all kinds of
16 things that we would be talking about doing, not banning.
17 Next.
18 Finally, listing diesel is simply acknowledging
19 that that is a health hazard. It does not stop the process.
20 It does not end the question. It just acknowledges
21 the health hazard. Then the efforts to try to address that
22 health hazard can be undertaken.
23 But it is important to keep in mind that pretending
24 there isn't a risk is not going to reduce that risk.
25 Simply walking away from it or saying, we want more
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1 studies, does not reduce it, and there are means available to
2 us today to reduce the risk.
3 So, I just want to say, I hope political pressure
4 here does not interfere with the Air Board's effort to, in
5 fact, reduce risk.
6 Thank you.
7 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Thank you, Ms. Hathaway.
8 Are there any questions by any of the Board Members
9 for this witness?
10 Then we will move on to the next witness.
11 Thank you.
12 Dan Eisentrager, from the California Bus
13 Association.
14 MR. EISENTRAGER: Good afternoon, Board, Chairman
15 Dunlap and staff.
16 You had a good lunch, didn't you?
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: A quick lunch.
18 MR. EISENTRAGER: I'm Dan Eisentrager, the current
19 President of California Bus Association.
20 I have met with staff before. We're here this
21 afternoon just to make a few points, a few comments for our
22 members.
23 The California Bus Association members are very
24 concerned about the Air Resources Board efforts to name
25 diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant.
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1 To propose the identified diesel exhaust as a toxic
2 air contaminant with no identifying threshold exposure level
3 is opening every diesel user, engine user, to financial
4 exposure that will be damaging to their business to the point
5 of many of them closing their doors because of the financial
6 drain on limited resources and funds.
7 Having no levels of exposure for guidelines, how do
8 we know what levels we are to operate at?
9 California bus owners are being subjected to
10 potential economic loss solely for the reason that they
11 operate diesel engines, which represent the only type of
12 engines reasonably available to the California bus owner at
13 this time.
14 Most motor coach companies are very small,
15 family-owned entities that do not have extensive capital to
16 purchase the newest technology, which only comes in a new
17 motor coach at a cost of between $325,000 to $400,000 per
18 vehicle, plus tax and license fees.
19 At these costs, updating one's fleet constitutes a
20 very substantial investment. It will take time for bus
21 companies to update their fleets, assuming that workable
22 alternatives are made available by vehicle manufacturers.
23 Currently, we have six CBA members that are
24 involved in Prop 65 lawsuits. These members are upstanding
25 operators and not industry renegades who don't care.
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1 All of these companies have first rate maintenance
2 facilities and programs in progress. They pride themselves
3 on operating safe and environmentally efficient
4 transportation. However, they have been subjected to
5 expensive and time consuming litigation.
6 The motor coach operators offer a valuable service
7 to the State of California by taking masses of people out of
8 their cars, as well as bringing millions of tourism dollars
9 to the State.
10 Naming diesel as a toxic air contaminant will cost
11 private business and the government billions of dollars.
12 There is a very definite cost. Some businesses
13 will have to close due to inability to raise the necessary
14 capital to buy into the new technology.
15 It will also damage the public in that many travel
16 options now available will be possibly eliminated as bus
17 owners close their doors or reduce present service levels.
18 The small businesses in the motor coach industry
19 cannot afford to invest thousands and thousands of dollars in
20 litigation if this is passed.
21 The California Bus association would suggest that
22 the ARB and the Legislature create a safe harbor for business
23 if this regulation is passed to protect the California
24 businesses until other viable alternatives are within the
25 infrastructure, which enables us to have the most economical
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1 solution possible.
2 The California Bus Association is asking the ARB to
3 let technology continue to clean up the diesel burning
4 engines as well as seeking the ultimate solution to the
5 emissions problems that have been identified.
6 CARB regulation should be adopted to establish
7 threshold exposure levels below which it is determined that
8 significant adverse health effects will not occur.
9 We ask you to keep California as competitive as
10 possible and let the engine manufacturers continue to reach
11 for those economical solutions as they have been doing for
12 the last 12 years.
13 We have worked with the ARB. We stand with the
14 ARB.
15 We try to stay environmentally sensitive and will
16 continue to do so.
17 Thank you very much.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you. I appreciate that.
19 Any questions of the witness?
20 All right. Very good.
21 Merlin Fagan. We got your letter. I just saw it
22 up here a minute ago.
23 MR. FAGAN: You have received the testimony, and
24 so are you suggesting that I abbreviate it even more?
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I am not.
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1 Let your conscience be your guide.
2 MR. FAGAN: And good sense, that's the other part
3 of it.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I need Jack out here to back me
5 up. He's back there having lunch.
6 MR. FAGAN: Mr. Chairman and Board Members, I'm
7 Merlin Fagan, with the California Farm Bureau.
8 It is a pleasure to be here on this rice straw --
9 diesel exhaust.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: It's not rice. We have done
11 that.
12 MR. FAGAN: Not rice. Almost as contentious, I
13 see.
14 It is a very grave issue, as you have heard from
15 many other witnesses. It is an important issue, and I'm here
16 on behalf of the California members of the -- let me start
17 over, the farmers and ranchers who are members of the
18 California Farm Bureau.
19 We have about 70,000 members. I will break this
20 statement into three broad areas, the importance of
21 agriculture, some concerns with the proposed action and then
22 some recommendations.
23 So, most people who are not intimately involved in
24 agriculture don't recognize that it is the State's number one
25 industry, that we have a gross of over $70 billion and the
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1 value-added crops, that's growing the crops and then what it
2 is converted into in the ag area.
3 The other key part is that this is renewable. We
4 create a crop, and it comes back year after year, whether
5 it's a seed or a product off the tree.
6 Also, it's a basic product. We grow cotton, and it
7 creates fabrics, or we grow tomatoes, and it becomes catsup.
8 We create other jobs along the way.
9 Agriculture production, a recent university study
10 that California's agriculture employs about 1.2 million
11 people.
12 The major impact area, as you would think, is the
13 Central Valley. About 28 percent of the population comes
14 from agricultural-related jobs.
15 The work horse of this bountiful production is
16 diesel powered equipment, both mobile and stationary, and
17 that is our concern.
18 We are very concerned when we have new regulations
19 that will be proposed at some stage about some type of
20 regulation, or some changes, or some possible disruption of
21 supplies, and that creates anxiety. We see new burdens and
22 economic uncertainty.
23 We certainly compliment your staff for coming out
24 and visiting with some of our leaders and explaining this
25 very complicated and controversial issue, and we have also
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1 read the background documents that you have.
2 Unfortunately, many of our members still recall the
3 reformulated diesel issue, and they ask, could this be
4 happening again, and that moves us on to our specific
5 concerns.
6 We believe that, even though some other witnesses
7 have said that they won't see a lot of litigation by listing
8 diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant, you open producers
9 and manufacturers to a variety of new environmental laws and
10 legal liability and these uncertainties.
11 The key issue, we think, is that this action be
12 very well-structured and reasoned to not create these
13 uncertainties and these possible new legal attacks and
14 liabilities.
15 We should realize in California there are very few
16 diesel refiners, and if we create these uncertainties and
17 they say, well, look, we don't need to create diesel fuel for
18 ag equipment, or for trucks, we can convert it to gasoline,
19 or we can convert it to aviation fuel, that would be more
20 profitable, then you create a big problem for us, because we
21 are not sure how we would then power our equipment.
22 We have been through a number of the bounty hunter
23 actions by Prop 65, and our concern of that type of
24 uncertainty is before us.
25 It is not only that we are able to produce a lot of
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1 produce and crops on the farms and ranches, but
2 transportation from the perishable crops from the farms to
3 the processing to the consumer are also important.
4 So, transport is a critical issue, and maintaining
5 the prosperity of agriculture.
6 So, moving on to the recommendations.
7 We support Senate Bill 1083, and that may bring to
8 rest the issue of where diesel fits as a substance and
9 whether we should go forward or not.
10 So, maybe the Board would watch carefully and see
11 how that issue is then resolved, and it takes care of some of
12 the concerns mentioned by other witnesses, and if the Board
13 felt compelled, it could probably support that as well.
14 The issue of the Federal differences and the State
15 differences we heard from other witnesses, and I think your
16 staff made an effort to come to grips with the risk
17 assessment differences, that there seems to be a parallel
18 effort, but a timeframe difference, or even some preliminary
19 differences of where we are headed between the Federal and
20 State, we would urge that the State and the Feds not only
21 coordinate but integrate their efforts, that this would
22 minimize the confusion that we heard earlier by other
23 witnesses and would ensure uniform review, analysis and
24 impact.
25 There is no point in setting California growers at
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1 a disadvantage either to other states or other nations by
2 taking an action that in the short-term causes them problems
3 and possible disruptions in the workplace.
4 The other -- our last recommendation is that we
5 like the Board's recommendation of a stakeholders working
6 group but would urge that that be appointed prior to your
7 action.
8 I think many of the things that you are hearing are
9 concerns over implementation. If the regulated community had
10 a better sense of where we were headed and what practices
11 would be in place, that may remove some of the anxieties that
12 you have heard so far, which we think are very legitimate.
13 So, finally, Mr. Chairman and Board Members, we
14 appreciate this opportunity to express our concerns and look
15 forward to working with you and your staff in the future.
16 Are there any questions?
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I appreciate that.
18 We also -- one of the great educational processes
19 of my experience in Sacramento has been learning about your
20 role and impact, and not just in California economy, but also
21 in debate and public policy debates, so I appreciate your
22 investing time in this issue.
23 Any questions of our friends from the agricultural
24 community?
25 Okay. Roger Isom, Todd Campbell, Bonnie Holmes Gen
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1 and Tim Carmichael.
2 I have your written testimony here, Roger.
3 MR. ISOM: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members
4 of the Board.
5 I would like to clarify one thing. I'm here
6 representing California Cotton Growers.
7 The NISEI Farmers League were unable to be here, so
8 they asked that I give their comments. I think that
9 Mr. Kenny does not need anyone to speak for him, so I just
10 wanted to clarify that.
11 I will limit my comments to two points. I just
12 want to clarify two things that are in my written comments.
13 The first one is, and it's the reason that I am
14 here, is that diesel is the blood of our industry.
15 It drives our tractors and our trucks that produce
16 and harvest our crops and get our products to market.
17 So, it is extremely important, and that is why I am
18 here. The second one is that we're not here today to dispute
19 the work that has been done by Ms. Shiroma's staff and Dr.
20 Alexeeff and Dr. Marty.
21 We are here, and this is the main point, to express
22 concern that there is a difference between the old diesel and
23 the new diesel.
24 To say that there is not a difference really leads
25 us to question, why did we do reformulated diesel, why we
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1 spent the money that we had in new engine technology in our
2 trucks?
3 Right now, you know, the California farmer, we are
4 burning diesel that no one else in the United States or the
5 world is burning.
6 We are using engine technology in our trucks to
7 haul our cotton bales to market that nobody else is using,
8 and that is an added cost for a commodity that is subject to
9 a world price that we are having to eat.
10 We are willing to do that for the sake of air
11 quality, and we just feel that that needs to be recognized.
12 So, while I understand that the wait until the
13 studies are completed may take 10, 15, 20 years, whatever may
14 be the case, we do feel that it is important that those be
15 done, and we can find out whether or not there really is a
16 difference.
17 If you go back to those hearings in 1993, the same
18 staff was saying that there is a difference, we are going to
19 reduce the toxicity of diesel exhaust.
20 So, we want to make sure that we do spend the money
21 and spend the time to quantify that and recognize that simple
22 fact.
23 So, with that, again, my comments, most of them
24 have already been made, so I don't need to go over those.
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you very much. I
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1 appreciate it.
2 Any questions for the witness?
3 Okay. Todd Campbell.
4 Is Bonnie, and Tim, are you still here?
5 Come on forward.
6 MR. CAMPBELL: Good afternoon, Chairman Dunlap and
7 Members of the Board.
8 My name is Todd Campbell. I represent the
9 Coalition for Clean Air.
10 The question before us today that we must answer
11 is, is diesel exhaust a toxic air contaminant?
12 Does diesel exhaust cause or contribute to an
13 increase of death or serious illness or pose a potential
14 human health hazard?
15 On March 11, 1998, and Dr. Froines correctly
16 pointed this out, a scientific panel of the experts in this
17 field, which includes Dr. Eric Garshick, Dr. Katherine
18 Hammond, Dr. Dale Hayes, Dr. Joe Motterly, Dr. Thomas Mack,
19 Dr. Allan Smith, Dr. Tom Smith, Dr. Duncan Thomas and Barbara
20 Zalinska, were asked the question from Stan Glantz whether or
21 not diesel exhaust -- whether or not they would object to
22 diesel exhaust being listed as a toxic air contaminant.
23 None of these scientists, even the experts on
24 industry's behalf, objected to this. John Froines statement,
25 I think, is right on the mark.
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1 I think you got silence the first time. Given this
2 resounding and unified expert testimony, the unlimited
3 scientific evidence supporting the TAC listing, the unanimous
4 recommendation of the California Scientific Review Panel, the
5 recognition by the California State, or the State of
6 California that diesel exhaust is a known carcinogen since
7 October 10, 1990, the Cal EPA and CARB's meticulous nine-year
8 evaluation of the over 40 studies that we have studied for
9 nine years, comes to this conclusion, and that diesel exhaust
10 was identified as a probable human carcinogen by the National
11 Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and the
12 International Agency for Research on Cancer, I think one is
13 required to answer in the affirmative, both due to diesel
14 exhaust's carcinogenic potential and its noncarcinogenistic
15 respiratory effects, diesel exhaust clearly meets this
16 definition.
17 On the topic that -- in terms of what diesel
18 exhaust does, and we all understand that there are -- all the
19 studies show a relation to lung cancer.
20 We also don't want to underestimate or
21 underemphasize that they also have noncancerous health
22 effects.
23 Industry continually tries to make the point that
24 there is brand new diesel on the market, that 90 percent of
25 the particulate matter has been reduced.
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1 The argument that they miss is that recent studies,
2 including a study from the HEI, states that recent engines
3 are made to make a decrease in particulate matter but
4 increase fine particulate matter.
5 We all know that the United States Environmental
6 Protection Agency just passed a fine particulate matter law.
7 These are the exact constituents that are coming
8 with it, the exact health matter that is being increased in
9 diesel engines.
10 Another point that I would like to make is that
11 diesel engines are not personal computers. I think this is a
12 great point that Katherine Hammond pointed out, that the
13 diesels on the road, or at least a large majority of the
14 diesels on the road, or a good percentage I would say, are
15 probably equivalent to 386's.
16 The industry would like you to believe that they
17 are all Pentiums out there. They are not.
18 You have a useful life of locomotives that are 40
19 years. You have a useful life for trucks of 20 to 30 years.
20 You are not seeing 1998 Cummins or Detroit Diesel
21 engines on the road. This is a big point that I think the
22 industry misses completely.
23 Another fact is that a draft report from the UC
24 Riverside and also UC Davis says that the entities in the
25 reformulated diesel is a mixed bag.
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1 In fact, they find some toxics within this mix to
2 be higher, for example nitro PAH's.
3 Thirdly, I would like to say that I think it would
4 be bad public policy, with a Master's in Public Policy and a
5 Master's in Environmental Studies, I say this is a bad public
6 policy to consider new diesel versus old diesel because of
7 the latency effect in cancer.
8 It takes at least 10 if not 20 years to evaluate
9 whether or not you can get lung cancer, or you can start to
10 begin to find the effects, and I think this is an important
11 point.
12 By the time that the study they would like to
13 propose, diesel may not even be on the market anymore. It
14 might be depleted.
15 I would strongly encourage the California Air
16 Resources Board to move forward on the existing studies as
17 they present formidable, sound findings.
18 I believe that the science also must prevail over
19 politics. Tim Carmichael will cover most of this, but I am
20 just going to say that most of the debate CARB will hear
21 about and has heard about from industry does not consider
22 whether or not diesel is a toxic air contaminant or not.
23 It considers more of the financial interests, and
24 who makes the diesel engines and what are the impacts on the
25 economics.
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1 I would like to testify that I do not believe
2 listing diesel does ban diesel. I want diesel to be
3 nontoxic.
4 I don't care if it is banned or not. I don't want
5 it to be banned, but if it is nontoxic, I'm happy.
6 The thing that we are talking about here is whether
7 or not it is toxic or not, and the scientists, including
8 Joseph Motterly, who has helped so often, even said in his
9 own workshop, he concludes, Joe Motterly concludes that
10 California has been very responsive and receptive in not
11 relying on the animal data for its analysis.
12 This tells me that Cal EPA and CARB are not
13 ignoring his advice. They are not using the animal data for
14 the risk assessments.
15 They are taking his -- he is the Chairman of CASAC.
16 In the letter, July fourteenth, from the California Truckers
17 Association, they quote that Joe Motterly and Eric Garshick
18 adamantly oppose the California-only listing.
19 It is simply not true. As I already stated, both
20 of these scientists have been asked whether or not diesel
21 exhaust was TAC, and they answered in the affirmative from
22 their silence, and that is what is at issue here today.
23 In terms of whether or not diesel is a multiple
24 substance constituent, I think CARB has answered that
25 beautifully. I don't need to elaborate much more on that.
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1 I think the important fact is that even we found at
2 least three multiple substances, and I handed this out to
3 you, you have it in front of you, listed under AB 1807, at
4 least 25 under AB 2728, and there is another constituent that
5 we found this morning under the Air Toxics Hot Spots Program,
6 under AB 2588, that lists gasoline vapors, so diesel exhaust
7 is not being targeted independently.
8 I don't think this is some kind of plot. We are
9 simply caring about public health here, and this is what,
10 hopefully, this workshop, all these workshops for nine years
11 and the testimony has been about.
12 Finally, on the Australian study, I would like to
13 comment on just a couple of things.
14 I think Cal EPA and California Air Resources Board
15 have been absolutely correct in excluding the New South Wales
16 Study in evaluating the health risks posed by diesel exhaust.
17 First off, the study is not a direct analysis of
18 diesel exhaust exposure but of all of causes of mortality
19 associated with mining.
20 The second point is that it is incept cohort, that
21 means that it is not a complete cohort. In other words,
22 they excluded certain data prior to 1973, and then used the
23 data -- I don't know how they draw this line, but from 1973
24 to 1992, that is their database.
25 They started out with 72,000 people. They reduced
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1 it down to 23,000.
2 In terms of a reliable database, it makes me have
3 strong concerns when they exclude women from the study. They
4 exclude members in the study above 60 years old, and
5 supposedly they don't apply to their study.
6 You should read the study yourself.
7 The next point that I would like to say, and this
8 is right in the study itself, it says, because the latent
9 period of industrial cancer is at least ten years, the number
10 of person years of observation available after this time is
11 much reduced with a consequence diminution of power.
12 In other words, this study is way too immature to
13 even be considered.
14 The next point I would like to say is that the
15 credibility of this analysis is further impaired in that not
16 only is the incept cohort extremely young, that means it
17 looked at people that are being exposed to diesel exhaust in
18 the coal mines for 40 years, or the timeframe that we should
19 be looking at, it only considers only extremely young coal
20 miners.
21 The fourth point, the total of 300 -- this is right
22 out of the study, the total of 302 cancers have been reported
23 after distribution by site reflects the relative youth of the
24 cohort. With the passage of time, the numbers of people in
25 the present inception cohort will increase and the expected
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1 number of cancers will increase.
2 Reanalysis of the cohort at some time in the future
3 would have the numbers to provide more certain answers. From
4 the experience gained with this inception cohort, it is
5 recommended that the analysis of mortality and cancer
6 occurrence for this cohort should be repeated as a
7 surveillance exercise in three to five years.
8 In conclusion, it is way too early to tell what the
9 health impacts are from the coal mining industry in this
10 study, not to mention its tacit mention of diesel exhaust
11 exposure, which I guarantee was one sentence in the study.
12 I would like to conclude that the State of
13 California has strong evidence that diesel exhaust is a human
14 health hazard and a toxic air contaminant.
15 The State should proceed to list diesel exhaust as
16 a toxic air contaminant and begin measures to reduce risk.
17 It is a question of moral grounds.
18 We all know that diesel exhaust is a toxic air
19 contaminant, and I haven't heard one speaker here that has
20 credibly refuted that point.
21 Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any questions for Mr. Campbell?
23 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Mr. Campbell, as I
24 understood your testimony, you talked about comparing old
25 versus new diesel.
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1 MR. CAMPBELL: Right.
2 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: And you said that, what
3 difference does it make about whether you use old fuel, or
4 something to that effect, and I guess -- are you suggesting
5 by that that there is no benefit to try and improve the
6 diesel fuel such as to reduce the contaminants?
7 My question relates to the threshold, and the staff
8 has already said that there is no identifiable threshold, so
9 I am trying to figure out where you hit it.
10 MR. CAMPBELL: I do believe in reformulation.
11 There is probably minor benefits. The problem in
12 the draft study of UC Riverside and UC Davis study shows kind
13 of a mixed bag of results.
14 In other words, some toxics increased, some toxics
15 decreased. The reformulation not only dealt with toxics, it
16 also deals with PM and NOx, and in terms of PM and NOx, that
17 is fairly successful.
18 I think that the objective debate is that when they
19 keep on saying that 90 percent of reduction to particulate
20 matter, we are doing such a great job, it misses the point
21 that the particulates that are being left are fine
22 particulates, particulates that can intercept your lungs and
23 get into your system more readily than the coarse particulate
24 matter, particulates that are 10 microns, and that on top of
25 that the toxics haven't been much reduced.
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1 The second fact that we have a lot of diesels out
2 there that are still 30 years old, that is an important
3 point.
4 Finally, the staff from the California Air
5 Resources Board and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard
6 Assessment have also taken this change into account.
7 They are not trying to pull a fast one here. They
8 are taking these measures very seriously.
9 This is a very serious issue. I go and shop at the
10 store. I enjoy my life and enjoy the conveniences of life,
11 but if we can make diesel safer, cleaner, and this is all
12 that this TAC listing does, we should do it.
13 I think that's the bottom line. I have nothing
14 opposed to diesel except that it is toxic, and it creates
15 lung cancer.
16 I'm the one that did the monitoring at all of the
17 sites for the Natural Resource Defense Council, and I can
18 tell you that the only lawsuits that are probably going to
19 play out here are the big gross polluters.
20 I have seen many mom and pop stores, many small
21 distribution centers, you have to get above a risk level and
22 it has to be a single party.
23 I found five. I have been on this for a year.
24 That's it.
25 On top of that, these distribution centers have to
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1 be near residential areas.
2 There are other lawsuits that were presented that I
3 can't tell you about, but only two of them have been final.
4 To my memory, this is also another point to make,
5 there have been lawsuits prior to this whole big explosion of
6 notices that were settled with the forklifts.
7 To my knowledge, there are only six cases out
8 there, not hundreds, six. You could claim 10 if you want to
9 say the four Attorney General suits and the four NRDC suits,
10 which are the same suit, and then the two from the
11 Corporation for Clean Air, not the Coalition, the Corporation
12 for Clean Air, that is six to me.
13 The listing was October 10, 1990. I don't see any
14 industry moving out of the State of California.
15 There has been plenty of time. It is just a fact
16 of life.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good.
18 Two more witnesses.
19 We appreciate that.
20 Bonnie, you and Tim are all that remains, and I
21 encourage anyone else that desires to address the Board on
22 this subject, please.
23 Is the table still set up out there in the foyer?
24 There is an opportunity for you to sign up. I'm
25 not encouraging, but I'm not discouraging either.
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1 Bonnie, thank you for your patience.
2 MS. HOLMES GEN: I'm Bonnie Holmes Gen, with Sierra
3 Club California, with no benefit of a lunch break yet.
4 Sierra Club California is here today because diesel
5 exhaust is a public health threat. Diesel exhaust increases
6 the risk of cancer.
7 Millions of Californians are exposed to the soot
8 from diesel exhaust on a daily basis. This diesel soot, we
9 now know, is a highly toxic cancer-causing mixture of
10 chemicals, especially populations in highly urbanized areas,
11 people that live and work near highways, truck loading docks,
12 freeways, people that are experiencing diesel exhaust on a
13 daily basis as they live and go to work are affected by the
14 public health impacts of diesel.
15 Diesel exhaust has been evaluated by national and
16 international scientific bodies and determined consistently
17 to be a potential human carcinogen.
18 Your Board is being presented today with a
19 scientifically peer reviewed Report, including over 30 human
20 studies that demonstrate a 40 percent increased risk of lung
21 cancer in individuals after worker exposure to diesel
22 exhaust.
23 These studies include a broad array of individuals,
24 including truck drivers, mechanics, equipment workers, dock
25 workers, railroad workers, highway workers. These studies
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1 are the best science that is available, the best science that
2 is out there right now.
3 A clear and consistent conclusion is that diesel
4 exhaust presents a serious threat to public health and
5 increases cancer risk.
6 Diesel exhaust contains many harmful elements that
7 when combined have special impacts and create this cancer
8 risk.
9 People are not exposed to one or two substances in
10 diesel exhaust. They are exposed to the chemical mixture.
11 This mixture is what the studies that you are
12 reviewing today have studied. These are the human studies
13 that cover 20 or 30 years of exposure.
14 We are urging you today to not be swayed by the
15 dire predictions of economic loss and the "sky is falling"
16 rhetoric of the trucking industry.
17 Your job today is to focus exclusively on the
18 public health risk. The law, the Toxic Air Contaminant law
19 was carefully crafted to separate out the risk assessment and
20 risk management phases for a reason.
21 The reason is to have a clear evaluation of the
22 public health risk of substances, like diesel exhaust,
23 separately and apart from any discussion of economic impacts,
24 or control measures.
25 I think it is unfortunate that much of the
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1 testimony today has focused on the economic impacts and
2 control measures, which is a separate phase.
3 Your job today is to focus on the public health
4 risk. We urge you to listen to the expert findings of your
5 own Scientific Review Panel to consider the consistency in
6 the 30-plus human studies that were reviewed by the Panel to
7 recognize that you are evaluating the best science available.
8 It is not junk science. There is consistency in
9 the findings. There is a clear scientific consensus on your
10 Scientific Review Panel.
11 Despite the cries of the trucking industry, this
12 listing of diesel exhaust is not the end to diesel.
13 In fact, the process today is just the first step
14 in a dialogue. It's a recognition of the seriousness of the
15 problem that millions of Californians face.
16 There is no predetermined outcome if diesel exhaust
17 is listed. There is no predetermined outcome of what the
18 control measures might be.
19 After the listing, as you well know, there will be
20 a dialogue among all the stakeholders. There will be an
21 evaluation of the range of measures that could be used to
22 reduce exposure.
23 We believe that conversions to cleaner fuels should
24 be one of the measures evaluated, and we are supporting
25 legislation to provide incentive payments to truck owners to
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1 help them convert to cleaner equipment and fuels.
2 But that is not the topic of today's decision.
3 This discussion cannot occur until the ARB completes the
4 listing process.
5 Let's keep studying the issues. Let's keep an open
6 dialogue, but you must act on the data that you have before
7 you.
8 You must not delay in declaring diesel exhaust a
9 toxic air contaminant, and we urge you to stand up against
10 the pressure of the trucking industry and to do your job to
11 protect the public health.
12 Your staff and the OEHHA staff have done a
13 painstaking scientific review, nine years of study, and now
14 is the time to clearly identify the public health impacts of
15 diesel exhaust and declare it a toxic air contaminant.
16 We urge you to not delay.
17 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Thank you very much.
18 Are there any questions for this witness?
19 Seeing none, then we will move on to the next
20 witness, which is Mr. Tim Carmichael, for the Coalition for
21 Clean Air.
22 MR. CARMICHAEL: Good afternoon. Thank you for
23 remaining attentive throughout this long testimony.
24 Tim Carmichael with the Coalition for Clean Air.
25 I just wanted to clarify a few things that have been raised
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1 and not try and rehash so many of the points that have been
2 put before you today.
3 It was referred to that the environmental community
4 supports the listing of diesel exhaust as a toxic air
5 contaminant.
6 You have heard from the American Lung Association
7 today, you've heard from the Natural Resource Defense
8 Council, the Coalition for Clean Air and the Sierra Club, but
9 strongly in alliance with us in our support are the
10 California Public Interest Research Group, the Planning and
11 Conservation League, the Environmental Health Coalition in
12 San Diego, the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara,
13 the Communities for a Better Environment, all of the major
14 environmental and public health groups that work on air
15 issues in the State of California are unified in their
16 support for the listing of diesel exhaust as a toxic air
17 contaminant.
18 Taking a step back from all of the details that
19 have been put before today, I think it is important to come
20 back to the fundamental question, fundamental mission of this
21 agency.
22 The People of California rely on this Board and the
23 staff that works for you to protect them from air pollution.
24 That is, above all, your mission, protect the
25 people of California from air pollution.
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1 The scientific body that advises you on technical
2 matters, risk matters, the Scientific Review Panel has stated
3 unanimously, recommended this listing, unanimously.
4 Some have suggested today that that is not good
5 enough, that you should wait for EPA to act. The staff here
6 and the Board should know as well that if California waits
7 for EPA to act, nothing will get done.
8 We wait for EPA on many fronts. This is not an
9 area where we should be waiting for EPA.
10 We have loads of evidence. Some have suggested
11 that it is not appropriate to look at a complex compound in
12 trying to list a complex compound and reduce risk.
13 I have a different view. If that is the most
14 effective way to reduce exposure, to reduce risk, to protect
15 public health, and we believe it is, by listing diesel
16 exhaust as the most effective way to protect the public
17 health from exposure to that mix of toxins, then that is what
18 should be listed, and that is what we should be pursuing.
19 A process, a method that is the most effective way
20 to protect public health, reduce exposure, reduce risk to
21 protect the public health.
22 While we are not proposing a ban, and unfortunately
23 this has gotten a lot of play in the media and will probably
24 get more, the environmental community is not proposing a ban
25 on diesel. We are proposing an expeditious transition to
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1 cleaner fuels.
2 The technology is there. The risk is there that
3 warrants this transition.
4 We need to be moving in that direction. We are not
5 talking about a ban. We are talking about a responsible
6 transition to cleaner fuels.
7 It is a pity that the Legislature has felt it
8 appropriate to interfere in this process. This is a long
9 standing scientific process that is designed to protect
10 public health.
11 In our opinion, it is not appropriate for the
12 Legislature to be interfering with this. Please don't let
13 politics stop you from using sound science to protect the
14 public health of all Californians.
15 List diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant, and
16 then we will move on together to ensure that there is a
17 cost-effective, responsible transition to reduce risk and
18 reduce exposure from that toxin.
19 Thank you very much.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Mr. Carmichael.
21 Any questions for the witness?
22 You double-teamed us, Tim. We saw your colleague
23 up here earlier.
24 Okay. That is it for the witness list.
25 Ms. Hutchens, anybody else sign up?
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1 MS. HUTCHENS: Not with me.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That will conclude the testimony
3 for today.
4 We will leave this Item over. We are just going to
5 conclude it today, and when we take this up at a future Board
6 meeting, Mike, the record will be open, and people that have
7 something new to say are welcome to speak, and that was an
8 issue that Supervisor Roberts is concerned about, and I share
9 that concern.
10 All right. There were the three themes.
11 Peter, the last time we checked, we were half-way
12 through the first one. You had Jed Mandel, and I saw
13 Stephanie Williams out there somewhere that was interested in
14 having something to say.
15 MR. KENNY: I think we were pretty much through the
16 first theme, and we were pretty much prepared to begin the
17 second one.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. That's fine, but the
19 witnesses -- Jed, are you out there somewhere?
20 He's probably having lunch. How dare him.
21 Okay. We will go to the second theme, and then if
22 people that want to speak that have already spoken on these
23 issues want to -- I don't want to get into this rebuttal
24 thing, but if there is some factual point you want to make, I
25 will allow it.
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1 Mike, go ahead.
2 MR. KENNY: Well, I think the key things that were
3 still outstanding with regard to science, because it did
4 somewhat -- you covered a little bit where the studies
5 themselves, and in particular, the Australian study was
6 raised, and then there was obviously the question that needed
7 to be addressed with regard to the allegations of junk
8 science.
9 MR. VENTURINI: What I would like to suggest,
10 Mr. Chair, this may be an opportunity for Dr. Froines to make
11 his comments, since they relate to these points.
12 DR. FROINES: Well, I think everyone is probably
13 getting tired and would like this to end, so I will be very
14 brief.
15 First, the Australian study, I don't know if the
16 Board has had a chance to see it, but I won't go through it
17 in detail.
18 I want to be perfectly honest with you, I don't
19 think this study would be before us if this issue had not
20 become so politicized.
21 I think that is the tragedy of this process, that
22 what we have is not a scientific deliberation but a process
23 that has had so many other elements into it now that it is
24 hard to separate risk management from risk assessment from
25 people's point of view from various agendas.
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1 I say that because this Australian study is not a
2 study. It is not a research study.
3 What this is is an attempt by some investigators,
4 agencies in Australia, to put together a cancer surveillance
5 program.
6 Please understand, I wish Bill were here, but
7 please understand that there is a difference in science
8 between a surveillance program and a research study.
9 Surveillance tends to look like, syphilis and
10 veneral diseases like AIDS, surveillance tends to look at
11 things over time.
12 Research studies are based on hypothesis. So, you
13 might say, what is a hypothesis?
14 A hypothesis is whether exposure to diesel exhaust
15 causes lung cancer, and then you would design the study to
16 test that.
17 This is not a study that does that at all. This is
18 a study that sets in motion a cancer surveillance project,
19 and then they look at the results, the results of which will
20 have implications for workers' compensation programs and will
21 let them look at how the trends of cancer are occurring in
22 mining.
23 This is like a government report. It is not a
24 scientific study. It is certainly not an etiologic study,
25 and it is certainly not a study that would be classified as a
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1 serious research study looking at the issue of diesel.
2 Diesel is not in this study. This is not a diesel
3 study, and we shouldn't bother with it one second more, nor
4 should we have bothered with it to begin with.
5 Now, that is pretty harsh language, but I think
6 there are matters of integrity going on here, and as a
7 scientist I feel that this should not be before us as a test
8 of diesel exhaust, because it is not, and I think anybody in
9 this room could read this and in ten minutes figure out what
10 it is all about.
11 There is nothing more to say.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right.
13 DR. FROINES: The second thing is junk science.
14 Clearly, without whining, you know, we spent nine
15 years on this issue. We have spent day upon day upon day
16 studying the science associated with diesel exhaust.
17 It is, at best, rude and disrespectful, as far as I
18 am concerned, for somebody to tell me that what we have been
19 doing is junk science.
20 I think that what we have been doing is the highest
21 level of science that I have ever seen in my entire life, and
22 I have unfortunately gotten to 59 years old, so I am at a
23 stage where I have had some experience.
24 What happens here is we have worked beyond words to
25 do the best science possible, and that's what we have done,
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1 and that is what we will always do for this Board as long as
2 I am around.
3 Now, you take this stuff, and this is about a
4 quarter of what we have, this isn't junk science. These are
5 a lot of people working as hard as they can to do the best,
6 the very best science.
7 I think we should have to recognize that, and
8 anybody who has tried to read Part B knows very quickly how
9 good the science is.
10 When you get into Part B you say, God, I wish they
11 could have written the damn thing clearer, but because I know
12 there is so much in there that I would like to benefit from.
13 DR. FUCALORO: Ditto for Part A.
14 DR. FROINES: Then let me tell you about the
15 Garshick papers.
16 What we have heard now is that Garshick is
17 repudiating his work, and he doesn't want it used for risk
18 assessment.
19 Fair. He can go travel around the country trying
20 to get the $10- or $15-million that is currently being
21 offered to do an ongoing study, and I won't raise the issue
22 of whether that affects his point of view, but it is at least
23 out there.
24 Let me just say this, Garshick says in one paper,
25 quote, "These results taken in conjunction with other
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1 reported results support the hypothesis that occupational
2 exposure to diesel exhaust results in a small but
3 significantly elevated risk for lung cancer."
4 Paper 2, "This study supports the hypothesis that
5 occupational exposure in diesel exhaust increases lung
6 cancer."
7 Paper 3, "These elevated levels of mutagens found
8 in diesel locomotive repair shops are consistent with the
9 increased mortality from lung cancer that has been found
10 among railroad workers."
11 All right. We have three papers by Garshick, all
12 of which conclude the same. As far as I am concerned, Eric
13 Garshick has concluded that diesel is a lung carcinogen.
14 Now, he may come here and tell you different, but
15 as far as I am concerned, he has never repudiated his finding
16 that diesel is a lung carcinogen, never.
17 He may say we don't want to use it for risk
18 assessment, but we have done a lot of work developing ranges
19 of risk, and I think that work is quite solid.
20 So, whether you use his number or not is not the
21 cutting edge of the whole issue. What is the cutting edge of
22 the whole issue is that he hasn't repudiated the fact that
23 his study shows that there is lung cancer in diesel workers.
24 And I say that's not junk science. This is, in
25 fact, good science.
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1 So, I think that what we should do is acknowledge
2 the depth of these incredibly difficult scientific papers and
3 say, not only is this not junk science, but we applaud people
4 who did it, and we applaud the people who have been trying to
5 put this together into a coherent package to the ultimate
6 end, protect the public health from exposure to diesel
7 exhaust.
8 DR. FUCALORO: One of the co-authors of the
9 Garshick paper, Katherine Hammond, approves of what was done
10 with the numbers in terms of risk assessment for it, so --
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Was she a co-author?
12 Okay. Dr. Blanc.
13 DR. BLANC: One of the things that I think is
14 sometimes confusing to nonspecialists is the trying to
15 describe risk in terms of increased risk and relative risk,
16 and as an epidemiologist, one of the things that impressed me
17 in seeing the number of studies that were reviewed was the
18 consistency of the elevated risk, and although I have heard
19 the term bandied about of a weak association, this is
20 actually a very powerful association.
21 When you are talking about low levels of exposure,
22 relatively low levels, even among people occupationally
23 exposed, but when you are talking about a very large
24 potential population of exposure as you get to the lower
25 levels, then seeing a 30 to 40 percent increased risk, which
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1 is what we are seeing consistently in these studies, and
2 which was reaffirmed in the very well done meta-analysis by
3 Dr. Rojif Batjia and colleagues, which was published in the
4 peer review literature, which puts it far above most analyses
5 that are done for these purposes, then you are talking about
6 what has a major public health implication on the level of
7 the kinds of public health implications related, for example,
8 to environmental, or second-hand tobacco smoke.
9 Again, if you see a relative risk increase of 15
10 percent even for an adverse health effect, and yet 50 percent
11 or 60 percent of the population may be exposed to significant
12 amounts of environmental or second-hand tobacco smoke, there
13 you are talking about a major population of attributable risk
14 of disease.
15 So, we are really talking, when we are talking
16 about lung cancer, it is really quite an impressive risk
17 association because of its consistency, and this, again, has
18 focused so much on the numbers for the cancer risk, in part
19 because of the framework, the regulatory framework involved
20 in the deliberations, but in fact, to me, as a scientist, I
21 was equally impressed by the data which consistently showed
22 noncancer health effects in the lung, and most of my work has
23 related to lung diseases and, in fact, focuses on asthma.
24 I think the recent work that is emerging is
25 extremely consistent in showing adverse noncancer lung
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1 effects at levels which could be anticipated to be certainly
2 of an issue for designation as a toxic air contaminant.
3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Very good.
4 Any questions on that?
5 If not, Mike, continue with your theme on junk
6 science.
7 MR. KENNY: I think, actually, unless there is
8 something else on that particular issue, I think we are going
9 to move on to the next theme.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Ms. Williams, you jumped up.
11 Do you want to say something?
12 MS. WILLIAMS: Could I use the screen, please?
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Sure.
14 MS. WILLIAMS: Stephanie Williams, of the
15 California Trucking Association.
16 I would like to show you the number of trucking
17 companies, the rude and disrespectful one's that have been
18 noticed that they will be sued based on this document.
19 If you scroll this you will see that it is very
20 small print, because it's hard to get them all on one page,
21 Notice of Intent to Sue, 24 of these companies are already in
22 the courts, and these are the companies that are placeholders
23 to enter the courts.
24 So, there is a lot at risk here. We're in no way
25 trying to offend the politically appointed scientists. We
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1 are trying to stay in business.
2 So, it is fair for us to bring these concerns up, I
3 think.
4 Moving to the next slide, if you look at the first
5 page --
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Could I ask a question on that?
7 These are Prop 65, right?
8 MS. WILLIAMS: No.
9 These are everybody right now.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: The basis for it is what?
11 MS. WILLIAMS: The basis for it is the toxic air
12 contaminant puts in a head count, the number of people that
13 die of lung cancer because of diesel, and this number is
14 being used by the environmental groups who tend to make a lot
15 of money, a lot more than $15-million in these lawsuits when
16 they go after bounties for trucking companies.
17 All we do is we move freight. We bring food to the
18 grocery stores.
19 We are not supposed to figure out engines. We are
20 not supposed to figure out fuel.
21 We are supposed to move freight so you can buy
22 groceries.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: The question that I have,
24 Stephanie, is, tell me, they are suing using Prop 65?
25 MS. WILLIAMS: They are suing under Prop 65
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1 because diesel is under Prop 65, a known carcinogen.
2 That is because IRAC listed it as sufficient. Our
3 Scientific Review Panel has said the RAC data is thrown out.
4 So, throw out the Prop 65, and we don't have a problem. Take
5 it off of Prop 65.
6 We can't have it both ways. There is unfairness
7 going on.
8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We are talking about junk science
9 here, right?
10 MS. WILLIAMS: We are moving into the Australian
11 study.
12 The Australian study, if you look at the authors of
13 this study, you will see that this is the Cancer Registry in
14 Australia and the University.
15 These are independent people that looked at 25
16 years of exposure to diesel exhaust. Eric Garshick himself
17 will tell you that there is five to ten years in the Garshick
18 study.
19 If after 25 years it says, in the paper from the
20 Cancer Registry, overall there does not appear to be an
21 increase in cancer for coal miners that have one thousand
22 times the risk that the ambient air has, we have a problem.
23 We are not trying to be disrespectful. We are
24 trying to point something out here.
25 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Excuse me. This study has
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1 absolutely nothing to do with the question of diesel exhaust.
2 It doesn't approach the question --
3 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, it does.
4 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: It does not. It does not
5 ask the question --
6 MS. WILLIAMS: May I respond then?
7 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: No.
8 When I am finished you will have your say again and
9 again, I'm sure.
10 MS. WILLIAMS: You are right.
11 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: This study does show an
12 increase in cancer.
13 It is not a study. It's a surveillance activity,
14 and there is no scientific question posed by this study.
15 MS. WILLIAMS: I disagree, and I was at the Society
16 of Risk when this data was presented, and it was presented as
17 25 years of diesel exhaust exposure, what they are doing to
18 reduce diesel exhaust.
19 This is the highest level of diesel exhaust study
20 that is known.
21 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: On the contrary, you are
22 not a scientist. I am.
23 There are other scientists in the room. This is
24 not a scientific study.
25 MS. WILLIAMS: Well, it is from the Cancer Registry
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1 and the University. I assume that a Ph.D. behind their name
2 works, too.
3 On to the next subject, if you look at this, you
4 will see the meta-analysis, the Batjia, which was paid for by
5 OEHHA under contract with Allan Smith, we have data records
6 showing that, you will see that of the 30 studies used in
7 here, 13 of the studies did not evaluate smoking tobacco as a
8 potential compounder in cancer risk.
9 Smoking was not known in the 50's and 60's to cause
10 cancer. Diesel exhaust was not measured in the 50's and 60's
11 studies.
12 We did not get diesel trucks until the late 50's,
13 early 60's. We didn't have diesel trucks in the light-duty
14 area, and city trucks, until 1985.
15 So, these people weren't even exposed to diesel
16 exhaust, and if we could work together, the industry and the
17 scientists, we can tell you when the trucks came in, and you
18 will know then that we weren't exposed.
19 This is unfair.
20 The rest of the remaining 17 studies show that
21 control for smoking, 11 found no risk of lung cancer, 11.
22 Of the six studies remaining, you have chauffeur
23 drivers in Switzerland, lung cancer in Florence, Italy, it
24 doesn't even mention diesel, a physician paper on smoking
25 where diesel is not mentioned, the Garshick study -- which I
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1 am shocked and appalled at the comments that were made about
2 Garshick -- he's part of that six cities group that came up
3 with PM 2.5, all of those people are used by the
4 environmentalists as the bolstering for PM 2.5.
5 It's not a coincidence that they are trying to
6 prove their hypothesis that diesel causes cancer. They just
7 haven't yet, and I'm sure they would like to.
8 I believe that they think there is a health risk in
9 diesel, and you haven't heard us say today there isn't a
10 health risk in diesel.
11 We said that it doesn't show that it causes cancer.
12 As far as a toxic air contaminant goes, there are other
13 things that you could list diesel for.
14 You don't have to say it causes cancer and put our
15 members in jail. If you look at the rest of the Federal EPA
16 science, CASAC rejected it.
17 We have included with our comments CASAC's, and the
18 comments made today are not fair.
19 Also, in the study, we have gone over every single
20 one of the 30 studies. They do not show cancer.
21 So, how do you take no cancer, stir it up into a
22 pot, call it meta-analysis, have OEHHA pay for it and get
23 cancer?
24 Those are the questions that we have to answer to
25 our members who are being sued.
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1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Stephanie, if I might, I would
2 like to go back, and I would like to ask Dr. Froines and his
3 colleagues on the SRP about -- Dr. Friedman has expressed the
4 point of view about this -- what was it, Stephanie, what do
5 you call the first one, Stephanie, the Australian study?
6 DR. BLANC: Let me comment on the Australian
7 study.
8 I found it very interesting when the study was
9 brought up to the Scientific Review Panel and was commented
10 on by OEHHA.
11 In fact, there were some earlier comments made on
12 the study that were very germane. It's not really to me an
13 issue so much as whether or not there was a focused
14 hypothesis, although it's clear that this wasn't a study
15 specifically of lung cancer, it's certainly not a study of
16 lung cancer related to diesel exhaust.
17 What is, I think, the more important criticism of
18 the study, not in the published paper, but in the
19 governmental report, they make it very clear and provide the
20 additional data so that you would know that the most anyone
21 could have had in terms of follow-up in the study, the
22 absolute most was 20 years, but that was the most.
23 By far the most, the bulk of person years of
24 exposure were far less than 20 years, so this was not a study
25 yet, a study population yet that one can effectively study
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1 lung cancer or other cancers, and that is why in their report
2 they state that they need further years of follow-up.
3 I think the clearest example of that in the
4 published piece that was just shown on the slide is that, in
5 fact, they show that this employment is statistically
6 protective of all forms of lung cancer.
7 Therefore, if all of us wanted a healthy life, we
8 should go work as coal miners, and the reason that is shows
9 that is something that is commonly called, the healthy worker
10 effect, that is when you select at inception a cohort of
11 people who are able to hold down jobs as coal miner, in fact,
12 some people applied for jobs and never were exposed and never
13 were employed, but for quite a number of years you will see
14 increased survival because you have selected to start with a
15 healthy population, and it takes some number of years until
16 that effect washes out.
17 That number of years have not transpired in the
18 study, and that is why when OEHHA commented on this to us
19 they very appropriately said that this was not a relevant
20 study to impact the bulk of the findings that they had or
21 would impact the findings in any meaningful way at all.
22 I think it does highlight, when you start to get
23 into these very complicated epidemiologic arguments, why I
24 think the system is set up the way it is, so that a lot of
25 work can be done by staff, and then there can be a Scientific
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1 Review Panel representing a variety of different disciplines
2 that take the time to delve into this and really address
3 these issues as have been done, I believe.
4 DR. FROINES: Very briefly, I will just read to you
5 the current average age of the cohort is between 40 and 50
6 years old.
7 So, if that is the average age, that means that
8 that is a very young cohort, and people don't start
9 developing cancer that young.
10 So, you have a sufficient latency to begin to see
11 the ill health effects associated with it.
12 Secondly, of the total cohort, approximately 30
13 percent of the cohort have been employed in the industry less
14 than ten years, well, you have got no exposure of 30 percent
15 of the people, so you are not going to be getting -- one, you
16 are not going to begin to see cancers, because they are too
17 young, and secondly, they haven't had any kinds of exposures,
18 and nobody is looking for diesel exposure within the study
19 anyway, so they are not looking for diesel exposure, and
20 then, of course, the other thing, as Paul says, is that this
21 is a study which demonstrates very clearly that there is
22 something called "the healthy worker effect," because you are
23 comparing miners to general population.
24 So, you have people who are more sick and infirm in
25 the general population compared to a healthy person who can
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1 work as a miner. So, for those reasons this study really
2 wouldn't pass muster in a solid scientific review.
3 DR. BLANC: But that is why we addressed those
4 issues when this was presented to us in fact.
5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: So, you did look at it?
6 You did assess it?
7 DR. BLANC: Yeah.
8 Also, I will not go into it point by point, the
9 issues related to the selection criteria for the
10 meta-analysis by Dr. Batjia, I would say that if you need to
11 get a hold of Dr. Batjia, you might call Area Code
12 (415)206-5200, the Division of Occupational Medicine, at the
13 University of California, San Francisco General.
14 He has recently received a very prestigious
15 research award from the National Institute of Health to look
16 at birth defects, and I think you would probably be able to
17 contact Dr. Batjia easily that way.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay.
19 Any questions, does the Board have any questions on
20 the second study that Stephanie brought up?
21 MS. WILLIAMS: The important thing to remember is
22 about the Garshick study.
23 The Garshick study, all of the people died by 1983,
24 and the exposure started in 1960. So, these people were
25 exposed five to ten years when you look at it, you know, they
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1 didn't retire the day they died.
2 You can't get lung cancer after five years of
3 exposure, and you are saying ignore the 25 years of exposure
4 because they are not old enough to have it yet. You can't
5 have it both ways.
6 DR. BLANC: Well, we will get into a lengthy
7 scientific discussion with you in some different forum.
8 What I would like to say, also, in terms of Eric's
9 work, Eric Garshick's work, which I very much respect, and I
10 respect him individually as well, that when I had the chance
11 to discuss with him at the Panel hearing when he came, he
12 absolutely, unequivocally on the record stood by the risk
13 association that he found.
14 His only area of concern was in estimating the
15 point estimate of dose response risk, but in no way did he
16 retract to us when asked the underlying validity of the risk
17 association that he found, which was right on the money in
18 terms of the same level of risk that we have seen in the
19 other studies.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. All right.
21 Mike, we were with you -- Jed, is this a good time
22 for you on this point?
23 Is it on this point?
24 Okay. Then I will come to you.
25 Anything else on the science?
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1 Peter.
2 MR. VENTURINI: I think that wrapped up the
3 science items.
4 We had one other item, and we can cover it very
5 hurriedly.
6 MR. KENNY: The third item was identification
7 consequences, and it broke down into preventing hot spots.
8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yeah, and Stephanie just brought
9 that as far as the listing she had on the Prop 65 intent to
10 sue.
11 MR. KENNY: And issues regarding the economic and
12 legal impacts of identification, I think those are things
13 that actually should be addressed by both ARB staff and
14 OEHHA.
15 DR. FROINES: I was just going to say something
16 about EPA.
17 The TAC process of 1807, I think is substantially
18 different than the EPA developing their regulations.
19 So, finding something as a TAC is a qualitative
20 matter, is that if it is a lung carcinogen, that fits the
21 definition, we move forward.
22 EPA, because of their regulatory strictures, is
23 under much more responsibility to come up with very, very
24 refined risk numbers.
25 I think that we are talking a little bit about
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1 apples and oranges, and it would be a mistake to link 1807
2 with that overall risk process with EPA on diesel.
3 I think that they are two different regulatory
4 processes, and ours, I think, may get more heated and
5 problematic at the next stage.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yeah, and I'm not disagreeing
7 with you about the process, but the industry folks, I think,
8 have a very legitimate concern, and that is that it may not
9 line up directly, Dr. Froines, but they have the ability to
10 be perceived as being very strongly linked at having some
11 profound, at least perceived, impacts, and so that is one of
12 the reasons that people feel so strongly about the economic
13 element of what we do and what the impact would be.
14 DR. FROINES: Jim Seiber, who serves on the SRP,
15 was Chair of the RAC Committee, and we have talked in the SRP
16 about the linkage between the State and Federal a great deal.
17 Jim always made it clear to us that, yes, there was
18 a general agreement that the two try to walk down similar
19 paths, or parallel paths, but that was to occur as long as it
20 made sense, and as long as it was a reasonable and feasible
21 thing to do, and where that was not going to work out we
22 would go our different ways.
23 So, I think that we were not placed in concrete
24 through that RAC decision.
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Very good.
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1 Mr. Venturini.
2 MR. VENTURINI: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
3 What I would like to do is ask Genevieve Shiroma to
4 briefly go through and just refresh the Board of some of the
5 things that we have mentioned in our presentation regarding
6 the next steps for us and also our next steps with regard to
7 districts and the 2588, and then OEHHA will probably want to
8 mention their next steps with respect to Prop 65.
9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Genevieve, if I could have one
10 mental place holder to give you, it would be on -- some folks
11 have alluded to the fact that local districts could somehow
12 start moving and doing, even perhaps, some mobile regulations
13 or something.
14 I would like you guys to address that.
15 Peter, I know you have some experience with the
16 guidance document work that we have done historically and how
17 that is played out.
18 MS. SHIROMA: Yes, thank you.
19 Should the Board identify diesel exhaust as a toxic
20 air contaminant, it is then placed on the list with the other
21 toxic air contaminants.
22 It then initiates the next phase, which is a
23 multi-year phase where the initial effort is towards a needs
24 assessment.
25 It is also a commitment to form a Diesel Exhaust
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1 Risk Management Working Group inviting all of the
2 stakeholders, the effected industries, associations, air
3 districts, U.S. EPA, the other governmental agencies, the
4 environmental groups and interested parties, and we would
5 convene this meeting very quickly.
6 Within the umbrella of that Risk Management Working
7 Group, we would look at the various sources within the
8 inventory of what has been done already, and we chronicled
9 that today, but we would take a hard look at what has been
10 done already, what is currently being worked on, because
11 there are some other efforts under way now, and whether or
12 not there are any other opportunities in the future for
13 emerging technology for engines and fuels, incentive
14 programs, what have you.
15 With the air districts, we have been in
16 communication with them for some time now. You heard from
17 Ellen Garvey today.
18 The 30 some air districts do have their own local
19 authority for permitting, for requirements under what is
20 called the Hot Spots Program and so forth.
21 They have made a commitment to us to work with us
22 on the guidelines of how this information is used in making
23 those decisions.
24 All of that must be done through a public process.
25 Again, that commitment is that they will work with us and not
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1 get out ahead of us on this information.
2 Again, within the Hot Spots Program, new source
3 review permitting and so forth, they have their authority for
4 stationary sources. We have the authority over the mobile
5 sources, as far as the fuels, engine technologies and so
6 forth.
7 In fact, within the Hot Spots Program, that
8 particular program does not govern the tailpipe emissions.
9 The law makes that distinction.
10 So, again, during that next phase, we would
11 envision the working group being the umbrella group, bringing
12 in all the stakeholders, working closely with us and the air
13 districts on development of the initial needs assessment,
14 which is essentially a plan that would come back to the Board
15 as far as a roadmap for the future, guidelines to the
16 districts on how that information is used from the risk
17 assessment, and should that effort indicate that we need to
18 do more, then we would proceed with that next multi-year
19 again, regulatory development.
20 Peter, anything else to add?
21 MR. VENTURINI: No, I think that about covered it,
22 Genevieve.
23 OEHHA may want to have some comments regarding Prop
24 65 and their next steps there.
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: George, do you want to say
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1 anything?
2 I mean, Mr. Kenny's back now, George, say what you
3 need to say to augment what Peter has just said, but I would
4 like Mr. Kenny and/or Ms. Walsh to talk a bit about any legal
5 challenges, legitimate or otherwise, that the trucking
6 community is concerned about.
7 I understand that. The list that Stephanie had up
8 on the Board, you know, troubles me.
9 I would like perhaps some discussion about the
10 context.
11 Okay.
12 George.
13 DR. ALEXEEFF: George Alexeeff. As indicated
14 already, diesel exhaust is already listed under
15 Proposition 65.
16 In terms of -- we have a separate project within
17 OEHHA to develop no significant risk levels for Proposition
18 65 chemicals.
19 Currently there are about 450 chemicals on the
20 Proposition 65 list. We have risk numbers for about 250 of
21 them or so.
22 So, we don't have risk numbers for all the
23 chemicals. With regards to diesel exhaust specifically, we
24 will wait until this process is over before we even consider
25 whether or not there is a need to develop a number for
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1 Proposition 65.
2 That is a separate process.
3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay.
4 Mike, do you and Kathleen want to -- what about
5 this list of companies receiving the Prop 65 notices?
6 Some, you know, I think -- we, as Board Members,
7 can understand there is a Prop 65 law which allows for some
8 things to occur in the legal arena.
9 That happens with or without our taking action in
10 this area, but our taking an action, many people are
11 asserting that this is going to create some very difficult
12 situations, some enhanced liability, you know, you need to
13 shed some light on that, because there are a lot of
14 assertions in this area that I haven't been fully able to
15 surf through.
16 MS. WALSH: There certainly has been an indication,
17 a number of statements that have confounded two different
18 statutory processes.
19 Prop 65 was adopted into California law as a voter
20 initiative. It is in law.
21 It requires any business of a certain size that is
22 going to expose the public to levels of toxics that create
23 certain specified exposures to warn folks that that is going
24 to happen.
25 Under Prop 65, the State has already determined
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1 that diesel exhaust is one of those chemicals known to the
2 State to cause cancer, and in fact, long before the Notice
3 went out for this Board to take the action that is being
4 contemplated today, long before the SRP considered, and
5 blessed the Report that is before you today, there had been
6 suits filed with respect to diesel exhaust exposures under
7 Prop 65.
8 So, there is no direct legal link between the Prop
9 65 lawsuits, the few lawsuits that are out there, or the
10 Notices of Intent to Sue which are also required under the
11 Act as a precursor to filing a lawsuit.
12 In fact, one thing I think folks ought to be
13 looking at and considering is that under AB 1807 this Board
14 has an opportunity to identify a substance, like diesel
15 exhaust as a toxic air contaminant and move into the control
16 phase.
17 That kind of activity, that statewide activity with
18 the types of work groups and concerted efforts on the part of
19 folks, both at the district level, State level, looking at
20 issues related to controls, is exactly the kind of activity
21 that's likely to address the concerns that you see coming up
22 through these Prop 65 lawsuits.
23 If the State agencies that are responsible for
24 looking at this compound, deciding whether it is a toxic air
25 contaminant and deciding whether additional controls are
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1 necessary in doing that, then citizens are going to feel
2 protected.
3 I think there are a number of specific questions
4 related to Prop 65 lawsuits. We have heard a lot of rhetoric
5 about individual truck operators and small companies being
6 subject to lawsuits, being put out of business and being
7 forced to change their equipment.
8 I think that the AG's Office, the Attorney
9 General's Office is responsible directly for implementation
10 and enforcement of Prop 65, has made a number of
11 pronouncements with respect to this specific issue, and I am
12 going ask Kirk Oliver of my staff to provide you with a few
13 of the insights from those efforts that have previously gone
14 on the part of the AG's Office.
15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We had a Deputy AG here earlier
16 that we let get away.
17 We could have put her on the spot, couldn't we?
18 MS. WALSH: It is a big office, and I'm not sure
19 she would have wanted to be on the spot for these questions.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Kirk, it is my understanding that
21 you had some briefings, too, on this, right?
22 MR. OLIVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Members
23 of the Board.
24 I would just like to reiterate that Proposition 65
25 is a separate law that operates separately from the law that
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1 you are here today with evaluating and enforcing.
2 Your identification of diesel won't heighten the
3 liability for exposing the public to diesel exhaust, and if
4 anything, as Ms. Walsh represented to you, it will have
5 exactly the opposite effect.
6 The identification will be accomplished in a
7 regulation, but that regulation will not impose any controls
8 or prohibit any kind of conduct related to diesel exhaust.
9 Again, you are operating in a law that is entirely
10 separate from Proposition 65. Proposition 65, however, is
11 merely a notice law.
12 It has listed diesel exhaust as a chemical known to
13 the State to cause cancer since 1990. Even so, in that time,
14 in the intervening eight years, only a handful of lawsuits
15 have been filed regarding diesel exhaust under Proposition
16 65, and the vast majority of these lawsuits do not concern
17 individual diesel truck exposures.
18 That list of notices you see there on the board, I
19 will have to tell you that we have obtained information from
20 the Attorney General's Office that indicates that throughout
21 the history of Proposition 65 that only a very small
22 percentage of all those notices ever turn into lawsuits, and
23 a small percentage of those lawsuits ever turn into any kind
24 of a meaningful resolution.
25 However, when Proposition 65 lawsuits have been
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1 resolved in the past, they have been resolved primarily for
2 the agreement of the party that has been sued that a notice
3 would be given to the people that are exposed due to their
4 conduct, and that is it.
5 No unreasonable penalties have been obtained in
6 those lawsuits according to the information that we have.
7 Additionally, the Attorney General has assured us
8 in our conversations that none of these diesel related
9 lawsuits or these notices were prompted in any way or relied
10 on your proposed action.
11 Again, Proposition 65 has listed diesel has a known
12 carcinogen since 1990. Those Proposition 65 notices and
13 lawsuits have proceeded on that basis only.
14 The Attorney General has also written an opinion
15 that Proposition 65 will not be applied to exposures from
16 single diesel trucks due to the insurmountable proof problems
17 involved in making that association between one vehicle's
18 emissions and one individual's exposure.
19 We have a letter to that effect that we will add to
20 the record. Additionally, we have a letter from the AG, two
21 representatives of the California Truckers Association that
22 talks about this relationship between the numbers of notices
23 and the actual number of lawsuits that have resulted under
24 Proposition 65.
25 Remember, Proposition 65 is only a notice law.
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1 It's unrelated to our law, and its liability is avoided by
2 giving a simple warning that we have seen so many responsible
3 businesses in California do since Proposition 65 was adopted
4 almost 12 years ago now by the People.
5 Proposition 65 won't not ban diesel. That has not
6 been the result of any Proposition 65 lawsuit, and they have,
7 again, settled beyond the primary condition that the required
8 notice be provided.
9 Again, we don't have any information that any
10 private lawsuit has ever even been filed alleging injury due
11 to exposure to diesel exhaust.
12 That is despite the fact that all of these health
13 studies that have been evaluated and the documents before you
14 have been available for years and years, available not only
15 to us but members of the public that might think that they
16 have gotten injured due to diesel exhaust exposure.
17 Your ID won't make these private lawsuits any more
18 likely than they have ever been because the information that
19 the identification would depend upon has been available for
20 many, many years.
21 Finally, your identification won't increase the
22 liability for exposing the public to diesel exhaust.
23 Your identification would have no regulatory effect
24 but technically would be placed in the California Code of
25 Regulations and appear as a regulation.
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1 That regulation would not prohibit anybody from
2 doing anything that they are entitled to do now, and it
3 wouldn't require them to do anything that they are not
4 required to do now.
5 Your identification is entirely separate from
6 Proposition 65. Proposition 65 has had a dramatically
7 smaller impact than has been portrayed by a number of the
8 speakers and comments that we have heard today, and again,
9 Proposition 65 liability can be avoided by giving a simple
10 warning.
11 No private party lawsuit that we know of has ever
12 been even filed alleging injury due to exposure to diesel
13 exhaust.
14 If anything, the identification that is proposed
15 for you today will add certainty to this area of the law, and
16 if anything, this certainty will make this negligible risk of
17 additional liability even less than it is now.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay.
19 Jed, did you want to say anything?
20 MR. MANDEL: I really promise to be brief, and I
21 appreciate the opportunity.
22 First of all, it's Jed Mandel with the Engine
23 Manufacturers Association.
24 It is my understanding that the Board will keep
25 open the record on this process, and that's going to cut my
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1 remarks very short, because what I want to represent to you
2 is that there are a number of issues that we have heard
3 today, factual questions that we will respond to while that
4 record is additionally open so that you can have the benefit
5 of our comments and don't have to hear it with the arms
6 waving up here this morning, I'm sorry, that's afternoon for
7 me.
8 So, we will be supplying some additional
9 information.
10 A couple of other really quick points.
11 Whether or not you all have the legal authority to
12 list whole diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant, we will
13 comment on. We will provide you our best information, but
14 irrespective of that, what we hope you have taken away from
15 our comments today is that, frankly, it does not make sense
16 for you to list whole diesel exhaust, because it cannot be
17 controlled.
18 There will always be diesel exhaust. If there is
19 something in diesel exhaust that's a problem, we should
20 identify it and then control it if it causes potential harm.
21 I realize that under the risk management phase that
22 would presumably come as the next step, you all suggested a
23 public process to identify what it might be, but that's where
24 we think we have gotten this out of whack, frankly, because
25 that should come first.
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1 There always will be diesel exhaust as long as
2 there are diesel engines. If diesel engines worked bad and
3 there were other power sources, they will be producing
4 similar combustion exhaust, as does the diesel engine, and we
5 don't know if that's a problem or not.
6 So, I think that you are not helping yourselves as
7 regulators, us as manufacturers, or users, or breathers in
8 terms of controlling the problem.
9 With respect to Prop 65, I don't think this is the
10 time to debate it. It has created a problem in the State of
11 California with respect to diesel exhaust.
12 There are innumerable complaints. This is not just
13 a question of providing notice.
14 Prop. 65 is focused differently than this action
15 today on specific sources and specific emissions as opposed
16 to ambient exposure, but that distinction seems to have been
17 lost, and how people would provide notice if that is what
18 they are obligated to do is quite problematic, and, of
19 course, the plaintiffs in these cases are not just seeking
20 notices, they are seeking significant bounties, significant
21 financial penalties, and, in fact, they are seeking a change
22 from diesel combustion sources to some sort of alternative
23 fuel sources, which would be problematic for the State.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Thank you.
25 DR. FROINES: If there are going to be additional
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1 submissions that have technical or scientific or health
2 related questions associated with them, the Panel will want
3 to review them, and so, what we would like to have is things
4 submitted to the Board as soon as possible so that we may
5 hold an SRP meeting to review any scientific --
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Sure. We will make sure that if
7 there is the relevant scientific information, it will be
8 shared with you.
9 We will figure out a process as to what makes the
10 most sense.
11 DR. FROINES: They can send things directly.
12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I know there is a hunger to share
13 scientific information, which is good.
14 I'm glad that you all are -- we all agree, I think
15 everybody in the room, that there needs to be more work done
16 in the science area.
17 So, okay. Good.
18 Jed, thank you.
19 Okay. Mike or Peter, anything else you want to add
20 on the themes?
21 MR. VENTURINI: I think we are through with the
22 themes, Mr. Chairman.
23 We do have a number of letters that were submitted,
24 witnesses that did not testify, and if you would like us to
25 go, we can do it very quickly, go through those.
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1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We are going to undoubtedly get
2 more letters, and we are going to get letters from the same
3 people, just updates.
4 So, with my Board's indulgence, I would just as
5 soon take that up first thing when we take the testimony up
6 at the next month's meeting, we will just bring them up then,
7 and I'm sure there are people that will want to change what
8 they said, so we will just bear ourselves that.
9 Kathleen, Mike, is that okay with you, processwise?
10 MR. KENNY: Fine.
11 MS. WALSH: That is fine, processwise.
12 There was one package of comments which related to
13 the procedure today, and I think that it would be helpful if
14 I asked Kirk to go ahead and address those very quickly on
15 the record.
16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Briefly, and then I am going to
17 come back to my colleagues and see if there is anything that
18 you want to address now, and we will conclude this Item, and
19 we will take it up again next month.
20 Yes, Kirk.
21 MR. OLIVER: Yes, very quickly, we have had a
22 number of requests termed as demands by the California
23 Trucking Association that separately ask for a right to
24 cross-examine each one of the commenters here today that ask
25 for a preliminary hearing to make initial findings regarding
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1 the scientific justification of the findings and the
2 resolutions and staff report that also ask for a preliminary
3 determination of a hearing panel to hear certain issues
4 raised by the Trucking Association that give notice of their
5 participation and lodge a continuing objection over any
6 evidence that is presented to you that could be termed to be
7 hearsay in nature.
8 We have responded through a letter to the
9 California Trucking Association that those concerns are
10 inappropriate in a rulemaking hearing context.
11 They may have some validity in a judicatory, or
12 judicial hearing, but not here; but we wanted to place those
13 on the record now for the Board.
14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay.
15 Despite our experience with Owens Lake a couple of
16 months ago --
17 To my colleagues on the Board, anything -- kind
18 of -- we heard an awful lot today. We have got a Legislative
19 Hearing.
20 We have deferred our action until after the
21 Legislative Hearing. We had a number of Legislators that
22 have expressed the desire for us to hold off.
23 It's my understanding that both Houses are likely
24 to have some discussion in our State Legislature in August.
25 We are going to track that. Dr. Denton has been
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1 invited to participate, Dr. Froines, there are others. These
2 are going to be largely scientific based panels.
3 They are going to have some of the issues that we
4 touched on today, several panels, I should say.
5 We are going to be there. We will have
6 representatives there, and we have an invitation to
7 participate if we desire as an organization.
8 So, I will make sure that in real time you will all
9 get notice of what went on and the key questions and themes.
10 Mike, I will ask for you to have that tracked and
11 get some formal communication to the Board, and Joan, I would
12 also ask you to, and perhaps Dr. Froines, to give us some
13 notes so we can kind of see it from the different angles
14 about how you perceive that process is going.
15 DR. FROINES: I will submit my testimony to you for
16 distribution.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That would be fine. That would
18 be great.
19 So, we have a month to think on this. We are going
20 to be getting some more material.
21 We heard Mr. Mandel and Stephanie, I think,
22 Stephanie Williams, from CTA, we would have some follow-up
23 material and whatnot. I will make sure that we get that in
24 real time.
25 Also, there is going to likely be some analysis
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1 done by the SRP on some of the points made by our own
2 technical staff, and Joan, I'm sure, your team, as well.
3 Mike, it is going to be a big job getting all of
4 this material to the Board.
5 We have one Board Member, Lynn Edgerton, very
6 interested in this issue, is out of the county, and we will
7 make sure she gets sent the transcript.
8 Pat, I will ask for you to get that put together so
9 that she can, you know, read it and be caught up, and so she
10 can participate at the next meeting as well.
11 Is there anything that you all feel, Board Members,
12 should be addressed? You have something that you want to
13 make sure you get answered today?
14 Ms. Rakow.
15 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: Not an issue, but you
16 mentioned real time.
17 I would hope that everybody would get us the
18 material, considering the fact that some of us will be away
19 for perhaps a week at a time during August, or something, so
20 we will really will have time to go through it thoroughly.
21 It is very complex, and it is a lot of material,
22 and receiving a lot of it just today did put at least me, as
23 one Board Member, at a disadvantage in that I was not able to
24 pursue every page as thoroughly as I would have wished to.
25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yeah.
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1 We also had a box brought up here that I have been
2 tripping over for part of the meeting, so there is a lot of
3 material to read, and you know, we have an obligation to do
4 that, and I'm certain you will, but we do need to get it
5 quickly.
6 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I hate to ask
7 this, because I'm sure I don't have time to read probably
8 everything that is before me and coming in my direction, but
9 one of the things that I think has been at issue, and whether
10 or not it is directly related, it is indirectly related in
11 driving some of the testimony, and that is the Prop 65
12 lawsuits.
13 I hate to ask this, but I would very much like to
14 see that -- I think there are four that were brought against
15 four supermarkets.
16 If they are all the same, I only need to see one,
17 but I would like to see, because there has been so much
18 discussion back and forth, one of those lawsuits.
19 MS. WALSH: We will put a packet together for the
20 Board Members and distribute that.
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That will be helpful.
22 I know that there has been communication with the
23 AG's Office, which has been good. We want to encourage that
24 to continue, so we are at least as smart as we can be on this
25 issue.
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1 Anything else?
2 I want to thank Dr. Friedman. We always pick on
3 our medical representative.
4 I have appreciated him and his views, his
5 forthright nature and his views on these things. It is very
6 important as we deliberate this issue to get his take on
7 things, and it strengthens us, and I want to thank him for
8 attending meetings beyond what we have going here and
9 whatnot, because it has helped, and I appreciate it.
10 Somebody on the staff mentioned that he went with
11 Joe Calhoun to one of the SRP meetings or workshops, which I
12 was glad to hear.
13 Supervisor Roberts.
14 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: One of the questions that
15 occurred to me, we have been largely making the assumption
16 that diesel exhaust is the end result of diesel fuel being
17 burned in diesel engines, but you and I have talked about
18 some things that are going on whereby diesel engines are
19 burning other things other than diesel fuels.
20 We do not have to work this out right now, but as I
21 have gone through all of the material, there has never been a
22 real clear definition of what diesel exhaust really is.
23 It concerns me in that there are some very positive
24 things out there. There is at least one technology that we
25 were looking at where a diesel truck would be converted so it
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1 would actually start on diesel fuel going a short distance
2 and then in the operation it would be switched over to the
3 CNG and would largely be powered by CNG.
4 I guess I am wondering -- I want to make sure that
5 if we do take some action that we have spelled that out so
6 that we don't cause some problems in areas that are
7 unintended with respect to having not defined this.
8 I have seen some definitions in there, what is
9 diesel exhaust, but it doesn't go to that kind of an issue.
10 I may have missed it, and it may be in there. The
11 summary, the staff summary at the beginning of this did not
12 go to that kind of a question, and it's probably not a major
13 issue, but I would be more comfortable if somebody could
14 define a little more precisely what we were talking about
15 when we are saying diesel chemical composition.
16 MR. KENNY: Let me respond very quickly.
17 We have actually tried to define diesel exhaust as
18 essentially diesel fuel combustion in a compression ignition
19 engine.
20 The situation in which you just described,
21 Supervisor Roberts, in which you would have a start-up on
22 diesel fuel, and you would have it shift over to CNG, or some
23 other type of natural gas, that initial start-up there would
24 qualify as diesel exhaust, but we look at that in the context
25 of any kind of risk management if identification did occur,
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1 because that would be the kind of thing that actually would
2 reduce the risk.
3 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I wanted to make sure that
4 we weren't calling just whatever happens to come out of that
5 diesel engine, the whole thing, diesel exhaust.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think maybe you make the point
7 a little bit differently, too.
8 There are a number of innovative fleet pilot
9 projects and some fleets that work on fuels other than just
10 diesel.
11 Those things are in play. We have been aware that
12 the Trucking Association and EMA and others have made us
13 aware of those innovative projects, and we track those.
14 I don't want anybody here to leave thinking that we
15 are looking at banning diesel, and that's one of the things
16 that I was pleased to see in the staff report.
17 We do recognize that significant progress has been
18 made. We have things coming on line in the next few years
19 that are going to come on line and are going to improve air
20 quality and protect public health, and we need those things.
21 We need them to work, but at the same time there is
22 a process here that has been underway for some years that we
23 need to deal with. I think we are trying to do that in a
24 responsible way.
25 If there are no other comments from the Board, I
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1 will make a closing remark or two, and then we will move on
2 to the other items.
3 First of all, I want to thank everybody that has
4 come today. I know that some of you have come great
5 distances to be here and spent a long time listening, and I
6 appreciate that, and it strengthened, I think, the whole
7 debate, because people now have a better understanding about
8 where people are coming from.
9 I have said this before, my father has been in the
10 trucking industry for many, many years. I am well-aware of
11 how hard people work in the industry and of how competitive
12 it is and how difficult it has been economically and is
13 challenging.
14 It is not our intent to make it even more
15 difficult. I can promise that this Board will deliberate
16 very carefully on this Item.
17 There are some concerns that have been expressed
18 about some people who are fearful about what this
19 identification that's been discussed today could mean
20 legally, what it could mean relative to everything from
21 employee relations to community relations, and we are
22 sensitive to that.
23 We also have heard from our own SRP, as well as the
24 staff of both OEHHA and the Air Board, that more research
25 needs to be done.
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1 Nobody would argue that more focused research is
2 certainly in order. I think we have made a commitment.
3 I think, Mike, your team mentioned that we were
4 committed to doing some research, and we talked about some
5 things specifically, and I think that's going to happen no
6 matter what.
7 What I am going to do is stop there and thank
8 everyone for coming. We are going to actively track what
9 goes on in the Legislative Hearing.
10 We have very good relations with the Legislative
11 Committee Chairs. We are going to communicate with them, and
12 we will continue this Item to the August Board meeting.
13 If there is no other discussion, we don't need a
14 motion to do that, do we, Mike?
15 We can just continue it, right?
16 MR. KENNY: A motion.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: The Chair would entertain a
18 motion to continue this Item to the August meeting.
19 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: I so move.
20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: A motion by Mrs. Riordan and
21 second by Dr. Friedman.
22 Any further discussion?
23 All those in favor, say aye. Any opposed?
24 We will take a five minute break.
25 (Thereupon a brief recess was taken.)
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1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I'm going to ask the audience to
2 take their seats, please, and the staff take their place.
3 This seemed like a pretty tense group this
4 morning. There's an awful lot of joking and backslapping
5 right now. What did we just do, Mike?
6 We're going to the fuel cell report, Tom? Is that
7 your preference?
8 MR. CACKETTE: Yes.
9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Again, I'd like to remind
10 the audience who would like to present testimony to the
11 Board to check in the Board clerk over there, Ms. Hutchens.
12 Ms. Hutchens will wave right now. She's over there.
13 The next item on the agenda is 98-8-2, a public
14 meeting to consider a report by the Fuel Cell Technical
15 Advisory Panel.
16 It is with great interest that the Board now turns
17 to the next agenda item, a report from the Fuel Cell
18 Technical Advisory Panel.
19 We all know that fuel cells are a promising new
20 low-emission vehicle technology that has certainly captured
21 the world's attention.
22 I recently had the pleasure of visiting one of the
23 leading fuel cell developers in the world, Ballard. This
24 visit, combined with a discussion and meetings with auto
25 manufacturers, has left me very impressed with both the
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1 significant progress made during the last several years, and
2 with the magnitude of resources and commitments now being
3 allocated worldwide.
4 Some have said to follow the money and I would say
5 if you follow the money as it relates to zero-emission
6 vehicle technology, you see a lot of it going to fuel cells,
7 and that's exciting.
8 Our regulatory program, our LEV program, is
9 driven, as Dr. Calhoun has said in the past, certainly say
10 today, has driven a lot of technology development,
11 accelerated it. And we as a Board are proud of that fact
12 and I think in this area it is no different.
13 Fuel cell powered vehicles have great potential
14 for achieving a zero or near zero emissions levels.
15 However, with any new technology there are many
16 challenges to overcome, and that's something that we also
17 watch very closely.
18 So in an effort to better understand this
19 technology and its potential role within our mobile source
20 program, the Board established a Fuel Cell Technical
21 Advisory Panel, and the panel was charged with providing an
22 independent assessment of the technology and the prospects
23 for commercialization in the next five to ten years.
24 And we're pleased to have this report today.
25 My apologies to those that have come to track this
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1 item for how long it's taken us to get to it, but that does
2 not in any way signal that it isn't important. We just had
3 another item that had kind of come to critical mass and we
4 had to deal with it first today.
5 So with that, Mr. Kenny, would you introduce the
6 item.
7 MR. KENNY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
8 the Board.
9 In 1996 ARB established the Fuel Cell Technical
10 Advisory Panel. The panel is comprised of four recognized
11 experts in the field of fuel cell and power systems
12 technology. The panel has completed a comprehensive
13 fact-finding study in which they collected and reviewed
14 information on mobile source fuel cells that are being
15 developed worldwide.
16 As part of its work, the panel met with all
17 leading fuel cell developers to determine the status of
18 current research efforts, information on corporate
19 capabilities and commitments and plans for commercial
20 production.
21 I want to say that I'm truly impressed by the
22 outstanding job that the panel has done. The panel members
23 have provided a comprehensive assessment of mobile source
24 fuel cell research efforts as well as zeroing in on the key
25 technological and economic hurdles that are still
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1 outstanding.
2 Their analysis included a review of the current
3 and expected future performance of fuel cell stacks, fuel
4 processors and integrated engine systems.
5 They have looked at cost targets that they believe
6 will need to be met and the issues related to the fuel that
7 is ultimately chosen.
8 Dr. Fritz Kalhammer, panel chairman, will now
9 provide a summary of the report, and in particular the key
10 findings of their work.
11 Dr. Kalhammer.
12 DR. KALHAMMER: Good afternoon, members of the
13 Board, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to give this report on
14 the study that was just described. I want to say it was a
15 multiple privilege for me to be associated with this study
16 as the chairman, not only because of the outstanding
17 colleagues that I had worked with, but also the very
18 positive interaction with the ARB staff all along, and
19 finally, and perhaps most importantly, the remarkable
20 openness with which the sources of information that we
21 contacted worldwide were forthcoming with important
22 information. Didn't all give us information on the same
23 level, but we felt that particularly the leaders were very
24 open, so that we came out of this study with a feeling that
25 we really understood what was going on, what the prospects
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1 were. And we, just like Chairman Dunlap said a moment ago,
2 really came out of this study with a great sense of
3 excitement and, as he also said, with a sense that there
4 were still tremendous challenges ahead.
5 Now, let me, before I go into the findings and
6 conclusions from our study, give you just a few minutes of
7 some basics on fuel cells, because I think that will make it
8 very clear why fuel cells are an exciting target as a new
9 automotive engine on the one hand, but why on the other hand
10 a lot still needs to be done to make a practical engine out
11 of an existing concept.
12 This is very simplified. The scheme, the
13 principle of the fuel cell, and in a sense you should
14 compare this single-fuel cell that you see here in a
15 schematic way with, for instance, the cylinder in the
16 combustion engine. This is the place where the fuel and the
17 oxygen, which is air, react in order to produce energy.
18 In the case of the combustion engine, of course,
19 the fuel, which here I've written as hydrogen, but it can be
20 any reductant gasoline, methanol. The fuel and oxygen from
21 the air react through combustion in the cylinder.
22 The key of the fuel cell is that we do not permit
23 the fuel and the oxygen to combine directly. We are making
24 the fuel, in this case hydrogen, contact and electrode shown
25 here at A, or anode, where the hydrogen will dissociate,
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1 giving off an electron to the electrode and the proton to
2 the electrolyte, green in this sketch.
3 On the other electrode, oxygen picks up an
4 electron and then becomes together with water, OH, in the
5 electrolyte.
6 The point of all of that is that the fuel, the
7 reductant, and the oxidant, react with the electrodes, not
8 with each other, and as a result we are allowing the
9 reaction to create an electric current. When that electric
10 current passes through a load, for instance an electric
11 motor, electric energy is generated, so a fuel cell is a
12 device that allows the energy from a fuel and oxygen to be
13 converted directly into electricity. No combustion is
14 involved and no processes are involved that involve heat and
15 loss of efficiency.
16 And that is the excitement of the fuel cell, the
17 promise of high efficiency and a promise of zero pollution.
18 Next.
19 Now, what you saw a moment ago was a single cell,
20 and of course just like a single cylinder you don't normally
21 build cars with a single cell. You have to assemble lots of
22 these cells together in order to have a practical engine, so
23 you stack up the cells one behind the other and then in fact
24 the individual cell is probably only about an eighth of an
25 inch thick. Many of them get stacked together in series and
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1 form something called a fuel cell stack that consists of
2 perhaps two or three hundred cells packed together very
3 closely.
4 Next.
5 Now, with these stacks you still only have the
6 counterpart, if you will, of an engine block with cylinders.
7 An engine involves a lot more. That is shown here on this
8 scheme, unfortunately a little difficult to read for you,
9 but I believe the Board members have a handout which you can
10 later study.
11 And you see that the fuel cell engine not only has
12 a fuel cell stack, it also needs a device for any fuel other
13 than hydrogen to produce a hydrogen-rich gas, which then
14 becomes the fuel for the stack itself, but you have to have
15 this fuel processor.
16 There is also a feedback of gases and of heat
17 between fuel processor and stack. In order to make the
18 engine as efficient as possible you need to have a
19 controlled system for this entire engine and then you have a
20 DC output that still has to be converted into something that
21 is suitable for driving an electric motor. So there is the
22 need for something called a power conditioner.
23 All of these pieces make the complete fuel cell
24 engine and a lot of the complexity of developing a fuel cell
25 from the principle into a practical automotive power source
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1 is to develop the pieces of the system and to put them all
2 together in something that is compact, potentially low in
3 weight and potentially inexpensive.
4 Next.
5 Now, to our findings, and just a word on the scope
6 of our inquiry. We found that important development work
7 was going on not only in North America, and I'm saying that
8 rather than the United States because one of the leaders,
9 Ballard, is in Canada.
10 There are very large and active program,
11 particularly under Daimler-Benz in Europe, and the main
12 Japanese auto makers, Honda and Nissan and Toyota, are
13 deeply involved in fuel cell development.
14 Not only are the car makers involved, but the
15 developers of fuel cell technology itself, the biggest ones
16 in the world, a long list is shown on this slide. We
17 visited all of them.
18 We also visited the major developers of the key
19 components, and that's very important because some of these
20 components, the catalysts, the membranes and others, are
21 potentially show stoppers, because in their current form at
22 their current state, they're extremely expensive. And you
23 have to understand whether the costs of these components can
24 come down through mass production or whether they cannot.
25 One of the crucial questions.
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1 Next.
2 Now, to our findings and conclusions, and the way
3 I would like to present these is to give you a number of
4 simple conclusions, and then after each one of them some
5 backup findings that support these conclusions.
6 In order not to belabor the points too much I'm
7 probably going to go through the background information
8 fairly quickly, but you have it in your handouts and of
9 course our report expands on that information in
10 considerable detail.
11 The very first and early finding that we made is
12 that there is right now really only one fuel cell technology
13 of the many nearly a dozen or so that have been developed
14 for various purposes that meets the criteria for potential
15 application as an automotive power source, and that's the
16 so-called PEM, or proton exchange membrane technology, that
17 simply speaks to the electrolyte in that technology.
18 The only system right now that works in acceptable
19 temperature, that's compatible with air and that is also
20 compatible with carbon dioxide.
21 The very first and probably central finding that I
22 should note here is that the stack technology itself, the
23 development of these devices that I showed you a moment ago,
24 has progressed remarkably over the last five years or so.
25 So when five years ago you could have discounted the idea of
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1 ever using a fuel cell to drive a car, in five years the
2 stack technology, the heart of the fuel cell, has come a
3 long way and is today at a level of performance of power per
4 unit weight, power per unit volume, efficiency that makes it
5 a bona fide candidate to be the core of a fuel cell engine.
6 Next.
7 This table I will not belabor. It's more by
8 nature a backup. It summarizes the argument by the PEM fuel
9 cell, the fuel cell technology of choice, and indeed is the
10 technology that is being developed by all the leading car
11 makers and fuel cell stack developers for automotive use.
12 Next.
13 Here you see the progress of fuel cell stack
14 technology. These are these assemblies of cells that I
15 spoke about.
16 Here the technology of Ballard in Canada, which
17 is, I think, the leading organization with respect to stack
18 technology.
19 And this picture shows you how far we've come. On
20 the left is a stack that is less than ten years old
21 technology. Five kilowatts in that stack.
22 If you go to the right, a stack that has basically
23 the same volume and the same weight can now produce 50
24 kilowatts.
25 And by the time something similar to that is going
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1 to be mass produced it will produce 75 kilowatts.
2 So an increase in power density by more than a
3 factor of ten is really at the core of, if you will, the
4 revolution in fuel cell technology that makes it a candidate
5 for cars.
6 Next.
7 There is an issue with fuels. Hydrogen, of
8 course, is the fuel that powers the Ballard stack in buses
9 that are currently being demonstrated. Hydrogen is the best
10 fuel from an electrochemistry point of view. All of the
11 performance data that I just mentioned, the stacks that I
12 just showed, work with hydrogen.
13 Hydrogen is not now a practical fuel and probably
14 not for some time to come. It is difficult to store on
15 vehicles. It's still expensive. And the infrastructure
16 that's going to be needed to make hydrogen widely available
17 for personal cars is still a thing of the future.
18 So we have to look to other fuels if we want to
19 have fuel cell electric vehicles within the next ten years
20 or thereabouts.
21 Methanol is very interesting because methanol is
22 the only fuel, the only carbonaceous fuel, that has
23 significant electrochemical reactivity in these stacks. So
24 you can think of using methanol directly in these stacks,
25 you wouldn't need a fuel processor, and that makes it
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1 attractive. Unfortunately, the performance of methanol is
2 down probably a factor of five, at least, and you need a lot
3 of catalysts to make it react. So for the foreseeable
4 future without any future breakthroughs, the direct methanol
5 cell is still something for the future. It may happen, but
6 it's difficult to predict when. The technical basis for
7 developing engine technology around direct methanol cells is
8 not there yet.
9 So the automotive developers, the automotive
10 manufacturers are now concentrating on methanol, but also on
11 gasoline for the fuel cell, which requires that these fuels
12 are being processed into a hydrogen-rich gas before that gas
13 can really react in the fuel cell.
14 A lot of the challenge of developing fuel cells
15 for automotive use is in the development of these fuel
16 processors.
17 It's too early to say from our observations what
18 the tradeoff between methanol and gasoline is going to be.
19 Methanol is somewhat easier to convert to a hydrogen-rich
20 gas. On the other hand, gasoline, of course, is available
21 and we do not yet have a well-developed infrastructure for
22 methanol.
23 The methanol industry tells us that that is
24 something that they will be able to handle, that they can
25 build the plants, that they can team up with the oil
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1 industry to develop the infrastructure for distribution of
2 methanol, but that's not yet something that exists.
3 So there are a number of tradeoffs here that are
4 technical, economical, probably policy, and I don't think
5 these tradeoffs are going to be resolved within the next two
6 or three years at the earliest.
7 Next.
8 This is a comparison of the fuels in terms of the
9 parameters that matter. I will not go into that other than
10 to say wherever you see a double minus, that's basically a
11 no-no right now. That is a show stopper.
12 Where there's two positives that means we have
13 this in hand today.
14 And in all other cases there's still work to be
15 done.
16 So you see no-nos for hydrogen at least right now.
17 You see, of course, gasoline as very favorable
18 with respect to cost and infrastructure, but not so
19 favorable with respect to its suitability to be used in a
20 car, and methanol is somewhere in between, resolution two,
21 three, years away.
22 Next.
23 Now, I said a moment ago that the development of
24 the fuel processor is probably one of the most difficult and
25 most important tasks and, indeed, a lot of the development
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1 work going on worldwide is focusing on the fuel processor.
2 The fuel cell stack technology, as I said earlier, really is
3 essentially in hand.
4 Then the next challenge after the fuel processors
5 are developed is to put the fuel processors, the stacks and
6 all the balance of planned equipment together and make a
7 practical, compact engine that has sufficient power in the
8 space that is available on the vehicle and, and that's
9 extremely important, that can be produced for a cost that
10 will be acceptable for an automotive engine.
11 The most advanced state of technology in assembly
12 of fuel processor and the integration of the fuel processor
13 into an experimental car is, in our opinion, the
14 Daimler-Benz NeCar 3, which is a vehicle that has in fact
15 reached a state of being driven around a track and has even
16 ventured out on public roads a few times when the driver
17 wasn't watched carefully.
18 And so there is some very encouraging news here.
19 There's also encouraging news with respect to the
20 very first measurements of emissions from the NeCar 3.
21 And a word on emissions at this point is
22 important. We are now talking about vehicles using
23 carbonaceous fuels. We are talking about vehicles that at
24 least at this stage require the carbonaceous fuels, the
25 methanol gasoline, to be converted into hydrogen and that
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1 does involve potentially some emissions, because there are
2 some low-level catalytic combustion processes involved that
3 could have some emissions.
4 So it's not trivial that fuel cells that have fuel
5 processes and use carbonaceous fuels have absolutely zero
6 emissions, that's to say only water and carbon dioxide.
7 Nevertheless, the very first measurements of the
8 NeCar 3 vehicle have confirmed the expectation that these
9 emissions are near zero or extremely low.
10 But when you talk to Daimler-Benz and you show
11 something like this, they get very nervous and say, but this
12 is only a test cycle that doesn't involve cold start, these
13 are the very first measurements, this is not yet a
14 production vehicle and the data were acquired on a
15 dynamometer, not on the road.
16 So with all these caveats, we can only say
17 indications are that these vehicles will indeed be something
18 close to zero emission.
19 Next.
20 Here you see the Daimler-Benz package in the NeCar
21 3, and you can recognize the rails of the car's chassis, the
22 fuel cells between the rails, the stacks themselves, I
23 should say. Not an issue. They are near ready, at least
24 technically, but the fuel processor is still much too big.
25 Everything that kind of rises above the level of the
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1 chassis's rail has to do with the processing of the fuel.
2 And right now this still takes up the rear seat
3 and the trunk space of the Mercedes A class vehicle, which
4 is the platform for the NeCar 3.
5 So this has to be reduced. It has to be packaged.
6 The performance of every one of these units has to be
7 increased so that they can be more compact and there's still
8 a big job ahead here.
9 Next.
10 Now, I said a moment ago perhaps the greatest
11 challenge for the development of fuel cell engine and
12 therefore a fuel cell car that can make it in the
13 marketplace is to achieve competitive cost.
14 If I were to show you some of the fuel cell costs
15 of fuel cell technologies that exist now and have been
16 developed for power production, they would be more than a
17 factor of ten higher than what the costs can be for
18 automotive application.
19 So you have to push very very hard in the
20 development of automotive fuel cells to get the cost of
21 every component, every functional component, every
22 subsystem, every assembly operation down to the very lowest
23 levels that are possible.
24 And the work on doing this is really only now
25 beginning among the major developers of fuel cells and car
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1 makers. This is a very challenging task that's still ahead.
2 Now, it isn't something that cannot be done. We
3 did not identify any single item where we could say this is
4 a show stopper and we cannot get beyond that with good
5 design and engineering and manufacturing development. But
6 all of this development is largely still ahead.
7 Next.
8 I'm not going -- this is again by way of
9 background, but I want to just tell you that we pretty
10 carefully went through all of these components of a fuel
11 cell car, and we started at the bottom with all these
12 various pieces. We went to the various manufacturers and
13 developers of these pieces, and we looked at the potential
14 costs and how they aggregate in the cost of the overall fuel
15 cell engine. And it is clear that in every case, every box
16 there is a challenge. And in every case we are not yet at
17 the goal. And in every case, and that's very important,
18 mass production on the level of at least 100,000 units per
19 year or more is going to be necessary to get the economics
20 of scale that will lead to the low costs that are shown here
21 really as goals.
22 Next.
23 Perhaps the most encouraging observation that the
24 panel made, and we spent quite a bit of time on this
25 subject, was the observation of the very dedicated,
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1 well-funded, well-focused development programs that we have
2 seen worldwide.
3 We literally have the very best people in the car
4 manufacturers, the leading fuel cell development
5 organizations and worldwide leaders in the development of
6 the key materials and components engaged in massive efforts
7 to develop fuel cell technology on every level.
8 Even at this point there are commitments for
9 probably a billion to a billion and a half dollars over the
10 next couple years to resolve the technical and the cost
11 issues committed by these organizations.
12 So you could say that if everything goes well, if
13 the cost barriers are overcome, if all the technical issues
14 are being resolved over the next two years or so, that the
15 developers and manufacturers of fuel cell engine will be
16 able to make commitments for manufacturing plants. It will
17 probably take at least two years to build these plants and
18 shake them down, and then there will still be technology
19 improvements necessary.
20 So we are talking here about a time scale which in
21 a complete success scenario might lead to the first
22 thousands of fuel cell vehicles, perhaps beginning in 2003
23 and maybe tens of thousands in 2004 and possibly hundreds of
24 thousands in 2005. That is a success schedule, but that's
25 also what you hear from the CEOs of these various
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1 manufacturers, much of which I think is today a game of work
2 competition that makes the staff that has to come up to
3 these deadlines pretty nervous in these organizations.
4 Nevertheless, the resources are being committed to
5 these goals.
6 Next.
7 This is simply a list that shows you the various
8 organizations that are engaged worldwide in all the critical
9 developments, the catalysts, the proton exchange membranes,
10 which are so important and still very expensive now, the
11 membrane electrode assemblies that are being put together
12 from the catalysts and the membranes, the complete stacks,
13 the fuel processors, extremely important, and of course the
14 total power plant for the engine.
15 This is kind of a who's who of the technology
16 leaders in the world today and much of the confidence and
17 ultimate success in developing fuel cells for cars comes
18 from the fact that these organizations are extremely
19 competent and very committed.
20 Next.
21 If you want to sketch out and get a feel for how
22 long all of this is going to take, you can write down, as
23 the panel did, the various phases of fuel cell engine
24 developments and you see these phases sketched out and
25 roughly speaking this is in a success scenario a ten-year
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1 process.
2 With that in mind, this ten-year schedule we then
3 tried to do, and you see that in the next sketch, an
4 indication where the leading fuel cell electric engine
5 developers and vehicle developers are. And here are the
6 engine developers. Ballard with its hydrogen engine.
7 Hydrogen very important, for buses are, I think, leading the
8 pack and they're probably only about four years away from a
9 truly commercial product.
10 All the other bars concerned the development of
11 fuel cell engines that use carbonaceous fuels, either
12 methanol or gasoline.
13 And here is our perception where these engine
14 developers are with a lead of Daimler-Benz, Ballard, Ford,
15 Toyota behind that, International Fuel Cell very strong in
16 fuel cell power plant development, and then General Motors
17 still in the beginning of the engine development process.
18 Next.
19 Now, when you try to translate this in a
20 perception of where these car makers are with respect to the
21 development of the entire fuel cell vehicle, then you get
22 our perception here and that says that Daimler-Benz is
23 probably in the lead by a year or two, but they are still
24 about six years away from a truly commercial product in our
25 perception. And the others are somewhere behind.
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1 The length of these bars simply indicates
2 uncertainty in our assessment where the organizations really
3 are.
4 And let me repeat what I said before. It's going
5 to take a success at every turn. The earliest commitment to
6 manufacturing success in the various demonstration and pilot
7 programs, market acceptance, all of this, in order to make
8 it in that six short years between now and 2004, which is
9 the number that we hear most often from some of these
10 manufacturers.
11 Next.
12 Now, we were not particularly asked to make any
13 recommendations and so we really didn't, but we do have one
14 more set of observations on risks and risk-reducing
15 strategies, and these are not necessarily the observations
16 or, let's say the deliberations of the panel, but these were
17 the kinds of things that we heard from all of the
18 organizations, particularly also the leaders with whom we
19 visited to put together this information.
20 They felt that the proposition of developing fuel
21 cells as a new car engine was, for them, a very risky
22 proposition. Something that is at least six years away
23 before the money starts coming in again is by definition a
24 risky proposition.
25 There are open questions still on some of the
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1 technology features of the technology, cold start being one
2 of them.
3 There are sizable uncertainties as to the ultimate
4 ability to produce these fuel cell engines, every part and
5 the entire system for competitive costs.
6 There are even uncertainties and therefore risks
7 for the car makers with the public acceptance, the consumer
8 acceptance of this new technology.
9 There is large risk here and large monies are
10 being put at risk by every one of the organizations that I
11 showed you on that chart not a moment ago.
12 So with that in mind, it's obviously very
13 important that wherever that risk can be reduced or the
14 perception of risk can be reduced to do so.
15 And one of the ways of doing so, I think, where
16 the Air Resources Board comes in in the opinion of many of
17 the developers, and as a panel we agreed with that, is to be
18 very clear from a regulatory point of view how fuel cell
19 electric vehicles are going to be treated.
20 Early classification and crediting of fuel cell
21 electric vehicles as ECVs is certainly one thing that we
22 heard repeatedly.
23 The fuels issue is a very important one and is one
24 of risk. Reducing that risk by fostering, for example, the
25 availability of methanol or of gasoline with extremely low
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1 sulphur, which is a bad actor for fuel cells, is an
2 important consideration.
3 If any credits could be given to fuel cell
4 electric vehicles because of their high efficiency, it would
5 be very helpful to have an early indication, and that is
6 with respect to of course to the carbon dioxide emissions
7 contribution that we're talking about here.
8 And it goes without saying that demonstration
9 programs and the early market phases are going to be risky
10 and expensive and any assistance that can be provided in
11 these phases I think would be very conducive to risk
12 reduction and risk reduction perception.
13 I think I want to stop here, and I certainly want
14 to invite your questions if I can clarify any of the points
15 that as a panel we had the privilege to observe.
16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Dr. Friedman.
17 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: I really enjoyed this
18 presentation. I appreciate it. Thank you on behalf of all
19 of us.
20 Couple of quick little things.
21 What are the membranes made out of?
22 DR. KALHAMMER: They're basically made out of a
23 chemically-modified Teflon.
24 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Is that the sort of a weak
25 link in terms of longevity of component parts?
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1 DR. KALHAMMER: The answer to that is definitely
2 no. They are extremely stable.
3 The big issue with them is just cost. These
4 membranes are now used in chlorine and alkaline electrolytic
5 cells. They sell at $600 a square meter. This is a mature
6 market. For an automotive application the cost needs to
7 come down to something like 20, 30, $40 per square meter.
8 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: If a single or two cells
9 of a stack become defective for any reason, are they
10 replaceable or does the whole stack have to be replaced?
11 DR. KALHAMMER: I would say for all practical
12 purposes you would have to replace the stack.
13 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: It could be very
14 expensive?
15 DR. KALHAMMER: Yes. But, I think there's a lot
16 of evidence that if you have good quality controls and
17 materials that we are now talking about that the stack life
18 will be very long. I think the issue of say achieving 5,000
19 operating hours on a stack is probably one of the easier
20 ones. The cost is going to be difficult.
21 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Someone tell me what 5,000
22 hours means in the life of a car.
23 MR. CACKETTE: Over 100,000 miles.
24 BOARD MEMBER FRIEDMAN: Thank you.
25 DR. KALHAMMER: For power plant applications,
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1 incidentally, the goal is more like 20,000 hours and there's
2 definitely a sense that that can be achieved also.
3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes, Mrs. Rakow.
4 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: I know that your panel was
5 only looking at the mobile fuel cell applications, but you
6 just mentioned the power plant, so you do see an interchange
7 of application, or do you? There's quite a bit going on
8 with distributed generation.
9 DR. KALHAMMER: Yes. The answer to that is yes.
10 I think the developments that have been going on and for
11 which in many places ARB is credited to create the
12 incentive, I think will have a very very salutary impact on
13 the power plant applications where people have been
14 struggling for years and years to get the costs down, and
15 the large efforts for the automotive applications may well
16 get the cost down to the point where the power application
17 is going to be almost a shoe-in.
18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I had the opportunity a couple
19 days ago to attend a Desert Research Institute out in
20 Nevada, fuel cell conference, and, Fritz, I've got to tell
21 you, that they were clamoring, I had one copy that Tom gave
22 me of this report, carried in my briefcase, and I had some
23 pretty generous offers to take that. But I brought it home
24 with me.
25 But the interesting thing that I found there was
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1 that all of the energy that -- there was a panel that they
2 had of basically World Bank and some investment types that
3 were talking about how the market for fuel cell technology
4 overall in a variety of applications was extremely
5 promising, and that these people took time to be there to
6 meet folks that were involved in bringing fuel cells to
7 market and wanted to learn from them.
8 So I think the timing of the work, and I know you
9 felt it as you have done it with your colleagues, is really
10 important, and I think right on.
11 And let me ask you this, Fritz, and you've been --
12 we put you in a tough spot, I remember when you did battery
13 panel work for us last time when we were working on the ZEV
14 changes. What do you think we can do differently or better
15 to facilitate the development of a fuel cell market in the
16 environmental area, not just restricted to what we do here
17 for mobile applications?
18 DR. KALHAMMER: In my opinion, which I think was
19 shared by the panel members, the most important thing is
20 clarity of the regulatory posture. Obviously it ought to be
21 supportive and I don't think it's hard to be supportive,
22 given the basic potential for cleanliness and efficiency.
23 But to make that position clear, to stick with it for the
24 periods that we're talking about, so that there is a
25 recognizable intent on the part of bodies like ARB and to
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1 see this through to a successful end, I think, is very
2 important.
3 I mean, the history of technology is littered with
4 examples where there was great excitement and then after a
5 while there was burnout and then everybody would drop it
6 despite the fact that there may have still been significant
7 promise.
8 Today I think it's important to keep the
9 difficulties in perspective and not become disappointed when
10 the schedule slips a little bit, because these are very
11 difficult things to develop. Good people are working with a
12 lot of money on it, but they can't do it instantaneously.
13 So sticking with it and being clear, I think is
14 probably the most important thing that you can do.
15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We hear that all the time,
16 particularly in the mobile area.
17 Tom, I know you and I have been to meetings, and I
18 think when we went back to Detroit several of us heard that
19 the consistency with the regulatory message is something
20 that they depend on. They might do advocacy and argue with
21 us about time frames and specifics, but they really like the
22 idea that we're going to be predictable.
23 Any other questions?
24 We have one witness, too.
25 Joe.
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1 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Dr. Kalhammer, on, I guess,
2 page five of your report, statement to the effect that the
3 panel -- let me preface the statement by mentioning some of
4 the difficulties that you encounter, that the manufacturers
5 are encountering in trying to develop this process, then
6 there's a sentence in your report which states the panel
7 therefore considers the statements of several major
8 automobile manufacturers, that they expect to have
9 production rated fuel cell vehicles by -- fuel cell electric
10 vehicles by the year 2004.
11 Do you consider that to be a realistic estimate of
12 time in view of what you know about the problems that may
13 come up?
14 DR. KALHAMMER: I think I spoke to that when I
15 said everything has to go right. And, for instance, in two
16 years from now the methods of engineering every component
17 for low cost have to be in hand. Commitment needs to go out
18 to build plants and the plants must be able to really meet
19 the expectations. Then all the tests, you know, no sudden
20 environmental or safety issue must be picked up that might
21 take a year or two to resolve. None of these things can
22 happen if 2004 is to see the production of some tens of
23 thousands of engines.
24 The tens of thousands of engines that
25 Daimler-Benz, Ballard, Ford say they are planning to build
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1 in the year 2004 must also have customers. Daimler-Benz may
2 not buy all of those. Ford will have to buy them. And
3 obviously they will be bought only when there is a
4 perception that there will be customers for the vehicles and
5 that's all tied to the cost, and so there are all kinds of
6 feedback loops between volume and cost and customer
7 acceptance.
8 So that's a lot to ask.
9 And if you ask my personal opinion, am I going to
10 say 40,000 fuel cell engines produced in the year 2004? I
11 would say I wouldn't be surprised if that slipped a year or
12 two, but right now I'm in no position to say that it will,
13 because everybody with whom you talk says we are committed
14 to these goals, and the commitments go right from the very
15 top from the chairman of these big, powerful companies,
16 right down to the last worker. So there's a tremendous
17 spirit of enterprise and enthusiasm.
18 And the other thing that is important is that many
19 other components are really beyond the expertise of the car
20 makers, the membranes, the catalysts and so on. And there
21 are organizations, Dupont, Gore, Asahi, Bicks, and others,
22 who are putting money down right now that this will become a
23 market, so that their part of the critical path is handled
24 too. There aren't really any holes in the total effort
25 right now.
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1 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any other questions of
3 Dr. Kalhammer?
4 Very good.
5 Thank you.
6 And we apologize to you for the delay. Appreciate
7 your patience.
8 DR. KALHAMMER: Don't. You had a lot of important
9 business.
10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We have one witness. Ken Smith,
11 are you here?
12 MR. SMITH: I'm here.
13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Come on over here. You might be
14 the only friendly witness we've had today. I might have
15 spoken too soon, though.
16 MR. SMITH: No. I'm Ken Smith and I represent
17 Methanex. We are the largest producer of methanol in the
18 world and we are exclusively a producer of methanol.
19 We are very pleased with the report. In general
20 we agree with almost everything in the report. We think
21 they did a good job. They did a good canvassing.
22 We spent a lot of time talking to manufacturers
23 and to the component manufacturers of this equipment. We've
24 worked a lot with the original equipment manufacturer
25 automotive industry. And we can see that clearly methanol
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1 is the leading fuel here and we want to continue to work
2 with them on that.
3 We are a little concerned, though, that the direct
4 methanol fuel cell did not get as much play as we thought it
5 should. We think that's a very promising technology.
6 However, it is still in the laboratory, but we think it can
7 advance rapidly with the right incentives. And I know that
8 you are working on that.
9 The primary concern, one of our primary concerns,
10 not with the report but with what's going on with fuel
11 cells, is that a lot of effort is being diverted into trying
12 to make petroleum into hydrogen. We think that's a pretty
13 difficult task and we'd like to see more of it devoted to
14 the easier fuel, methanol. Of course our bias here comes
15 out.
16 The primary concern with methanol has always been
17 the infrastructure. But I think we've proven in the
18 California Energy Commission program and others that we can
19 put this infrastructure in.
20 Part of the problem is the cooperation from the
21 fuel retailers. We're not fuel retailers. We sell a
22 commodity, so we don't own the corner gas station. We're
23 working on that though. We're looking for partners. We've
24 searched worldwide for partners in the petroleum industry to
25 do this, and we are looking very hard at the difficulty of
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1 what it takes to put methanol into existing infrastructure.
2 And we called out for any cooperation from government and
3 from the petroleum industry to move forward with a methanol
4 infrastructure with our help.
5 Essentially we're committed to helping in
6 development of a fuel cell. We're here. We'd like to
7 participate in demonstrations and we're very pleased with
8 what you've done and what the Fuel Cell Technical Advisory
9 Panel did.
10 Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
12 And you've been -- you're to be commended and the
13 folks you represent in trying to keep a dialogue open with
14 us, tell us what you're about, what you've been thinking
15 about and giving us counsel as we consider advanced
16 technology and what it can do for the environment and for
17 what other fuels, the potential. That's important for us to
18 hear.
19 Sally, I think he said something nice about the
20 Energy Commission. Do you want to pipe up?
21 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: I think he did too. I'd like
22 him to repeat it.
23 A lot will happen between 1991 and 19 whatever.
24 MR. SMITH: Sally was a big supporter when we were
25 working with them over there.
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1 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: I also drove a demonstration
2 vehicle, Chevy Lumina, M-85, and gave it a good workout, and
3 it was excellent. It was an excellent car.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Good. Thank you. Appreciate
5 it.
6 Well Tom, you guys want to sum up anything?
7 I know one thing I should mention to the Board
8 colleagues, we asked -- we asked a lot of our mobile source
9 program. They're busy, certainly with a full regulatory
10 calendar, but they also find a way to squeeze in time to do
11 work like this, visionary work.
12 And I appreciate, Tom, you and your team being
13 able to do this and interact with Dr. Kalhammer and his
14 colleagues, because it's hard to make time to do that. I
15 know that. It's difficult to lead, but you guys really, I
16 think, delivered a quality product here.
17 Thank you for the notebook. I encourage --
18 MR. CACKETTE: I would only add that this is one
19 of the more fun ones, so it's got so much prospect and it
20 was such an exciting technology that it really can continue
21 to develop at this pace, we'll all look back on it quite
22 favorably, I think.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
24 Mike, you want to add anything to this?
25 MR. KENNY: I do have a few remarks.
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1 And, again, I think I'd like to just simply
2 emphasize the outstanding work that the fuel cell panel has
3 done in preparing the report.
4 The report provides a comprehensive summary of the
5 progress that's been made to date and current information on
6 the status of fuel cell programs worldwide.
7 The panel estimates that research and development
8 estimates investments already made in the commitments for
9 the next several years will approach $2 billion.
10 This includes the financial as well as the
11 technical resources. These investments are being undertaken
12 by the leading auto manufacturers and include key alliances
13 with industry.
14 And the support from what the panel characterizes
15 as well-focused government research and development
16 programs.
17 To emphasize a significant worldwide investment, I
18 would like to take a minute or two just to focus on some of
19 the recent achievements and commitments that give us great
20 optimism for the future.
21 Daimler-Benz has been testing fuel cell vehicles
22 since 1993, and has already unveiled their third-generation
23 experimental vehicle, the NeCar 3.
24 NeCar 3 utilizes the Mercedes A class platform and
25 is the world's first methanol fuel cell powered car.
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1 According to recent press statements, Daimler-Benz
2 plans to run some small fleet demonstration studies in 1999,
3 and enter pre-series production in 2002 and 2003.
4 Another important development is the alliances
5 that have been developed between the auto manufacturers and
6 industry. For example, Daimler-Benz has committed $725
7 million in partnership with Ballard.
8 And last December Ford Motor Company announced
9 that it will bring its electric vehicle technology and $420
10 million in the alliance with Ballard and Daimler-Benz.
11 Last year Chrysler unveiled a full-size model of a
12 vehicle that was run on gasoline. They target a proof of
13 concept by early 1999 and a demonstration vehicle by the
14 year 2000.
15 This January, GM unveiled an advanced model of a
16 fuel cell drive train and has stated their intent to have a
17 production-ready vehicle by the year 2004. GM vice chairman
18 Harry Pearce has stated to the press that GM's fuel cell
19 test vehicle gets 80 miles per gallon.
20 Other manufacturers such as Nissan, Honda, Volvo
21 and Volkswagen have all bought Ballard fuel cells for their
22 research.
23 They all realize that there are many challenges
24 that lie ahead before fuel cell vehicles become a reality.
25 As the panel pointed out, not the least of which is being
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1 able to make the vehicles cost effective.
2 But with the level of effort and commitment that
3 is being made by the leading organizations in the world and
4 the successes that have been achieved in the last few years,
5 there are many reasons to be very optimistic.
6 I've had staff prepare informational binders for
7 the Board which include background information on fuel
8 cells, as well as the recent press articles. And hopefully
9 those will be helpful.
10 Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate
12 that.
13 I heard Sally mention that she had a Chevrolet
14 Lumina and I like General Motors products, but I think we
15 need a couple Mercedes test vehicles. See, maybe
16 Dr. Kalhammer can see if he can help us with that one.
17 Thank you. And please express our thanks to your
18 colleagues, your other three colleagues, Dr. Kalhammer, for
19 their work. We'll get a letter off properly recognizing
20 them for that work.
21 Mr. Calhoun.
22 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: One thing I guess I'd like
23 to -- Dr. Kalhammer mentioned some of the strategies that
24 may help to foster the investment. I'd like to add some
25 follow-up on that. They are listed on the last sheet.
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1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Any letters on this item?
2 MR. KITOWSKI: Yes. We received one comment
3 letter from the American Methanol Institute. Basically they
4 were very complimentary of the panel's report, and they
5 provided a report of their own, entitled, "Looking Beyond
6 the Internal Combustion Engine, the Promise of Methanol Fuel
7 Vehicles," in which they examined the ability of the
8 methanol industry to serve in the emerging market for fuel
9 cells, including taking a look at the infrastructure
10 possibilities.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good. Thank you.
12 We'll move on now to conclude that item.
13 I'm going to -- we have two items left. One is
14 very short, I would assume, and I'll take care of that right
15 now. We have an open comment period.
16 Does anybody wish to address the Board?
17 We can't obviously take formal action on any item
18 that you choose to speak to us on, but we'll provide an
19 opportunity for members of the public to directly address
20 the Board on items of interest that do not appear on today's
21 agenda.
22 We're asking that each witness limit his or her
23 testimony to topics that are within the subject matter
24 jurisdiction of the Board.
25 Is there anybody here that wishes to speak to us?
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1 Very good.
2 We will put this item away, and we'll go to the
3 final item, which would be the fuel cell -- we just did the
4 fuel cell report -- which will be the ZEV item, which is the
5 public meeting to update the Board on the status of the
6 Board's Zero-Emission Vehicle program and ZEV technology.
7 In September of 1990 the Board approved the
8 low-emission vehicle and clean fuel regs. These regs
9 include a requirement of ten percent of all new vehicles in
10 model years 2003 and beyond to be zero-emission vehicles, or
11 ZEVs.
12 Currently the only technology available -- excuse
13 me, capable of meeting the ZEV standard is the
14 battery-powered electric vehicles.
15 The Board believes that the success of
16 battery-powered ZEVs in the marketplace is dependent on
17 advanced batteries that provide range and performance
18 characteristics acceptable to a large number of consumers.
19 In March of '96 the Board entered into a memoranda
20 of agreement, or MOAs, with the seven largest auto makers.
21 These MOAs commit manufacturers to continue research and
22 development of advanced batteries, as well as conducting
23 demonstration program involving advanced battery-powered
24 ZEVs.
25 The Board is committed to placing ZEVs in
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1 government fleets and developing the infrastructure
2 necessary to support ZEVs.
3 As a direct result of these MOAs, we have seen
4 impressive progress in development and commercialization of
5 advanced batteries.
6 Honda and Toyota have marketed vehicles with
7 nickel-metal hydride for many months now.
8 General Motors began offering the EV1 one and a
9 half years ago, and although it currently uses lead-acid
10 batteries, the style and responsiveness of the EV1 broke
11 through many preconceptions of electric vehicles as golf
12 carts.
13 Both General Motors and Ford have announced plans
14 to offer vehicles with advanced batteries by the end of '98.
15 And Nissan is the first manufacturer to come out
16 with a lithium-ion battery-powered vehicle that offers
17 real-world range of over 100 miles.
18 These vehicle programs represent a commitment to
19 clean transportation that cannot be denied, and on behalf of
20 the Board I'd like to congratulate them on their
21 accomplishments to date.
22 Because battery technology is the key to
23 successful introduction of a sustainable market for ZEVs,
24 the Board staff has closely followed the progress of the
25 most promising battery technologies.
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1 Today we'll hear about the progress made by auto
2 manufacturers, our Board and other agencies in meeting the
3 commitments and MOAs. In addition, we'll get an update on
4 the status of the most promising advanced battery
5 technologies.
6 With that, Mr. Kenny, will you introduce the last
7 item?
8 MR. KENNY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
9 the Board.
10 I want to take a moment to comment on the
11 importance of the advanced battery technology to the ZEV
12 program.
13 The Air Resources Board staff believes that
14 advanced batteries are essential to the success of ZEVs in
15 the marketplace.
16 Progress made thus far to commercialize advanced
17 batteries for use in vehicles has been impressive.
18 I firmly believe that much of this progress is a
19 direct result of the MOAs and the requirements for ZEVs in
20 2003.
21 However, we are still in the development stages
22 for these new advanced technologies. The next few years
23 will be pivotal, and based on the hard work and
24 determination demonstrated thus far, I believe we will
25 continue to progress and meet the goals we set for the
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1 proliferation of zero-emission vehicles in the marketplace.
2 I also want to commend the auto manufacturers on
3 their efforts in developing electric vehicles. I've driven
4 today's electric vehicles and can attest these bear no
5 resemblance to golf carts. These cars are clean and quiet,
6 in addition to being fast and fun to drive.
7 I recognize that many hurdles have been overcome
8 to bring these cars to market and that additional progress
9 is needed to reduce cost.
10 However, based on the development so far, I have
11 confidence that the industry will develop vehicles that meet
12 the consumers' needs and expectations.
13 Now I'd like to introduce Eileen Tutt of the
14 Mobile Source Division, who will make the staff
15 presentation.
16 Eileen.
17 MS. TUTT: Thank you, Mr. Kenny.
18 Good afternoon, Chairman Dunlap and members of the
19 Board.
20 My presentation today will serve as the biennial
21 review from ARB's Zero-Emission Vehicle program.
22 This presentation will include a brief review of
23 the ZEV's program history, information about the auto
24 manufacturers' and ARB's progress towards meeting the
25 requirements of the memoranda of agreement that were signed
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1 in 1996, and a summary of the status of an advanced battery
2 technology.
3 In September 1990, ARB adopted the low-emission
4 vehicle and clean fuels regulations. These regulations
5 included a requirement that the seven largest auto
6 manufacturers produce certain percentages of zero-emission
7 vehicles, or ZEVs. Beginning in model year 1998, two
8 percent of the new vehicle fleet was required to be ZEVs.
9 This percentage increased to five percent in 2001 and 2002,
10 and to ten percent in 2003 and beyond.
11 Currently the only technology meeting the ZEV
12 requirement is the battery-powered electric vehicle. But as
13 you heard from Dr. Kalhammer, fuel cell technology shows
14 promise in meeting the ZEV requirement in the future.
15 I'd first like to emphasize why the ZEV program
16 has been and continues to be such an important strategy in
17 meeting California's long-term air quality goals.
18 This graph demonstrates the substantial emission
19 reductions achieved by electric vehicles, or EVs.
20 Even when we include the power plant emissions
21 associated with producing electricity used by the EV, the EV
22 is over ten times cleaner than even the cleanest emitting
23 vehicle currently required by ARB, the ultra low-emission
24 vehicle, or ULEV.
25 NOx and NMOG emissions associated with the EV
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1 equate to less than five pounds over a ten-year life.
2 If we calculate tailpipe evaporative and refueling
3 emissions from the gasoline ULEV, we end up with over a
4 hundred pounds of NOx and NMOG over a ten-year life, and an
5 average model year 1996 vehicle will emit almost 300 pounds
6 over a ten-year life.
7 Electric vehicles clearly provide significant
8 emission benefits.
9 In addition to the emission reductions indicated
10 in the previous chart, there are other benefits associated
11 with EVs. Unlike conventional gasoline-powered vehicles,
12 EVs have no emission control system that can deteriorate
13 over time. EVs never become gross emitters. EVs also have
14 no emissions associated with the evaporation of fuel while
15 the vehicle is operating or at rest.
16 Finally, the upstream emissions associated with
17 EVs are extremely low relative to gasoline vehicles.
18 For example, there are no refueling emissions
19 associated with EVs, whereas pumping gas results in
20 significant emissions of hydrocarbons.
21 ARB believes that advanced batteries are essential
22 to ensure a successful introduction and a sustainable market
23 for ZEVs.
24 In August 1995, ARB provided funding to establish
25 a Battery Technology Advisory Panel. The panel determined
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1 that although significant progress had been made in the
2 development of advanced batteries, these batteries would not
3 be available in production quantities until the 2001 time
4 frame.
5 Thus, in March 1996, ARB modified the regulations.
6 In place of a requirement for ZEVs in 1998 through
7 2002, the modifications include a market-based introductory
8 period, while maintaining the ten percent requirement for
9 2003 and beyond.
10 To ensure that progress toward commercialization
11 of advanced batteries continues at a rapid pace, ARB entered
12 into memoranda of agreement with the seven largest auto
13 makers.
14 These memoranda of agreement, or MOAs, commit the
15 auto manufacturers to offset the emission benefits lost due
16 to the elimination of the ZEV requirement in 1998 through
17 2002, to continue research and development through a
18 demonstration program, to meet the market demand for ZEVs in
19 1998 through 2000, and to provide ARB with annual and
20 biennial reports on their progress and future plans.
21 The MOAs commit ARB to continue working with
22 government agencies to place ZEVs in government fleets, to
23 work with other government agencies to ensure adequate
24 infrastructure is available to support EVs in the
25 marketplace, to work with state and local officials to
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1 address emergency response and other safety issues as they
2 relate to EVs, and to support reasonable incentives for ZEVs
3 and related infrastructure.
4 The next section of the presentation covers the
5 progress made by the auto makers to meet the requirements of
6 the MOAs.
7 The MOAs require the auto manufacturers to offset
8 the emission benefits lost due to the elimination of the ZEV
9 requirement in 1998 through 2002 through participation in an
10 national low-emission vehicle, or NLEV program, or some
11 other means that would achieve equivalent emission
12 reductions.
13 The benefits associated with the NLEV program
14 result from cleaner vehicles that either travel through or
15 relocate to California from other states.
16 All seven of the auto makers that signed the MOAs
17 have opted into the NLEV program beginning in 2001, a full
18 three years earlier than could be required under federal
19 law.
20 The demonstration portion of the MOAs is referred
21 to as the Technology Development Partnership. This
22 partnership is intended to accelerate the commercialization
23 of advanced batteries and ensures continuing research and
24 development through the placement of advanced
25 battery-powered EVs with consumers.
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1 In 1998 through 2000, each manufacturer is
2 expected to place its prorata share of 3,750 advanced
3 battery-powered EVs in the marketplace.
4 Manufacturers receive multiple credits for EVs
5 that use advanced batteries with higher specific energy.
6 Specific energy is the amount of energy per unit weight and
7 is directly related to range capability.
8 The actual number of ZEVs that are expected to be
9 placed in 1998 to 2000 by each manufacturer are shown in
10 this slide. These numbers are based on actual advanced
11 batteries now being used and those expected to be used by
12 the manufacturers.
13 Factoring in that auto makers will get extra
14 credit for advanced battery-powered EVs, it is expected that
15 during 1998 to 2000 that the total number of ZEVs placed
16 will be just over 1800.
17 If a manufacturer chooses to place more advanced
18 battery-powered EVs than shown here, that manufacturer would
19 get credit towards the 2003 requirement.
20 Note that Mazda has stated its intention to
21 purchase MOA ZEV credits from Ford, and in the graph the
22 requirement for both is combined.
23 General Motors is to be congratulated as the first
24 auto maker to offer EVs to consumers. The EV1 can be leased
25 from Saturn dealers by individual consumers or fleets.
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1 The EV1 currently uses lead-acid batteries and
2 therefore does not receive MOA ZEV credit. However, the EV1
3 does address the requirement in the MOAs to introduce ZEVs
4 as the market demands and will apply towards the requirement
5 for ZEVs in 2003.
6 Over 300 EV1s have been placed in California as of
7 March '98.
8 General Motors also began offering the Chevy S-10
9 to fleets in May 1997. Most of the S-10s placed thus far
10 use lead-acid batteries. However, General Motors has placed
11 13 EV1s and S-10s that use nickel-metal hydride batteries
12 and is expected to meet its MOA obligations by placing
13 approximately 80 more vehicles that use nickel-metal hydride
14 batteries by the end of this year.
15 The Honda EV Plus was introduced in May 1997.
16 This car uses advanced nickel-metal hydride batteries, which
17 makes it eligible for about two MOA ZEV credits per vehicle.
18 As of this month, over 170 EV Pluses have been
19 placed in California, which means Honda has far exceeded its
20 MOA obligations for 1998 and is well on its way to meeting
21 the total requirement of about 250 vehicles during the MOA
22 period.
23 Toyota introduced the RAV4 for lease in the fall
24 of 1997. The RAV4 uses advanced nickel-metal hydride
25 batteries, which make it eligible for two MOA ZEV credits
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1 per vehicle. Thus far, over 160 RAV4 EVs have been placed,
2 and Toyota has orders for almost 100 more by the end of this
3 year. Given the popularity of this vehicle, Toyota has
4 exceeded its MOA obligations for 1998 and will clearly meet
5 or exceed its total requirement for about 340 vehicles
6 during the MOA period.
7 Ford introduced the Ranger EV in January of 1998.
8 Currently the Ranger uses lead-acid batteries. However,
9 Ford is expected to meet its 1998 MOA obligations by placing
10 just over 100 Rangers with nickel-metal hydride batteries
11 this fall. This number of Ranger EVs would satisfy both
12 Ford and Mazda's MOA obligations for 1998.
13 Nissan is the first auto maker to announce its
14 intention to place an EV using lithium-ion batteries in
15 California. The use of lithium-ion batteries will allow
16 Nissan to generate almost three MOA ZEV credits per vehicle
17 sold. To meet its MOA obligations for 1998, Nissan is
18 expected to place 30 Altras in California by the end of the
19 year.
20 Chrysler introduced the Epic minivan using
21 advanced lead-acid batteries in May of 1997. Chrysler has
22 placed 17 advanced lead-acid battery-powered Epic minivans
23 on military bases. These vehicles allow Chrysler to
24 generate one MOA ZEV credit per vehicle in 1998.
25 Chrysler is expected to meet the remainder of its
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1 1998 MOA obligations by placing about 30 Epics that use
2 nickel-metal hydride batteries later this year.
3 Each of the auto manufacturers has laid out a plan
4 to ramping up to the ten percent requirement for ZEVs in
5 2003. In most cases, these plans include a retail and fleet
6 placements of the vehicles currently being demonstrated.
7 Most auto makers have indicated that a marketing
8 program including more than one vehicle platform would be
9 needed to meet the ten percent market requirement in 2003.
10 Several manufacturers are developing new platform
11 designs and appear better prepared to meet the ZEV challenge
12 than others.
13 ARB staff will continue to closely follow the
14 progress made by auto manufacturers and expects specific
15 product plans in the manufacturers' 2000 biennial reports.
16 In addition to progress made by auto manufacturers
17 in meeting the requirements of the MOAs, ARB has worked to
18 fulfill our obligations in the MOAs and has been successful
19 in many areas.
20 ARB has dedicated additional staff resources to
21 work directly with senior managers at other boards and
22 departments to facilitate the purchase and use of EVs.
23 A number of EVs have been leased by state
24 agencies. These vehicles were leased by a leasing agreement
25 that were designed to streamline the leasing process for
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1 state and local government agencies, as well as California
2 universities, thereby encouraging the use of EVs in
3 government fleets.
4 In addition to the development of streamlined
5 lease agreements for government agencies, ARB staff has been
6 working closely with the Department of General Services, the
7 South Coast Air Quality Management District and the
8 California Energy Commission to develop an EV loan program.
9 Through the EV loan program government entities can borrow
10 an EV and the associated recharging equipment for a
11 short-term loan.
12 This program is intended to familiarize state
13 agencies with this new technology while allowing a wide
14 variety of agencies to determine how the available vehicles
15 meet their specific needs.
16 Currently there are over 500 charging stations
17 throughout the larger metropolitan areas of California
18 thanks to a concerted local effort and incentives by state
19 and local agencies and the federal government.
20 The ARB formed the Implementation Advisory
21 Committee made up of representatives from government and
22 industry to work cooperatively to address the complex issues
23 related to the introduction of a new technology in the
24 marketplace.
25 Additionally, EV owners have had recharging units
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1 installed in their homes with good results.
2 This process is improving at a rapid pace and
3 private industry groups such as EV Edison, as well as local
4 utilities, have stepped up to the plate to make the process
5 more streamlined and success oriented.
6 We have seen a number of major companies join the
7 effort to provide sufficient recharging for EVs, notably
8 Costco, Raleys/BelAir, Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels and
9 smaller locations such as the local food co-op here in
10 Sacramento.
11 To facilitate the uniform and safe availability of
12 recharging equipment, the California Energy Commission
13 formed the Building Codes Working Group. This group, made
14 up of representatives from the government and industry,
15 developed revisions to the California building standards
16 that became effective in 1996. A training program was
17 developed for building officials to update them on the
18 changes.
19 In an effort to provide a national standard for
20 building code requirements related to EV charging systems,
21 the Building Code Working Group suggested changes to the
22 National Electric Code that are likely to be approved by
23 their governing organization.
24 ARB has been attending meetings of the national
25 Infrastructure Working Council. Although the IWC works on
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1 many issues regarding infrastructure, a key issue for ARB
2 has been the standardization of a conductive connector
3 standard for charging units, and IWC recently recommended
4 that the Society of Automotive Engineers adopt a single
5 standard for the butt-type connector, such as currently used
6 by Honda and Ford. The Society of Automotive Engineers is
7 expected to implement this recommendation in September of
8 this year.
9 Similar to the Building Codes Working Group, the
10 CEC formed the Emergency Response Working Group, made up of
11 representatives from government and industry. Early this
12 year the group completed the development of a training
13 program that has resulted in the registration of more than
14 two dozen trainers and hundreds that have taken the
15 training. Through the Infrastructure Working Council the
16 complete package of training materials has been distributed
17 to every fire marshal office in the United States.
18 ARB has been working cooperatively with government
19 agencies, auto manufacturers and other stakeholders to
20 determine the most effective ways to support the
21 introduction of ZEVs into the marketplace.
22 Incentives currently in place include a federal
23 tax credit towards the purchase of a ZEV of up to $4,000, as
24 well as $100,000 deduction for businesses that install
25 recharging facilities; state and local funding for charging
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1 systems, as well as a $5,000 credit towards the purchase of
2 a ZEV; and utility incentives that include off-peak charging
3 rates by all the major utilities in California, and an
4 interesting incentive that may be the benchmark for other
5 companies is an offer by Edison International to its
6 employees that amounts to an additional $100 off per month
7 off of the lease or purchase price of an EV.
8 I will now review staff's assessment of the
9 progress made in advanced battery development over the past
10 two years and summarize the current status of the most
11 promising battery technologies for ZEV applications.
12 Probably the most prominent group in advanced
13 battery development in terms of funding and
14 commercialization is the United States Advanced Battery
15 Consortium, or USABC.
16 The USABC was established in 1990 and is comprised
17 of Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, the Department of Energy,
18 the Electric Power Research Industry and major electric
19 utilities.
20 ARB staff participates in the USABC monthly
21 meetings as an observer.
22 The purpose of the USABC is to establish
23 technology performance goals for advanced batteries,
24 specifically for electric vehicle applications, and to
25 provide funding support for the most promising battery
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1 technologies. USABC has established mid-term,
2 commercialization and long-term performance goals for
3 specific energy, specific power, cycle life and price.
4 Specific energy relates to the amount of energy
5 that can be within a given battery weight. A higher battery
6 specific energy would allow greater vehicle driving range.
7 Specific power relates to a battery's ability to
8 provide power on demand. A higher battery specific power
9 would allow greater vehicle acceleration and hill climbing
10 ability.
11 Cycle life relates to the number of times a
12 battery pack can be recharged before replacement is needed.
13 And price in this context relates to a battery's
14 cost to a vehicle manufacturer.
15 While there are many factors that determine an
16 electric vehicle's performance, there are some general EV
17 performance estimates that correlate with USABC goals
18 identified in the previous slide. As shown, vehicle
19 performance improves as battery performance transitions from
20 mid-term goals to long-term goals.
21 The next few slides will provide a summary of the
22 1996 and current performance characteristics for the four
23 most promising candidate battery technologies, nickel-metal
24 hydride, sodium-nickel chloride, lithium-ion and
25 lithium-polymer. Here, energy capacity, or more precisely,
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1 specific energy data are presented.
2 Note that the USABC mid-term goal for specific
3 energy is 80 watt hours per kilogram. Also note that the
4 data presented for lithium-polymer is not for a full-size
5 battery pack, but rather a module within the pack assembly.
6 Values from a full pack would be lower.
7 In terms of specific energy, all four advanced
8 batteries are expected to meet the USABC mid-term goals by
9 2003.
10 This slide provides a summary of the progress made
11 in specific power. As a comparison, the USABC mid-term goal
12 is 150 watts per kilogram for specific power. As can be
13 seen, all of the advanced batteries now meet the USABC
14 mid-term specific power requirement.
15 This slide summarizes the progress made in battery
16 life characteristics in terms of cycle life and calendar
17 life. The USABC mid-term goals for battery life are at
18 least a five-year calendar life and 600 cycles.
19 Because a full-size lithium-polymer battery pack
20 has not been evaluated, data are not presented for this
21 technology. Although it is noted here that recent data
22 suggests that lithium-ion may have a calendar life
23 shortfall, efforts to resolve this issue are underway.
24 As can be seen, all of the advanced batteries now
25 meet the USABC mid-term calendar and cycle life
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1 requirements.
2 Based on the Battery Panel findings and more
3 recent discussions with battery and automotive industries,
4 ARB staff has developed these projections for advanced
5 battery production levels in 2003 time frame.
6 With all four advanced battery technologies
7 expected to at least meet all of the major USABC mid-term
8 performance goals, adequate production volumes are possible
9 by the year 2003.
10 Perhaps the greatest concern for advanced
11 batteries is their cost to the vehicle manufacturer and
12 ultimately to the consumer.
13 Although none of the four technologies is expected
14 to meet the USABC cost goal of $150 per kilowatt hour by
15 2003, technology improvements and volume production may
16 permit some batteries to approach the goal. Also, higher
17 initial battery costs may be offset by the extended life we
18 would expect with further improvements in battery energy
19 capacity.
20 A market may also exists for retired EV batteries
21 that could still offer satisfactory performance in other
22 applications. These would include stationary backup power,
23 golf carts, lawnmowers and other applications. This
24 residual value may help to offset the initial high cost of
25 EV battery packs and merits further evaluation.
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1 Although there are some issues related to the four
2 candidate advanced battery technologies, staff expects
3 resolution by the 2003 time frame. This slide provides a
4 review of the issues related to each of the technologies.
5 Nickel-metal hydride offers a good overall
6 performance with thermal control, charging and safety
7 systems integrated into the pack. The greatest challenge
8 for nickel-metal hydride is the cost. Because of the high
9 material cost, nickel-metal hydride manufacturers must focus
10 on more efficient manufacturing processes and other cost
11 reduction efforts.
12 While sodium-nickel chloride is the most proven of
13 the advanced battery technologies, its high operating
14 temperature continues to cause some concern.
15 Currently lithium-ion exhibits inadequate calendar
16 life, but it is believed that this problem will be overcome.
17 Also, as with nickel-metal hydride, materials cost for this
18 technology remains high.
19 For lithium-polymer, while good progress is being
20 made in terms of battery performance, manufacturability and
21 cost reduction, full-size battery packs have not yet been
22 demonstrated in vehicles.
23 The following slides provide a look at actual
24 advanced battery hardware.
25 Here is an Ovonic Battery Company nickel-metal
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1 hydride battery module. This battery is currently being
2 installed in some General Motor EV1s and S-10 EV trucks.
3 The Panasonic nickel-metal hydride battery packs
4 are currently powering the Toyota RAV4 EVs and Honda EV Plus
5 fleet within California.
6 The Sony lithium-ion battery pack is currently
7 being demonstrated in the Nissan Altra EV.
8 The AEG Zebra sodium-nickel chloride battery
9 technology has accumulated more on-road vehicle miles in
10 European test programs than any other advanced technology.
11 This is a mock-up lithium-polymer battery pack
12 being developed by 3M/Hydro-Quebec under a USABC-funded
13 program.
14 In conclusion, I would like to point out that the
15 seven major auto manufacturers have placed over 750 EVs in
16 service in California beginning with GM in 1996 to the
17 present time.
18 All the auto makers have either met or have plans
19 in place to meet their 1998 obligations for placing advanced
20 battery-powered EVs.
21 ARB staff will continue to work with other state
22 and local government, as well as private industry, to ensure
23 the proper infrastructure is in place to meet consumer
24 needs.
25 We will also continue to monitor the progress made
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1 toward the commercialization of advanced batteries and
2 follow the cost issues associated with production of these
3 batteries.
4 Finally, ARB expects specific future product plans
5 in the auto makers' 2000 progress reports and will update
6 the Board on this situation during the 2000 review.
7 That concludes the staff's presentation.
8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you very much for that
9 thorough overview.
10 Do any of the Board members have questions before
11 we go to the witnesses?
12 Ron, Joe, anything?
13 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: I'd like to ask one
14 question.
15 Has the ARB honored its commitment under the MOA?
16 Have we kept up with that?
17 MR. CROSS: Short answer is yes. The listing of
18 all of the government activities is derived directly from
19 the MOA obligations on the state side.
20 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: I guess my next question
21 would be is there anything else you can think of that we
22 could do to ensure that this program is a success? We have
23 some milestones that we're supposed to be meeting in the
24 short term, very shortly?
25 MR. CROSS: I think the big thing is the vehicle
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1 placement and marketing activities that Eileen discussed,
2 were all of the things we're doing to get the vehicles out
3 into happy homes and in government fleets I think is
4 important. I think continuing on infrastructure is
5 important. I think we need to continue monitoring the
6 battery issue, because I think that if the cost issues do
7 play out well, i.e., the lithium-polymer battery, for
8 example, does reach USABC cost goals, we should be in good
9 shape in terms of implementation.
10 BOARD MEMBER CALHOUN: Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Supervisor Roberts.
12 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, couple quick
13 questions.
14 Two weeks ago I was in Detroit and I spent some
15 time with the Ford Motor Company people and toured their
16 facilities there and I'll give you the good news and the bad
17 news.
18 Their production of the electric cars and their
19 Ranger was about three a day, if I remember correctly.
20 They've got a staff of about 12 people working on it, and in
21 putting them together in what looked like the same system
22 you probably used to put a stagecoach together at one time.
23 That rate compares to their successful Expedition
24 that we're going to be discussing, I guess, later this year
25 in November, in which there you have three full shifts
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1 working around the clock producing just under one a minute
2 too. And it left me with some real questions.
3 But I think the thing that concerned me, this
4 nickel-metal hydride when you talk about expense, you didn't
5 put any dollars on that, but to add some perspective I was
6 told that battery package is running about $30,000 per unit
7 right now. That's just for the battery package.
8 I guess the good news is it's smaller than the
9 lead-acid battery and it lasted about three times as long.
10 But it really struck me how far that we have got
11 to go. I guess I was a lot more optimistic two years ago
12 than I am now.
13 I'm wondering, though, and because it wasn't
14 mentioned, ARB put some significant money into a car that
15 was being developed by, if I remember, it was the Troy
16 Design Center, and while we visited that two years ago there
17 was no feedback in your report today, nor has there been any
18 mention in a couple years. And I'm wondering what we got
19 from our investment, how that's doing, because I thought
20 that was supposed to be on the road and was supposed to be
21 the first of very long-range vehicles. At least they were
22 using, at the time we visited there they had some Zebra
23 batteries or something that they were looking at. And I'm
24 kind of surprised with all the money that we've spent that
25 given this update that nobody has mentioned that. So that's
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1 one of the questions I would have for you if you can bring
2 us up to date.
3 And then secondly you mentioned standardization of
4 the charging system, but that's really a kind of refinement,
5 I guess, on the conductive, and we still have the major
6 issue of whether it's conductive or inductive, which I think
7 is at some point probably has to get resolved, and it seems
8 to me it's potentially a pretty significant issue. And I
9 was hoping that staff might speak to that, since they
10 didn't.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We also have some witnesses too
12 that can speak to that, Ron.
13 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Maybe those two things that
14 struck me as being missing from the presentation, maybe they
15 can comment on.
16 MR. CROSS: I can start. And before I do, though,
17 I wanted to -- one thing I wanted to mention was that the
18 $30,000 battery price for, when you were quoted for that
19 nickel-metal hydride battery, is kind of on track. If you
20 remember the battery report, they have to go through a phase
21 of pilot production batteries. And the purpose of -- the
22 high cost, modest volume to demonstrate the production
23 processes. And the purpose of the MOA was to place a modest
24 volume of these vehicles with these high-cost batteries out
25 in the world where they can be demonstrated and evaluated
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1 without pushing the manufacturers to high-volume production
2 of hardware that really isn't quite ready for high-volume
3 production.
4 So I think while the cost is high, it's the right
5 thing to do. And in other words the right thing to do is to
6 have modest volumes out there at this point.
7 And that kind of plays into the connector issue
8 too. I think that there was wisdom in the Board's decision
9 to slow this down a little bit and let some of these issues
10 work themselves out. And I think that the MOA fleet is
11 doing exactly that. Maybe we'd like to see a few more
12 vehicles placed than are actually being placed, but on the
13 other hand I think it would have been much worse to push a
14 lot of cars out there and have them fall on their faces. I
15 think at least this way we get the issue sorted out before
16 the public ends up with a vehicle which is not acceptable.
17 When I think there's still -- I think the other
18 part of it is is that on the cost side, lithium-polymer has
19 the most promise of the whole set, and that one is kind of
20 the furthest off. So all -- shoving a bunch of high-cost
21 batteries out there at this point could poison the consumer
22 well in terms of accepting the battery that has the best,
23 the most promise cost wise.
24 So that speaks to the connectors and the
25 batteries.
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1 On the TDM vehicle the good news is the vehicle
2 was completed. We have evaluated it. We've had it in El
3 Monte for some time. The goal of the vehicle was to
4 produce -- or the goal was to produce a production plan, if
5 you will. In other words, to do a pilot vehicle and then
6 with that pilot vehicle to put together a plan to get the
7 vehicle on the street or into production.
8 And that was all accomplished, i.e., the
9 production plan was done and there are companies that are
10 endeavoring to generate interest in actually producing the
11 vehicle.
12 The downside, if you will, to give a totally
13 candid answer to all this, is that the TDM vehicle is a
14 prototype, has prototype vehicle characteristics. In other
15 words, its ride isn't totally refined and, you know, you
16 slam the door and you don't get that absolute high-quality
17 fit sense that you get from a full production vehicle and
18 some of that stuff.
19 So we're not touting the vehicle, if you will, as
20 a fully developed vehicle, because it's not. It's a
21 prototype to try and demonstrate the production process.
22 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Let me, if I can cut
23 through some of this.
24 MR. CROSS: I'm done.
25 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I know we invested, we, I
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1 think, as a Board, invested over a million dollars in it.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think it was a half a million.
3 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Half a million, whatever it
4 was. There was several million dollars total that was into
5 the thing and I would have thought that we'd get some kind
6 of report back in terms of its --
7 MR. CROSS: Yes, we did.
8 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: I don't care if the door
9 slams or not, that's not what I'm interested in. I mean, I
10 don't have a clue what the range is. I don't have a clue
11 what we got for that money.
12 MR. CROSS: We can do a report for you.
13 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: It's like somebody -- you
14 know, I'd rather I not have to ask you, but if we're coming
15 back with a report it seemed to me that should have been
16 part of it.
17 MR. CROSS: Yes. We did get a report and we did
18 test the vehicle and I think --
19 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: We haven't gotten a report.
20 MR. CROSS: Yes, I understand that.
21 MR. CACKETTE: Yes, we have the report.
22 But the key part of it, what we were really after
23 was someone that knows how to build vehicles, because this
24 company builds low-volume vehicles, would put together a
25 production plan and the cost estimation to say can you build
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1 an electric vehicle of this type, which was advanced
2 materials, in a manner that was a reasonable cost.
3 And they provided us with the data that showed
4 what you could do and what you could not do. And that plan
5 is what we're -- has been made available to people so that
6 if they choose to go out and market it and perhaps create
7 some jobs in California by helping put together some
8 partnerships between companies all over the world.
9 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Why don't you come back and
10 share some of that with us?
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We need the report. Just get a
12 report, the scope, what we learned and that kind of thing.
13 Ron is right. We look for -- and you guys have always been,
14 I'd like to think, honest in your presentation of where
15 we're at, where we're not at, and this is an element where
16 we invested some dollars. I do believe there was some
17 public comment on it, I believe the Board took a little bit
18 of heat for being supportive of this. So you need to get
19 back to us and tell us what we got for the money.
20 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: There were goals that we
21 had for it and I'd like to know what -- I just, I feel
22 better if we kind of had that feedback.
23 MR. CROSS: The good news is the battery is
24 working really well.
25 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: Well, that would be of
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1 interest.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Why don't we get back to the
3 Board with a report in the next month.
4 BOARD MEMBER ROBERTS: And I guess the other
5 question I was asking about, the inductive versus the
6 conductive, I guess that's still -- that's a contest that's
7 still going on, apparently.
8 MR. CROSS: Yes. By Toyota moving to the
9 inductive camp somewhat publicly, that has isolated Ford and
10 Chrysler as the kind of holdouts.
11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Bob, why don't we do this.
12 We'll get Ron the answer, but through the witnesses, and
13 that way you guys can -- Ron can hear what's going on out in
14 the marketplace.
15 All right. Any other questions of staff?
16 If not, we'll go to the witnesses. We have five.
17 Dave Hermance from Toyota. Dave, come on down.
18 And then Cecile Martin from the California
19 Electric Transportation -- Vehicle Transportation Coalition.
20 And I see Dave Modiset back there too from that group.
21 Mike Wirsch from SMUD, Enid Joffe from EEV, and
22 Howard Levin from Sempra Energy, if you folks would come to
23 the front row, we will get you up here.
24 Dave, how is that new Prius doing?
25 //
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1 MR. HERMANCE: Good afternoon. I'll try to be very
2 brief, and I'll also try not to be very contentious, try not
3 to be.
4 I would like to make a couple of comments about the
5 report. First, let me say that I am not opposed or even
6 negative regarding battery EV's.
7 In fact, I may be one of the few people in the room
8 with very driving experience in one. I have driven our
9 vehicle for about four months on my daily commute of a 40
10 mile round trip up and down the 405 from the corner of Orange
11 County up into LA County.
12 I find the vehicle range and performance to be
13 totally adequate for my commute. I also find it would be a
14 totally successful vehicle in my two car household as one of
15 the two vehicles in the household and would replace a
16 gasoline vehicle in my application.
17 Toyota shares the Board's desire to improve the air
18 quality in California, and we understand the multiple
19 benefits that staff has identified for battery vehicles.
20 I believe, by the way, that the Toyota has now
21 passed Honda in placement of advanced ecology battery
22 vehicles in California, and if we haven't this month, we will
23 next month, and we are rapidly closing on General Motors, as
24 a matter of fact.
25 However, there is still one critical issue that was
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1 discussed briefly, it was discussed a little bit further and
2 probably will be discussed even further as we go forward over
3 the next couple of years, and that issue is cost.
4 Now, having said a little bit of introductory, let
5 me make a couple of comments regarding the report.
6 First, a couple of moderately humorous one's, the
7 report suggests in the Executive Summary that manufacturers
8 remain nonspecific regarding our plans for 2003 ZEVs.
9 That is 100 percent correct, but I would point out
10 that we are also quite nonspecific about our plans for any
11 vehicle for 2003 at this point in time.
12 Also, the report suggests that Ford's vehicle is
13 the only one for sale, and I would like to clarify that
14 point.
15 Indeed, the Toyota is for sale. We haven't had any
16 consumers opt to buy it, however, because the lease is so
17 much a better deal.
18 One other point, moving off the lighter one's for a
19 second, but still somewhat light, just to emphasize a point
20 that is made in the report, but not made real strongly, that
21 the U.S. ABC commercialization criteria are by the view of
22 the U.S. ABC the minimum requirements that would allow
23 initiation and maintenance of minimal production volumes, the
24 two critical of those two criteria are an energy density of
25 150 watt hours per kilogram and a cost of less than $150 per
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1 kilowatt hour.
2 In the text of the report, there are reported
3 specific energies for four nickel metal hydride batteries
4 available in vehicles, or soon to be available in vehicles,
5 and they range from 59 watt hours per kilogram to 62.3 watt
6 hours per kilogram.
7 Those values, or those packs currently available in
8 the MOA vehicles are a little bit less than the staff's
9 estimate of 71 hours per kilogram in 1998, and they are, at
10 least on a relative basis, substantially less than the 80
11 watt hours per kilogram estimate for 2003 for nickel metal
12 hydride batteries.
13 Now, staff has access to more battery manufacturers
14 than I do, but I'm not sure that nickel metal is going to get
15 80 watt hours per kilogram, so that even if we did, that is
16 still well short of the U.S. ABC commercialization objective,
17 just as a point of information.
18 And although we concur with staff's judgment that
19 battery EVs are the most promising near-term ZEV, any vehicle
20 that is too expensive to sell in volume isn't going to
21 substantially improve our air quality.
22 The staff in the report also suggests that advanced
23 battery powered EVs if offered in 2003 at a reasonable price
24 with reliable and acceptable performance, the ARB believes
25 they'll be a success in the market place, and we concur with
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1 that judgment.
2 Given, however, the forecast, somewhat optimistic
3 cost estimates and the energy density estimate that I think
4 at least our technology is not likely to achieve, it's not
5 clear to me how that's possible.
6 One other thing that I just took on the back of an
7 envelope, and maybe staff can straighten me out on this one,
8 staff introduces a new measure, at least one that I haven't
9 seen before, regarding life cycle cost.
10 If I have done the math right, a 30 kilowatt
11 battery package is what most of us are targeting to put on
12 vehicles, would give you something on the order of 100 mile
13 per cycle range, at least to the depth of discharge that most
14 customers would be willing to drive it to, yields a cost per
15 mile of about seven and a half cents for the battery only.
16 If you add the one to two cents per mile for
17 off-peak electricity, this suggests a cost per mile of about
18 nine cents per mile.
19 This compares rather unfavorably with about four
20 cents a mile for gasoline cost for an average vehicle, and
21 maybe you add a penny or two to that for maintenance, and it
22 still doesn't look very optimistic, at least at this point in
23 time.
24 Now perhaps the lithium polymer technology will
25 indeed deliver and be readily available, perhaps not.
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1 I don't wish to sound overly negative. I only wish
2 to caution you not to be overly optimistic.
3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mrs. Riordan.
4 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Just out of curiosity, and
5 maybe it was somewhere and I failed to see it, if I wanted to
6 buy one of your Toyota's, what would the cost be, and if I
7 wanted to lease it, what would the cost be?
8 Just give me an idea.
9 MR. HERMANCE: Okay. I am not from the marketing
10 side. I will give you the numbers that I remember, and they
11 are very close.
12 $42,900 is the manufacturer's suggested retail
13 price. The monthly lease is $457 or $459 a month.
14 There is an option of a one-time lease. Some of
15 the customers, we are dealing primarily with utilities, some
16 of the customers were not configured to lease vehicles, so
17 there was a development called a one-time prepaid lease, that
18 I think is $16,000 and change.
19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: For what period of time?
20 MR. HERMANCE: Three years, for the one-time.
21 BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Thank you, Dave.
23 Thank you for your patience, I know you have been
24 here a while today.
25 Cec, good to see you.
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1 MS. MARTIN: Good to see you, too. Good afternoon.
2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You have a panel with you.
3 MS. MARTIN: I do, but when we looked at today's
4 schedule, we made a decision to keep our comments very brief,
5 no overheads, no long presentations, but we didn't want to
6 surpass this occasion or overlook this occasion without
7 making some comments about what we have done to support
8 commercialization of electric vehicles.
9 As most of you know, Cal ETC is a business
10 association, and our governing board is made up of the large
11 utilities in California, Sacramento Municipal Utility
12 District, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, Pacific Gas and
13 Electric Company, Southern California Edison and Los Angeles
14 Department of Water and Power.
15 Our broader membership also includes Edison EV, an
16 infrastructure company, Ford Motor Company, General Motors
17 Corporation, Toyota Motor Sales USA, the City of Alameda and
18 Bureau of Electricity, A to C Bus Sales and Cal Start.
19 So, three of our members would like to give some
20 comments today, just to talk about infrastructure investment
21 and the importance of the partnerships that have been
22 developing with auto makers.
23 I would like to introduce them ahead of time and
24 not come up between speakers, so our first speaker will be
25 Mike Wirsch, who is Manager of the Electric Transportation
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1 Department of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
2 Our second witness is Enid Joffe, who is the
3 Manager in charge of infrastructure for Edison EV, and our
4 third is Howard Levin, who is Environmental and Safety Policy
5 Administrator for the new Sempera Energy Company.
6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: As Mr. Wirsch comes forward, you
7 need to know that he lives in Auburn.
8 I think you have the only EV charger in town, don't
9 you?
10 MR. WIRSCH: No, there are one or two others.
11 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board.
12 The California Electric Transportation Coalition applauds the
13 significant progress made today in introducing clean electric
14 drive vehicles to the market.
15 This credit belongs to a number of industry
16 stakeholders, including the government agencies, especially
17 CARB, auto makers, businesses, utilities, public and private
18 fleets and individuals for cooperating and collaborating to
19 make the market work.
20 Many people have worked tirelessly to assure that
21 the early EV market succeeds, and they recognize the cars of
22 the future will use electric drive technology, because it is
23 fuel efficient and emission free.
24 Although only a few electric vehicle models have
25 been available in limited numbers since late 1996, there is a
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1 significant market interest in electric vehicles.
2 By our count, through the end of June 1998, there
3 are over 850 electric vehicles operating in California, and
4 over half of these have been placed since December.
5 Both the Honda EV Plus and the Toyota REV IV, the
6 two electric vehicles currently available with advanced
7 battery technology, have sold more than these auto makers
8 agreed to produce in 1998.
9 The degree and extent of cooperation involved must
10 not be overlooked. Auto makers and utilities have worked
11 together to identify and meet customers needs on home
12 charging and infrastructure development.
13 Because electric vehicles represent an entirely new
14 technology, a great deal of thought and research has gone
15 into making certain that customers are comfortable with their
16 cars.
17 On a whole, we think that they are very happy.
18 They especially like the convenience of charging at home, or
19 home base, and have stated that public charging in convenient
20 locations has allowed them to feel more comfortable about
21 their decisions to try the new transportation technology.
22 These early adopters and innovators deserve credit
23 for actively participating in the market introduction
24 process.
25 State agencies and local government have provided
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1 key monetary and nonmonetary support for this introduction.
2 They have offered purchase incentives and support
3 public infrastructure development, and they have worked
4 closely with the industry to develop building codes, safety
5 and emergency responder training programs that were mentioned
6 earlier and have incorporated a large number of electric
7 vehicles in their fleets.
8 Throughout California, private industry and public
9 agencies like SMUD have stepped up to install public charging
10 sites at great expense and in recognition that this is
11 required to enhance the customer draw to this new product.
12 Business has also invested in EVs for private fleet
13 use. Working together Californians are demonstrating the
14 willingness to lead the world in this new technology to
15 assure healthier air, a cleaner environment and a brighter
16 economic future.
17 CARB is to be commended for setting the regulatory
18 climate to foster continued progress in this promising
19 industry.
20 Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
22 Any questions for Mr. Wirsch?
23 Thank you. Very good.
24 MS. JOFFE: Good afternoon. My name is Enid
25 Joffe, and I'm Manager in charge of the infrastructure for
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1 Edison EV.
2 My remarks today will expand on the discussion of
3 EV infrastructure that you have already received. I have to
4 say that Eileen made a very thorough presentation in her
5 staff report and took about half my speech, so I will be very
6 brief then.
7 Edison EV is one of the success stories of the ZEV
8 Program. Our company was formed in January of 1996, 11
9 months before the EV-I was brought to market.
10 Our mission is to provide the link between the
11 manufacturers of EVs, the consumers and the fuel providers.
12 Obviously, our parent company, Edison
13 International, took a risk in forming this company before a
14 market even existed, but we really saw a role that needed to
15 be filled and felt that we were very capable of filling it.
16 We are also the California and Arizona distributor
17 of the inductive charger that's manufactured by General
18 Motors, and it's used with EV-I, the S-10, the Nissan Altra
19 and starting next year, the Toyota RAV4.
20 In addition, we are the North American distributor
21 of the conductive EVI charging device that is used by Ford,
22 Honda and Toyota, currently Toyota.
23 So, we are very aware of this dichotomy between the
24 inductive and conductive charging and have responded to it by
25 sitting squarely on the fence, since we are a very small
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1 business.
2 We are happy to see that the progress that has been
3 made both in combining to one standard on the conductive
4 connector and also the fact that Toyota and GM have reached
5 an agreement for Toyota to use the inductive charging
6 technology.
7 We really think that you are going to see a
8 concerted effort by those two manufacturers over the next
9 couple of years to make that the standard.
10 Another point about our business is that we have
11 created jobs in California. Our company, though small, has
12 about a dozen employees, but in addition, we employ
13 approximately 25 contractors and subcontractors. These
14 are licensed electrical contractors that are trained by
15 Edison EV.
16 EVI also is a California success story. It's a
17 local company and has been hiring workers as they expand
18 their production, so all of that is helping to contribute to
19 the economy.
20 The introduction of electric vehicles to the
21 marketplace in the last couple of years has stimulated the
22 investment of public and private funds in vehicle and
23 infrastructure incentives, as well as the construction of a
24 network of public charging stations.
25 I brought copies of the current charging list, and
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1 you will see that there are over 230 public charging stations
2 listed on those eight pages, and more if you count the one's
3 that are in Arizona.
4 Just using Edison EV's numbers, we have installed
5 approximately 250 charging stations that are open to the
6 public, plus some 200 to 300 fleet, or workplace charging
7 stations that are not open to the public, and another 400 to
8 500 residential chargers, so that is a pretty substantial
9 number for a new company like us.
10 We estimate that by the end of this year there will
11 be approximately $10-million in public funds available for
12 incentives for vehicles, and approximately $4-million for
13 infrastructure incentives.
14 Just based on our own numbers, we think that the
15 infrastructure investment alone, when you count up
16 residential, public, private, will be about $10 million.
17 Then looking at the breakdown of our customers, and
18 Eileen mentioned some of the larger one's, the top 10
19 customers, and by those I am talking about the Costco's, the
20 Hyatt's, the Hilton's, the Memorial Hospital, the malls,
21 etcetera, those top 10 customers have invested about $600,000
22 to date of their own money, this is over and above and
23 incentives that they have received.
24 In addition to the public and private incentive
25 money that has been available, the auto makers have really
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1 recognized the need for charging infrastructure to the
2 network, and they have stepped up to the plate as well.
3 By the end of the year there will be approximately
4 a million dollars of auto maker investment in charging
5 infrastructure, very often used as matching funds.
6 There have also been a number of innovative
7 programs developed. For example, we are currently working
8 with some of the municipal utilities in Southern California
9 that have public benefit funds as a result of AB 1890.
10 Some of those funds will be going for, like
11 purchase of electric vehicles and installation of public
12 charging infrastructure on a matching basis.
13 For example, we recently completed installation at
14 NBC Studios and are looking forward to doing some other
15 studio installations.
16 Just to kind of give you the report card, Costco
17 leads the pack with 35 sites, and their only regret is that
18 GM is not willing to bring an EV up to Seattle, Washington
19 yet, because they would be buying them if they were.
20 Hilton Hotels has 12 sites, Ralph's Grocery Stores,
21 four sites so far. Scripps Hospital, four sites; Urban
22 Retail Properties, which is a major mall has three sites
23 installed and several others that we are estimating right
24 now; and Talbon Malls, another major property manager, has
25 three malls; and then there are hundreds of individual
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1 locations, malls, airports, entertainment venues and others.
2 The other point that I wanted to mention to support
3 the Loaner Program that was discussed in the staff report is
4 we are just starting construction on the infrastructure in
5 the State garages for the Loaner Program. So, that Program
6 is underway.
7 Those who doubt the market potential of EVs like to
8 point to the low volume of EV leases, but I think a more
9 optimistic view is warranted.
10 Any of you who have seen any of the publicity or
11 driven an EV know that they generate enormous interest from
12 the public.
13 EV drivers get high-five signs, thumbs-ups, waves
14 and smiles as they go by. In fact, if I want attention, I
15 just get into an EV and go driving down the street.
16 They are mobbed wherever they park. Whenever they
17 pull into a parking space, a crowd gathers.
18 People report EV-I sightings, as if it was a news
19 event.
20 I saw an EV-I today! I was driving behind an EV-I!
21 If you really want some entertainment, I recommend
22 that you tap into the E-mail of the EV-I club, because I have
23 never seen a more enthusiastic group of sightings.
24 Another interesting event, I just came from,
25 yesterday, we had the grand opening of the EV charging
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1 station at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco.
2 We had an excellent turn-out, and we got coverage
3 on, I think, most of the major television stations. Three of
4 the San Francisco Supervisors showed up, made a commitment to
5 build charging stations, and those kinds of events just make
6 everybody feel really good about what they are doing.
7 Like any major technological innovation, the
8 electric vehicle will take time to reach a significant
9 proportion of the population.
10 As you have already heard, there were a lot of
11 enhancements to the batteries and, you know, price reductions
12 that need to happen.
13 The significant public and private investment that
14 is happening tells me that a market is out there.
15 I think the CARB Board deserves credit for
16 initiating the bold policy that has resulted in this level of
17 technological advancement and economic investment.
18 There is a possible down-side to this, because
19 having stimulated this activity, CARB has a responsibility to
20 hold to the steady course.
21 The early adopters that have invested in EV
22 charging infrastructure would be very wary of any other new
23 technology if their faith in the future of electric vehicles
24 is repaid with stranded investments and abandoned chargers.
25 In conclusion, the ZEV Program is alive and well.
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1 We encourage the Board to be flexible in the details of how
2 ZEVs are introduced to market but unmoving in their support
3 of the ZEV Program and the LEV Program.
4 Just as a final note, I appreciated, I think it was
5 Supervisor Roberts asking the question about what ARB can do
6 to help support the success of the Program, one point that I
7 would make as somebody who has worked long and hard on making
8 incentives available both for cars and infrastructure, I
9 think what we really need is development of a plan that makes
10 sure that there is continuity in the incentives, that it's
11 not fits and starts.
12 Unfortunately, year after year we have to fight the
13 same battles, and then there is always the concern, for
14 example, San Francisco is just about running out of incentive
15 money, so what happens to the 98th driver that wants to buy
16 their EV-I and suddenly the price has gone up to $600 a
17 month?
18 So, that's an issue that I would hope you would to
19 take under consideration and use your considerable influence
20 to help.
21 Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
23 Any questions of the witness?
24 All right. Good luck to you.
25 Howard, until a minute ago you were the only person
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1 between us and adjournment, but it appears Janet Hathaway,
2 where is Janet, come on up here, Janet.
3 MR. LEVIN: I am glad the pressure is off me, but I
4 will still keep it brief. Chairman Dunlap, Board Members, I
5 appreciate the opportunity to appear before you.
6 As Cec mentioned, I am Howard Levin, and I am the
7 Environmental Safety Policy Administrator at Sempera Energy,
8 and if you give me about 30 seconds for a commercial, because
9 some of you may be wondering, what is Sempera Energy, because
10 you didn't see it on the list in the staff report.
11 We are only a month old, but our experience goes
12 back a lot further than that. Sempera Energy was created
13 last month by the merger of the parent companies of Southern
14 California Gas Company and Standard Gas and Electric.
15 Sempera Energy is a Fortune 500 Company based in
16 San Diego, and besides those two utility subsidiaries I
17 mentioned, we have six other U.S. based subsidiaries in the
18 energy marketplace, and in California we serve 21 million
19 consumers now.
20 At Sempera Energy, we applaud the significant
21 progress made towards introducing clean electric vehicles
22 into the California marketplace.
23 As other witnesses have mentioned, and in the staff
24 report, the progress really is a result of the Air Resources
25 Board leadership and partnership with many industry
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1 stakeholders that were mentioned earlier, including Sempera
2 Energy and its predecessor companies.
3 We have been supporting the efforts of the Air
4 Resources Board in a number of ways. Our shareholders
5 provided the funding toward public charging, which was
6 uncoupled with local San Diego Air Pollution Control District
7 funds and cost sharing by most customers, Enid mentioned some
8 of them, to install 49 public charging facilities in San
9 Diego County.
10 Additionally, our Standard Gas and Electric
11 subsidiary has been actively educating customers about
12 electrical safety, electric liability and energy costs
13 associated with electric vehicles.
14 Additionally, SPG&E is under contract to San Diego
15 Air Pollution Control District as the administrator of their
16 funding for electric vehicle incentives.
17 As noted in the staff's report, SPG&E electric
18 vehicle customers have the option of using several special
19 time of use rates to cut the energy cost down of using the
20 vehicle.
21 Sempera Energy and Standard Gas and Electric also
22 operate electric vehicles in their own fleets. All of these
23 activities have had the positive effect on the local economic
24 environment in San Diego, both in the air quality environment
25 and economy, both with the contractors involved in installing
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1 stations and so on.
2 One thing that wasn't mentioned, there might be an
3 indirect beneficiary also, and that would be window cleaner
4 companies, like Windex and people like that, because I know
5 that whenever I drive an EV-I or a RAV4, when you came back
6 from it being parked, there are fingerprints all over the
7 place.
8 I think what the auto makers forgot to tell people
9 about the vehicles is that its an inherent right of everybody
10 else to look in the windows of the vehicle.
11 But seriously, I really want to commend the Air
12 Resource Board for the leadership that you have provided and
13 I emphasize that you continue the leadership and support of
14 ZEVs. It's essential for the continued success of the
15 technology.
16 We have supported and we will continue to support
17 your efforts to encourage the advancement of electric vehicle
18 technology, and we stand ready to support the associated
19 energy needs of the customers that buy those vehicles.
20 The combined efforts of all the stakeholders will
21 help enable a cleaner environment and a bright economic
22 future for California.
23 Thank you for your time.
24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you.
25 Any questions of Howard?
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1 Howard, would you send us, not so much a chart, but
2 a list of some of the context in the new company?
3 I know some rules have changed, and we have had a
4 strong presence here before this Board from both of the
5 companies.
6 MR. LEVIN: I will make sure that happens.
7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Cec, so Janet horned
8 in on your group here.
9 MS. MARTIN: Oh, she is very welcome.
10 We just wanted to say thanks again for your time,
11 we know that you have had a busy day, and you saw some of our
12 members. I just want you to know that our members are a
13 wealth of information and resources, and you are really
14 welcome to call us at any time if you have any questions, we
15 can find out what is going on in your particular area or in
16 general throughout the State.
17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thanks. I wanted to also
18 recognize, we appreciate you staying in close touch with the
19 staff as they develop the LEV II proposal that comes to us,
20 as Ron mentioned, later in the year.
21 Your involvement there is important.
22 Ms. Rakow.
23 BOARD MEMBER RAKOW: I just wanted to ask whether
24 you and the staff had gotten together on some of your
25 additions and clarifications that you mentioned in your July
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1 fifteenth letter?
2 MS. MARTIN: Oh, yes. Thank you.
3 They were very receptive.
4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Janet, you are it,
5 the last one.
6 MS. HATHAWAY: The pressure is on.
7 I just wanted to thank you all. Members of the
8 Board, I am Janet Hathaway, with the Natural Resources
9 Defense Council.
10 I wanted to applaud the staff for the very good
11 review of what has been going on in the battery electric
12 vehicle development, and to also point out that this is a
13 tremendous success when you think about it as the first year
14 of a brand new technology, and there is a lot of customer
15 satisfaction out there, 700 vehicles, these are truly
16 momentous changes from our current vehicles in terms of the
17 emissions reductions.
18 One little note that I want to say both for the
19 Natural Resources Defense Council and also for the Coalition
20 for Clean Air, we think that the estimates of battery cost
21 and the possible energy density is a little bit cautious in
22 the current report, and we are concerned that in trying to
23 project into the future that there be a recognition that
24 there is fast and furious work in the various companies to
25 improve on the cost of manufacturing and that those costs are
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1 not going to be easy to predict from this date, you know,
2 when we are looking at the year 2003, it gives us a lot of
3 time for some new breakthroughs, some new cost reductions.
4 So, I hope that people don't walk away from this
5 Board meeting discouraged. I think there is tremendous
6 progress that you have already seen, but we can expect it to
7 continue given the competition that's out there.
8 So, that is our only caveat that we are a little
9 concerned that this is unduly pessimistic future of
10 opportunities for improvement, but we think the staff report
11 is very, very comprehensive about what has happened to date,
12 and we wanted to applaud you and the staff for making this
13 program really something that is a big success in its first
14 year.
15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you. We will just sit here
16 and let those comments wash over us, just for a moment.
17 May we linger, Janet, on that?
18 All right. Thank you.
19 We appreciate that.
20 Mr. Kenny, anything else?
21 Board, any questions or comments?
22 MR. KENNY: Nothing to add.
23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good. Staff, thank you,
24 fine report.
25 Supervisor Roberts, right on the money. We need to
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1 hear about -- there is also a charging, we did some charging
2 investment, too, there is probably an update that you could
3 do on that project, Bob, to let us know what is going on.
4 MR. KENNY: We will provide you with both.
5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Very good.
6 I think there is nothing else that we need to
7 discuss, is there?
8 Then the July meeting of the California Air
9 Resources Board will now be adjourned.
10 (Thereupon the Air Resources Board meeting was
11 adjourned at 5:50 p.m.)
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1 CERTIFICATE OF SHORTHAND REPORTER
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3 I, VICKI L. MEDEIROS, a Certified Shorthand
4 Reporter of the State of California, do hereby certify:
5 That I am a disinterested person herein; that the
6 foregoing hearing was reported in shorthand by me, Vicki L.
7 Medeiros, a Certified Shorthand Reporter of the State of
8 California, and thereafter transcribed into typewriting.
9 I further certify that I am not of counsel or
10 attorney for any of the parties to said hearing nor in any
11 way interested in the outcome of said hearing.
12 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand
13 this second day of August, 1998.
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VICKI L. MEDEIROS
17 Certified Shorthand Reporter
License No. 7871
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1 CERTIFICATE OF SHORTHAND REPORTER
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3 I, JANET H. NICOL, a Certified Shorthand Reporter
4 of the State of California, do hereby certify that I am a
5 disinterested person herein; that I reported the foregoing
6 meeting in shorthand writing; that I thereafter caused my
7 shorthand writing to be transcribed into typewriting.
8 I further certify that I am not of counsel or
9 attorney for any of the parties to said meeting, or in any
10 way interested in the outcome of said meeting.
11 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand
12 this 1st day of August 1998.
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Janet H. Nicol
17 Certified Shorthand Reporter
License Number 9764
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