California has long had the reputation as a renegade on environmental matters. For years, this generally wasn’t an enormous problem for trucking.

Several years ago, fleet owners got a taste of what was to come when the state imposed a five-minute idling ban, followed last year by an end of the exemption on overnight idling and the regulation of diesel-fueled auxiliary power units on new trucks.

Those are minor intrusions into your fleet management, however, compared to what lies ahead: Rules dictating key specs for your tractor’s styling, engine emissions, particulate filters, reefer units, aerodynamic devices and even the tires you run. Several regulations require detailed recordkeeping and reporting and offer multiple compliance options. And they all apply to trucks operating in California regardless of where they are based.

Of course, you always have the option of avoiding California – the nation’s most populous state and home to some of the nation’s busiest ports. But even if you don’t run in California now, the state’s demands regarding spec’ing can affect the residual value of equipment operated elsewhere.

And what happens in California, doesn’t necessarily stay in California.
“California is a trendsetter,” notes Glen Kedzie, vice president and environmental counsel for the American Trucking Associations. “It moves faster than the Environmental Protection Agency. It moves faster than Congress. Everyone is playing catch-up.” Indeed, it’s not unusual to see states and federal agencies seek to conform their own regulations to CARB because that’s the easiest way to go, Kedzie says.

Clearing the air
Most CARB regulations affecting heavy-duty trucks are aimed at reducing pollutants, such as nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM), in the nation’s largest “nonattainment area” – regions where the air quality doesn’t meet national standards.

The most comprehensive of the air quality rules is the truck and bus rule, which will require, with limited exceptions, that trucks with 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight ratings (GVWRs) have PM filters by 2014 and meet model year 2010 engines by 2023. Under this rule, which was adopted last year but has yet to be published formally, any truck engine less than seven years old is always in compliance. CARB, therefore, assumes that the rule will affect mostly in-state fleets since longer-haul operations would be operating newer equipment. That might be true in the aggregate, but many individual truck operators could be in for a surprise.