If you've never watched a legislative "debate" – and even calling it a debate is pretty generous – it's one of the most inefficient methods of discussion I think I've ever seen.
Each party is granted a pre-determined amount of time, 30 minutes in the case of the May 23 debate to repeal EPA's Heavy Trucks Rule, and each side attempts to precisely divide that time among as many participants that are willing to get up and speak, generally in increments of 1 or 2 minutes. Each say the same thing, mostly in the same way. There may be some variance in words they choose to emphasize, but the message is the same: Emissions are bad. Emissions are bad. Emissions are bad.
A few lawmakers did stand up to acknowledge the considerable work trucking has done in cleaning up its emissions over the last 30-some-odd years, generally conceding that 60 trucks today emit pollutant levels comparable to just one truck in the 1990s.
California Democrat Tony Cárdenas, who said three of California's largest trucking routes cut through his district (the San Fernando Valley), said he grew up in Los Angeles "where we had first-stage smog alerts. Today, my children don't know what they are."
In its latest annual State of the Air report, the American Lung Association ranked Los Angeles the smoggiest metropolitan area in the country – a distinction it's had for 23 of the last 24 years, or every year that the association has compiled the report except one.
According to the internet, Rep. Cárdenas is 60 years old. Depending on how you define "growing up," we're talking about the early-1960s to early-80s. The Clean Air Act, the first federal legislation regarding air pollution control, passed the year Rep. Cárdenas was born.
Rep. Cárdenas' children would be roughly my age, so they came up during a time of increased environmental emphasis, and that includes cleaner diesels.
