By Sophie Austin | Associated Press/Report for America
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Every day, locomotives pull rail cars filled with food, lumber, oil and other products through railyards near neighborhoods in Oakland, Commerce, San Bernadino and other California cities.
They run on diesel, a more powerful fuel than gasoline, and burning all that diesel produces pollution that is harmful for people who live nearby, as well as greenhouse gases. California’s Air Resources Board is trying to change that.
The agency voted Thursday to approve a rule banning the use of locomotive engines more than 23 years old by 2030 and increasing the use of zero-emissions technology to transport freight from ports and throughout railyards. The rule would also ban locomotives in the state from idling longer than 30 minutes if they are equipped with an automatic shutoff.
California would have to get authorization from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to move forward with the rule, which would be stricter than federal standards. Other states can sign on to try to adopt the California rule if it gets the OK from the Biden administration.
The rule is the most ambitious of its kind in the country.
“It’s going to be groundbreaking, and it’s going to address the diesel crisis that’s been poisoning communities near railyards for literal decades,” Yasmine Agelidis, a lawyer with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice said before the agency vote.
Diesel exhaust is a health hazard. According to California regulators, diesel emissions are responsible for some 70% of Californians’ cancer risk from toxic air pollution. The rule would curb emissions on a class of engines that annually release more than 640 tons of tiny pollutants that can enter deep into a person’s lungs and worsen asthma, and release nearly 30,000 tons of smog-forming emissions known as nitrogen oxides. The rule would also drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions from locomotives, by an amount akin to…
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