SACRAMENTO - The Air Resources Board today is reminding owners of heavier diesel trucks that they need to act now in order to comply with California's Truck and Bus regulation, which has its first diesel filter deadlines in January 2012.

“Fleet owners need to plan now to equip their trucks with diesel particulate matter filters in order to be ready in January,” said Assistant Chief of Mobile Sources Erik White, noting that the process of ordering and installing equipment can take a few months.

“We continue to make tools available to help truckers better understand the regulation, as well as figure out which options make the most sense for their businesses,” White added. “There are also several options available for funding.”

The regulation provides owners of heavier trucks and buses (those with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating greater than 26,000 lbs.) with two options to reduce diesel emissions. They can:

• Follow a staggered implementation schedule that requires 1996-1999 model engines be retrofit with a diesel particulate matter (PM) filter by January 1, 2012, or

• Use a flexible phase-in option that requires any 30 percent of vehicles in the fleet to have a PM filter.  (Note: this option requires fleet owners to report information about all their heavier vehicles to ARB by January 31, 2012.  Fleets that report can also take advantage of credits and special provisions.)

Owners of small fleets (defined as one to three trucks with a GVWR greater than 14,000 lbs.) can postpone the January 2012 compliance requirement for their heavier trucks until 2014, but must report their fleet information to ARB by January 31, 2012 in order to receive the extension.

Lighter diesel trucks with a GVWR of 14,001 to 26,000 pounds have no compliance requirements until 2015.

Business owners may find funding opportunities to upgrade their fleets through either the Carl Moyer Program, which offers incentive grants for buying cleaner-than-required engines yielding early or extra emission reductions, or by using Proposition 1B funds, which are available under the Goods Movement Emissions Reduction Program. 

Truck owners seeking more information on compliance assistance and funding opportunities can visit ARB’s Truck Stop, call the Diesel Hotline at 866 6 DIESEL (866- 634-3735), or review the Truck and Bus Regulation Fact Sheet. 

Approved in 2008 and later amended in 2010 to provide more flexibility for businesses, the Truck and Bus Regulation will significantly reduce emissions from the nearly one million heavy duty diesel trucks that operate in California. The regulation is one of several emission control measures that aggressively target diesel pollution, which is associated with a host of health ailments including cancer. Diesel particulate filters remove 85 percent of the fine particle pollution found in diesel exhaust.