The California Air Resources Board is considering regulations that could eventually limit idling by all diesel vehicles in the state to five minutes.

The board’s staff is drafting proposed rules that would apply to any diesel vehicle over 14,000 pounds. According to information supplied by the board, the rules would apply not just to trucks based in California, but to any diesel vehicle operating in the state, regardless of where the vehicle is registered.

Currently, the board estimates that would include more than 350,000 heavy-duty vehicles.

A workshop on the proposal is scheduled for March 2 in Sacramento, Gennet Paauwe, a spokeswoman for CARB, said. At the meeting, the proposal will be discussed, and members of the public will be able to make comments.

“Stakeholders, anybody who’s interested in this – whether it’s fleet owners, the public, environmentalists – can weigh in and sort of give their input as to when it should be enforced and how they can do that technologically,” she said.

Under the current draft of the regulations, idling would be limited to five minutes. However, there would be exceptions, according to information on the Air Resources Board’s Web site.

For example, a truck with a sleeper berth can exceed the five-minute limit if the driver is idling to operate “a heater, air conditioner, or other ancillary equipment when used solely for sleeping or resting.”

But that exception does not apply if alternatives to idling – such as shore power or an auxiliary power unit – are available.

The proposed rule would also allow truckers to idle if they are stopped at a traffic light, ordered to stop by a police officer, waiting in line in the normal course of business such as loading or unloading, forced to stop by bad weather, using a reefer or other device to control the temperature of their cargo or are repairing the truck.

The regulations are part of a plan designed to cut air pollution in California.

Although the board has not set a definite date for a final draft of the rule, Paauwe said it would likely be made public sometime later this year, probably in the fall. That depends in part on how many workshops the board decides to conduct on the issue.

However, the final rule – at which time all trucks would have to comply with the five-minute limit – will probably not be in full force until 2010, she said. “They’re still discussing that.”

Paauwe said she did not know at this point whether any incentives would be offered to help truckers pay for idle-reduction equipment. During the workshops, the topic of incentives will be “up for discussion.”

“Right now there is no funding available for financial incentives,” she said. “But we hope that as things get better with the state's economy, incentives may play a part.” 

The workshop will be conducted from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 2, in the Central Valley Auditorium on the second floor of the CARB Headquarters Building, 1001 I Street, Sacramento, CA, 95814. For more information, go on the Web to http://www.arb.ca.gov/toxics/idling/outreach/wrkshp2.pdf.

To read more about the proposed rule, go to http://www.arb.ca.gov/toxics/idling/idling.htm.

--by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor

Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.