By Railfan & Railroad Staff
A new mandate in California that would require older locomotives to be retired from service by 2030, is being challenged in court by the railroad industry. Last week, the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association filed suit against the California Air Resources Board in U.S. District Court.
Earlier this year, California set new emissions standards for railroads that if implemented would be among the toughest in the nation. The rule would ban any locomotive more than 23 years old from running in the state and require all units to produce zero emissions. The industry has been critical of the rule, however, and said it was premature to institute such regulations because zero-emission locomotive technology is in its infancy. The new rule would be especially hard on short line operators.
If railroads do not adhere to the standards they could be charged huge fines. AAR officials said they understood the state’s desire to reduce emissions, but that the industry believed there were better ways to do it.
“While the urgency to act is real and unquestionable, CARB uses unreasonable, flawed assumptions to support a rule that will not result in emissions reductions,” said AAR President and CEO Ian Jefferies. “Railroads have urged CARB to take the proven path of collaboration and build on our shared successes, but those arguments were rejected out of hand. Railroads are working toward reliable, efficient zero-emissions technologies; however, they cannot simply be willed into immediate existence by policymakers.”
Officials with ASLRRA said the new rule could threaten the very existence of some of its members.
“While the spirit behind this regulation is consistent with railroad’s environmental commitment, the rule itself is unworkable and infeasible for short lines – its implementation would literally bankrupt some small business short lines. And the rulemaking does not acknowledge the impact of the elimination of some short line rail service to Californians. For shippers, it eliminates an efficient means to market and threatens the competitiveness of California’s products. For the public, it means the rising cost of products and a modal shift to trucks – a far less safe means of transportation resulting in more fatalities and injuries, more congestion on California’s roads, more burden on the California taxpayer to pay for road damage, and more micro plastics from shredded truck tires in the environment and water supply.”
