Comment Log Display

Dear CARB Members:

My public comments regard the efforts by CARB to control emissions
from diesel engines in California.  I want to state that I
recommend that serious consideration be given to the June 17, 2008
petition challenging the August 27, 1998 CARB declaration regarding
diesel particulate matter.  This petition was submitted to Senator
Don Perata by California professors James E. Enstrom, Matthew A.
Malkan, Henry I. Miller, and Robert F. Phalen in accord with the
provisions of Section 39662 (e) of the California Health and
Safety Code.
 
I was a member of the CARB Scientific Review Panel (SRP) on Toxic
Air Contaminants (TAC) when it declared diesel exhaust to be a TAC
on April 22, 1998.  At that time, I expressed my concerns to an
official of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard
Assessment that the SRP was designating a substance as a TAC based
upon imprecise and unreliable epidemiological studies.  This
official assured me that it was unlikely that CARB would use this
declaration to impose an onerous set of regulations. By my lights,
this is just what is happening now. Based on the reservations that
I expressed in 1998, along with the epidemiologic and toxicologic
evidence that has been published since 1998, I believe that the
classification of diesel particulate matter as a TAC needs to be
reassessed.  This reassessment needs to be done as soon as
possible given the tremendous expense and burdens associated with
the numerous recent CARB regulations designed to reduce diesel
emissions.

Furthermore, based on my examination of the California Health and
Safety Code, I believe that appointments to the SRP may have not
been made in accordance with all relevant code sections.  Six SRP
members, including five members who were on the SRP with me in
1998, have served much longer than the three-year term specified
in Code Section 39670 (b). Based upon recent information that I
have reviewed, CARB has not regularly asked the UC President to
nominate at least three candidates for each SRP position in
accordance with the Code Section 39670 (b) (4).  Consequently,
many highly qualified California scientists have never been
considered for appointment on the SRP and have never been able to
provide their diverse expertise on TACs.  If not actual violations
of the law, these practices appear to be in violation of the spirit
of the law.