CARB Environmental Justice Blog

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) invites you to participate in a virtual public workshop to discuss the draft regulatory language and preliminary cost information for the In-Use Locomotive Regulation currently under development. The In-Use Locomotive Regulation draft regulatory language and Preliminary Cost Document are now available for review and can be found on the Reducing Rail Emissions webpage . At the workshop, staff will provide a status update, present regulatory language and preliminary cost data, and solicit stakeholder input. The public workshop will be held on the following date and time. Please use the link below to register to participate in the Zoom workshop. DATE: March 30, 2021 TIME: 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (PST) LOCATION: Zoom Register The presentation and meeting materials will be posted in advance of the workshop on Reducing Rail Emissions webpage . For questions or additional information about the worksho

  Background   In 1998 and 2005, California Air Resources Board (CARB) entered into enforceable agreements with the two major freight railroads operating in California, Union Pacific and BNSF, ensuring an improved average emission standard for fleets (Tier 2), and wide adoption of idle-limiting devices on most locomotives.  Although the agreements ensured faster adoption of cleaner technologies than otherwise would have occurred at the time, additional emissions reductions are critical to address locomotives’ continued health impacts on communities.    Figure 1: Higher Tiers emit fewer pollutants, yet railroads are increasing use of Tier 2+ locomotives and purchasing fewer, if any, Tier 4 locomotives. Though moving cargo by trains produced fewer emissions than trucks in the past, by 2023 trucks will become the lower emission technology in California unless railroads replace older locomotives with the cleanest commercially available locomotives (currently Tier 4) or better.    Californi