| Feb. 12, 2008 A federal
judge has signed an agreement ending more than seven years of litigation
that will allow the South Coast Air Quality Management District to continue
enforcing its historic clean fleet rules.
“This is a victory for clean air in Southern California,” said William A.
Burke, Ed.D., AQMD’s Governing Board Chairman. “It means that fleets of
transit buses, school buses, refuse trucks and certain other fleets will
continue to phase out their dirty diesel vehicles and replace them with
clean-fueled models.”
The agreement approved in federal court will effectively end a lawsuit
jointly filed on Aug. 31, 2000 by the Engine Manufacturers Association and
the Western States Petroleum Association claiming that the agency’s clean
fleet rules were pre-empted by the federal Clean Air Act. The agreement was
approved in the Central Division of U.S. District Court by Judge
Florence-Marie Cooper, who twice ruled in favor of AQMD in the case.
“Since the adoption of AQMD’s clean fleet rules, thousands of
clean-fueled school buses, transit buses and other vehicles have been placed
in service, reducing cancer risks for school children and Southland
residents,” said Melissa C. Lin Perrella, staff attorney for the Natural
Resources Defense Council. The organization represented all environmental
groups that intervened on behalf of AQMD, including Coalition for Clean Air,
Communities for a Better Environment, Planning and Conservation League and
Sierra Club.
California’s Attorney General also filed friend-of-the-court briefs on
behalf of AQMD throughout the litigation.
AQMD’s clean fleet rules, adopted in 2000 and 2001, apply to fleets of
transit buses, school buses, refuse trucks, street sweepers, city-owned
utility trucks, airport shuttles and taxi fleets in the agency’s four-county
region. The rules require fleet operators of 15 or more vehicles to
purchase a clean-fueled vehicle, such as one operating on natural gas, when
they replace or add a vehicle to their fleet.
The effect of the parties’ agreement is that AQMD’s clean fleet rules
will continue to apply to all publicly owned fleets, such as school buses
operated by public school districts. In addition, the fleet rules will
continue to apply to privately owned fleets under contract to a public
entity, such as private school bus companies that provide services to public
school districts.
The rules will not apply to fleets that are privately owned and not under
contract to a public entity or to fleets operated by the federal government.
AQMD adopted its fleet rules following a 1999 landmark study of toxic air
pollution. It found that most of the cancer risk from air pollution was due
to diesel exhaust.
The Engine Manufacturers Association (a trade group of diesel engine
makers) and the Western States Petroleum Association originally filed its
lawsuit challenging AQMD’s fleet rules in U.S. District Court in Los
Angeles. AQMD prevailed in both the district court in 2001 and in the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002. The plaintiffs succeeded in petitioning
the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case in 2004.
The Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision but sent the case
back to district court to determine whether the fleet rules were not
pre-empted under various legal doctrines.
In 2005 Judge Cooper again ruled in AQMD’s favor. Plaintiffs appealed
once more to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which partly affirmed and
partly vacated the lower court’s ruling. The court of appeals sent the case
back to the district court. Instead of pursuing further litigation, all
parties proposed an agreement that was approved by the district court.
AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major
portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
-#-
|
