A group representing California truckers, farmers and business owners is claiming the state attorney general’s office is ignoring a rash of recent truck fires it claims were sparked by faulty diesel particulate filters.
The Alliance for California Business, a Chico-based nonprofit with more than 400 members, is blasting both the attorney general and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for “refusing to investigate” the truck fires — and attempting “to block others from doing so.”
“These diesel particulate filters [DPFs] are the most dangerous pieces of equipment ever put on a truck,” said Alliance President Bud Caldwell, 65, a former “kingpin” for the California Truckers Association and owner of Northgate Petroleum in Chico.
In the trucking business for nearly 50 years, Caldwell said he formed the Alliance in 2013 “to lead the charge” against mandatory DPF laws in California, the only state in the country that currently requires them. “I’m getting calls on a daily basis from truckers having trouble with these things,” he said. “I don’t have the staff to handle it.”
Perhaps most worrisome of all, Caldwell added, is that the filters are also standard equipment on all diesel-powered buses in the state, including school buses.
Earlier this year, a judge in Northern California denied the Alliance’s request for a preliminary injunction related to use of the filters, which, when a truck engine is running, can reach temperatures exceeding 600 degrees Celsius. The Alliance will soon seek a permanent injunction, Caldwell said. When Glenn County Superior Court Judge Peter Twede declined to issue an injunction against CARB, he said the Alliance failed to show “a significant showing of irreparable injury” caused by DPFs. “However,” the judge added, “the possibility of these safety issues is very concerning.”
A spokesperson from the office of Attorney General Kamala Harris declined to comment on Caldwell’s allegations, directing questions to CARB.
In December 2008, CARB established the ‘California Statewide Truck and Bus Rule,’ which requires all on-road diesel heavy trucks and buses operating in California be “retrofitted, repowered or replaced to reduce particulate matter emissions by at least 85 percent.” In order to decrease sooty emissions, DPFs are standard equipment on new trucks and installed — retrofitted — onto older diesel engines. CARB mandates the use of specific filter types based on a truck engine’s age and manufacturer.