(NOTE: This is a re-print of a 2013 article. The status remains the same.)
For over six years, Associated California Loggers has focused continually on these issues. Our Working Group includes ACL member logging companies who have met with CARB officials and taken them on woods tours in 2012 and previous years.
The Working Group seems to have obtained a “win” for 2013 and beyond. On February 9, 2013 at the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference, Tim Hartigan from the Off-Road Ag/Forestry Diesel Rule staff, announced that the proposed Rule on agriculture and forestry (logging) equipment would apply only to the San Joaquin Valley Airshed (counties of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and the Valley portion of Kern County.) He also stated that there were no anticipated performance requirements likely for the forestry equipment within the San Joaquin Airshed but there would be made available incentives to upgrade the equipment.
In seeking this refief from the proposed logging equipment regulation, ACL logging companies reached out directly to the Air Board staff in a variety of ways. 9 CARB staff members took a small van to the top of the Sierras to visit a Robinson Enterprises job and personally see logging equipment in action far away from population centers. (Past ACL President Ed Walker and Board Members Joe Griggs, Jr. and Lowell Robinson hosted this tour.) Board Member Robert D’Agostini’s J & R Logging lent it’s equipment to extensive filming for presentation to CARB so the CARB Chair and the entire staff could see what logging equipment looks like and how it works. Various other companies met personally with CARB staff to describe directly their equipment issues. Mike Anderson and Myles Anderson of Anderson Logging, ACL President Tim Renner of Diamond “R” Ranch (working through his Assemblyman, Natural Resources Committee Chair Wes Chesbro, on certain issues), Board Member Mike Albrecht of Sierra Resource Management, and member company John Wheeler Logging were among the participants in this recent effort.
The Working Group will continue to work on getting relief to our industry on diesel rules and will participate in the comment periods on the Rules that lie ahead to make sure things happen as CARB has said they would.