Government Exempt From Air Resources Board Rules

It’s nice to have friends in high places.

As a slew of new California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations roll out this year and in the coming year or two, one sector will not have to worry that much about compliance:  the government.

CARB imposed the Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) regulations and also what are called the Advanced Clean Fleet regulations. In a nutshell, ACT rules govern individual vehicles while ACF governs fleets of vehicles.

While the ACF is currently being challenged in court, the regulations have a very specific exemption for government agency fleets, with far more time to convert to a “zero emission vehicle” (ZEV) fleet than the private sector.

State and local government agencies will also be able to count “near-zero emission vehicles” (NZEV) towards their compliance with the new rules, something private fleet owners will not be able to do.

Some of the exemptions are perfectly logical: buses, firetrucks, ambulances, other emergency vehicles, snowplows, etc.  All of these have to be very reliable and have very powerful engines, although their exemption is a tacit admission by CARB that electric technology lags far behind in general.

In other words, if an electric firetruck worked as it needed to work, then why would it need to be exempt?

Another set of even broader exemptions apply to designated “low population counties.”  Again, this makes sense when talking about the large sparsely-populated counties in the northern and more eastern parts of the state.  But, again, if electric vehicles could do the job, why exempt government agencies at all?

The exemptions go beyond emergency vehicles and allows government agencies to keep older dirtier vehicles for a much long time before they have to be replaced.

So why is this, beyond of course the habit of government agencies – like the state legislature and Congress – tending to always exempt themselves from some new onerous rule they create?

A CARB spokesperson put the reason thusly:

“In general, due to different limitations in budgeting, the way the fleets operate, how long government vehicles are typically kept, and which fleets are affected all factored into the decision. Additional flexibility was warranted for State and local government fleets, which the Board ultimately agreed with when they adopted the regulation.”

In other words, they were exempted because they could be and they may even have asked.

But the rationale for exempting government agencies would apply – exactly – to private companies are having so much trouble meeting the new CARB standards. They have “limitations in budgeting,” and try to keep their vehicles as long as they can, just like the government, don’t they?

Apparently not, according to CARB (from – seriously – Appendix H-1 Purpose and Rationale for State and Local Government Fleet Requirements Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation, page 26):  

State and local government fleets typically have extensive budgeting, approval, and public bid processes to follow when purchasing vehicles. They do not have the same flexibility in procurement decisions that private industry does.

Having been in local government myself, CARB is wildly overstating the potential problem.  You need a truck, you go to a couple local dealers to check on prices (pre-approved, pre-vetted vendors) and/or maybe put a quick ad in the newspaper (not sure about that anymore) announcing the taking of bids, you put it on the next council agenda, and you’re done.

It is not brain surgery – in fact, the only delay I ever personally saw was a surprisingly heated 20 minute version of the age-old “Ford or Chevy?” fight.

In the end, government agencies will have more time to meet lower CARB standards than private industry.  

That doesn’t seem fair, does it?