Agricultural interests are joining with major railroads to urge the Environmental Protection Agency to block California from enforcing new climate standards that would require railroads to switch to zero-emission locomotives.
The regulations, approved last year by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), ban diesel-powered locomotives more than 23 years old starting in 2030, while requiring certain new models to adopt zero-emission engines. The goal is to transition all locomotives to zero-emissions by 2047.
For the two largest railroads operating in California — Union Pacific and BNSF — new switch engines, the smaller locomotives that pull freight throughout rail yards or for short distances outside railyards, would have to be zero emission by 2030. New long-haul locomotives would have to be zero emission by 2035.
Slightly different regulations would apply to smaller railroads that have less than $250 million in revenue.
The rule would also require operators to pool money into an account funding emissions-reducing technologies based on their California emission impacts and set a 30-minute idling limit for locomotives, according to a CARB press release. CARB estimates the new equipment and labor created would cost a total of $13.8 billion but that health benefits would be $32 billion.
But to enforce the rule, EPA must grant a waiver after determining that CARB is not “arbitrary and capricious in its finding that its standards are, in the aggregate, at least as protective of public health and welfare as applicable federal standards, does not need such standards to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions, or such standards and accompanying enforcement procedures are not consistent with Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.”
Mark Lutz, Union PacificUnion Pacific and BNSF took their concerns about the rule to EPA representatives in a listening session last month. Mark Lutz, Union Pacific’s assistant vice president of fuel and environmental management, said 70% of his company’s current fleet will be 23 years old or more in 2030 and ineligible to operate in California. Replacing these locomotives, he said, would “translate to over $14 billion in rate increases passed onto consumers.”
Lutz also said the technology and infrastructure necessary for supporting zero-emission long-haul operations “does not currently exist in North America nor will it be available in time for the industry to meet California’s zero-emission deadline.”
Jon Gabriel, BNSF’s vice president of services and network strategy, said up to 8% of locomotives on BNSF trains are owned by other railroads. If EPA were to approve CARB’s waiver request, he said it could impact 65% of the U.S. Class I locomotive fleet based on estimates from the Association of American Railroads.
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Smaller rail companies would see impacts, too. Chuck Baker, president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, told Agri-Pulse in an interview that the additional investments California short lines would be required to make under the rule could bankrupt some. There were 25 short line railroads in the state in 2021, according to AAR.
“They tend to be smaller companies in small areas, really trying to be creative and flexible and nimble,” Baker said. “This rule would just be, it would be a death knell for some of them.”
According to CARB's website, 105 locomotives owned by Class II and III operators in 2022 are in "Tier 0", its highest-emission category. Forty-five are in a "Tier 4" and eight are in "Tier 5", both lower emissions tiers. None are in the zero-emission tier.
AAR and the short line group filed suit against CARB in federal court in California’s Eastern District challenging the rule for “imposing a clear and substantial burden on interstate transportation." It alleges that Congress “categorically precluded” state and local rules that “have the effect of managing or governing rail transportation.” The railroad groups also said the Clean Air Act gives exclusive authority to the federal government to set locomotive emission standards.
The judge overseeing the case dismissed some parts of the lawsuit, including the preemption arguments, after determining they are “not ripe” since the EPA has not yet authorized the rule.
Agricultural groups have also been critical. The Agricultural Transportation Work Group, a coalition of federal and state farm and biofuel organizations, said in a comment that they believed the regulations would result in transportation cost increases and the introduction of “operational inefficiencies for agricultural shippers” that would result in food price inflation.
Nine California-based commodity groups, in a comment to EPA, called the rule unworkable and argued it would hinder their ability to market their products. Approximately 64 million tons of freight is shipped from California each year — the equivalent of 3.5 million trucks, they said.
The groups also argued EPA approval of the waiver would make the regulation instantaneously national since 65% of the locomotive fleet enters and exits the state. Other states could approve their own variations, which could lead to a “patchwork” of different regulations, they wrote.
Steve Cliff, CARB executive officer, defended the rule at an EPA listening session, arguing that current locomotives in California “can be up to 50 years old and may have no emissions controls” and 99 of the state’s railyards, he said, are within a mile of disadvantaged communities.
Cliff said reductions in emission of diesel particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and other greenhouse gas emissions would translates fewer illnesses and premature deaths. "Locomotives are not entitled to a free pass particularly given their significant contribution to the state's pollution challenges and their adverse public health consequences,” Cliff said.
Groups like Earth Justice, the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association also spoke in support of EPA authorization of the waiver. “The companies have plenty to time of comply with the rules,” Yazzi Kavezade, a California field manager for the Sierra Club, said during the listening session.
The National Association of Clean Air Agencies, in a comment, said CARB’s request meets the statutory criteria for an authorization by EPA. They urged the agency to “fully approve” the rule.
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