Diesel Soot Health Impacts
Email or call your U.S. Senators and Member of Congress now. Use the sample letter below for an easy guide.
If you need help finding the email, phone number or address of your U.S. Member of Congress or Senators, please visit: www.vote-smart.org.
Pollution from diesel engines contributes to health problems including asthma attacks, premature death and cancer. Diesel exhaust is also a potent contributor to global warming. Although new regulations will require tighter emissions standards for new diesel engines to be phased in beginning in 2007, existing diesel engines will continue to pollute for many years to come and therefore requirements for new diesels won't be fully effective for another generation.
To protect public health, we need to clean up existing diesel engines now. But, many cities and states do not have the resources to clean up state and municipally-owned diesel fleets such as school buses, transit buses, and garbage trucks. Please work to pass legislation that provides adequate funding for the cleanup of existing diesel vehicles so we can all breathe more easily. Thank you.
Include a personal anecdote, or explain why this issue is so important to you.
Sign the letter and include your address
Tell your city and state officials that diesel pollution is a problem in your community and solutions are available. Tell them you want them to adopt policies that will reduce diesel particulate matter by 50 percent in 2010, 75 percent in 2015 and 85 percent in 2020.
If all states adopted this goal, 100,000 lives could be saved between now and 2030. See Clean Air Task Force's Report: Diesel and Health in America.
This goal could be accomplished by a combination of:
- Adopting a package of options for reducing diesel exhaust including:
- Retrofits accomplished by replacing mufflers with an optimal mix of filters or oxidation catalysts depending on vehicle age and type;
- Requiring Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel and cleaner alternative fuels;
- Closed crankcase ventilation systems to eliminate engine exhaust from penetrating the cabins of school and transit buses;
- Engine rebuild and replacement requirements;
- Truck stop electrification programs to give long-haul truckers a way to power their rigs overnight without running their engines;
- Contract specifications requiring cleanup of trucks and construction equipment used in public works projects.
- Adopting diesel cleanup measures as federally-enforceable requirements in State Implementation Plans (SIPs) for the attainment of the fine particle and ozone air quality standards;
- Creating and funding programs to provide money for diesel equipment owners to replace or rebuild high-polluting diesel engines;
- Adopting and enforcing anti-idling ordinances and legislation.
www.catf.us
