Once again, businesses are complaining that the cost of cleaning up L.A.’s rotten air will take too big a bite out of their bottom line.
This time it’s school bus contractors who, along with school districts, are the latest targets of the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s campaign to rid the region of dirty diesel emissions.
Under a regulation that the air district is set to consider April 20, school districts that operate their own buses and private bus contractors would be forced to buy natural gas-powered buses in the future, rather than diesel.
With the notable exception of the massive Los Angeles Unified School District, neither private contractors nor districts like the rule, calling it an ill-conceived and costly regulation that would take money out of classrooms.
In addition, the contractors are also complaining that exemptions in the proposed rule intended to assist cash-strapped public school districts would put their businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
With natural gas-powered buses carrying a $35,000 premium over traditional diesel buses (which cost about $100,000), the air district is proposing to exempt both school districts and private contractors from having to buy them if sufficient government subsidies cannot be found to make up the cost difference. However, the exemption would end in 2004 for private bus contractors while continuing indefinitely for public school districts.
Retrofits required
Moreover, in order to qualify for the exemption, the businesses would have to retrofit 15 percent of their existing bus fleets annually with traps that catch the soot emitted by diesel engines. The contractors would be allowed to seek government subsidies, but they would be required to retrofit whether they got those subsidies or not.
“The expectation is that the industry would pick up any additions with no cost to the end user, but that is not how it works,” said Roy Weber, president of Cardinal Transportation Inc., a Compton-based company that services L.A. Unified with some 200 buses. “We are worried that we are going to be placed at a significant disadvantage to the public sector.”
According to an air district survey, there are more than 9,000 school buses currently operating in its jurisdiction, which includes all of Orange County and the non-desert portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Of those buses, roughly 5,000 are operated by a dozen or so private bus contractors, with industry giant Laidlaw Education Services operating nearly 3,000. Durham Transportation is also a big player, operates about 1,000 buses.
The industry fear is that school districts may find it cheaper to expand their own bus operations rather than continuing to contract out those services.
Officials with the air district say they are still tinkering with the regulations in an attempt to reach a compromise with the businesses, but they admit that the underlying philosophy is that the school districts are in greater need of assistance in converting to natural-gas-powered vehicles.
“In general, there is a recognition that the private bus fleet operators, while they have to attend to their bottom line, do have some resources that the public schools don’t,” said Sam Atwood, an air district spokesman. “They are able to make a profit through their operations, while the schools are not.”
Still, the air district acknowledges that private operators face a challenge, because the largest source of government subsidies for purchasing natural-gas-powered buses a $50 million state program is not open to them.
In an effort to soften the proposed rule, several contractors and school districts have joined a coalition to try to influence the air district. The coalition was formed last year after the air district announced it was preparing to target diesel-powered vehicles, which account for nearly three-quarters of the cancer risk posed by air pollution, a district study concluded.
The coalition is seeking to change the proposal to allow districts and contractors to buy cheaper “clean diesel” buses that emit far fewer pollutants by relying on more sophisticated engines, lower-sulfur fuel and soot traps.
So far, the coalition has been largely unsuccessful, as the air quality district has adopted one rule after another, requiring public transit fleets, trash-hauling companies and other kinds of fleet operators to buy natural-gas-powered or other clean-fuel vehicles. The air district contends that clean diesel is simply not clean enough.
The coalition took a sharp blow last month when the Los Angeles Unified School District which has the largest school bus fleet in the region (2,600 buses, split between the district and its contractors) voted to support the air district’s regulations.
Ed Pardo, an LAUSD spokesman, said that the school district maintains that by and large the exemptions are fair for all parties. The school district supports the goal of replacing diesel-powered buses with natural-gas-powered ones, he said.
But an official with Laidlaw said that, while private contractors may suffer, it is school districts across the region that will be hurt in the end.
“I think the reality of the matter is that contractors will be required to foot the bill and that cost will be pushed back to our customers (the school districts),” said Tom Soldania, the company’s regional administrator of fleets and facilities.
