From John Howard, Managing Editor of Capitol Weekly:
“A classic dispute before the Air Resources Board, pitting environmentalists against builders over a multibillion-dollar plan to cut diesel pollution, has gone beyond the confines of the ARB and is spilling over into the state budget and the highest levels of the Schwarzenegger administration.
“Environmentalists have successfully pushed into the 2007-08 Senate budget version a provision that requires builders, with some exceptions, who win new infrastructure-construction contracts to use specially approved exhaust filters to block harmful diesel emissions. The language could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars–directly from the pockets of equipment owners.”
Read the full article here: http://www.capitolweekly.net/news/article.html?article_id=1529
Jona Says:
June 20th, 2007 at 8:20 am
The biggest risk I see here, aside from cost, is that it will lead to a minority of contractors obtaining the majority of work. Whoever gets the retrofits first will have an unfair competitive advantage, even if the delay in obtaining retrofits is due to supply or other uncontrollable factors. Every step in this regulatory process seems to be a step towards the consolidation of the industry and indirectly controlling growth.