Thirteen states are ready to require that diesel trucks and buses meet tougher anti-pollution standards than are imposed by EPA.
The states are preparing to adopt clean-air rules being developed by California, which, because it has the nation''s worst air pollution, is allowed under the federal Clean Air Act to draft its own emission rules.
The states are aiming to sharply reduce the amount of sooty exhaust allowable beginning in 2004, even as makers of big diesel engines that power buses and heavy trucks petition the federal government to relax existing rules.
The State and Territorial Air Pollution Control Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials announced the state actions yesterday.
States in support of the tougher California standards are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Nevada.
EPA is in the process of writing new exhaust rules for diesels but they are unlikely to take effect before 2007.
by Virginia Sutcliffe