ARB shall prepare and approve a scoping plan for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from sources or categories of sources of greenhouse gases by 2020 (Health and Safety Code (HSC) §38561). The scoping plan, approved by the ARB Board December 12, 2008, provides the outline for actions to reduce greenhouse gases in California. [/quote]
Speak out against the science behind these air rules? If you’re a researcher, it might cost you a faculty job at UCLA.
A longtime academic researcher at UCLA may lose his job for speaking out against the California Air Resources Board and that agency’s claims about the dangers of diesel exhaust.
Dr. James Enstrom, who has worked at UCLA for 36 years – the last 34 as associate research professor – may be removed from his position after a secret vote of faculty members in his department.
Enstrom has made headlines in recent years after he questioned claims made by CARB regarding diesel particulate matter and public health.
Enstrom said he likely irked top officials at CARB between 2008 and 2009, when he questioned science used to justify the implementation of CARB’s Truck and Bus rule, also known as the Retrofit Rule. The rule requires trucking fleets to install diesel particulate matter filters and upgrade their truck engines beginning in 2012, though several amendments to the rule are scheduled to be presented this fall.
The rule is estimated to cost trucking companies between $6 and $10 billion.
In December 2009, a scandal emerged when it was revealed that CARB Chairman Mary Nichols told some but not all CARB board members that the agency had learned its top researcher for the Truck and Bus Rule, Hien Tran, had faked his resume and lied repeatedly to his superiors at the air quality agency.
