What’s clearer than the smoke still belching out of California’s vintage earthmoving machines? The state’s “in use” air-quality rule is getting retooled. The Associated General Contractors of America and the California Air Resources Board have reached an agreement to postpone the off-road diesel rule until 2014. What happens next may very well depend on the upcoming elections.
In a joint Oct. 7 announcement, Mary Nichols, CARB chairwoman, and Michael Kennedy, AGC’s general counsel, agreed to resolve technical details attached to a complex set of regulations affecting in-use or existing machines that CARB put into motion in 2007.