Mr. Victoria’s organization, the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, has now begun organizing the truck count, with volunteers using clicks and clipboards to record the number of traffic runs. On February 12, on a highway near downtown Amazon, he and his colleagues counted 1,161 trucks in a single hour. The group then presented that number at a state regulatory hearing.
“You are talking about more than 21,500 trucks that travel through our communities per day,” he said. “Children often cannot play outside on certain days because the air quality is very poor.” And the pandemic has not slowed truck traffic, as more people have been shopping online.
Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Attention is now directed to the 14 states and the District of Columbia that have followed California’s lead by adhering to stricter emissions standards for passenger vehicles.
The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, which represents internal combustion engine and truck manufacturers, has continued to argue that the industry, reeling from the pandemic, is hardly ready for stricter environmental regulations. “This is not a business situation as usual, nor should it be a regulatory situation as usual,” he said in a letter to regulators in March.
The Western States Petroleum Association, an industry lobby group representing oil companies like Chevron and Marathon Petroleum that opposed the rule, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a joint letter to California regulators in December, sent along with the California Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups, the oil association said the rule “would not work in the real world.”
Still, the new rules have strong political backing. In response to industry concerns, 36 state lawmakers urged California Governor Gavin Newsom to “resist attempts by polluting industries to exploit our current crisis to loosen, reverse or delay” environmental standards. “Now more than ever, even as the federal administration works to dismantle fundamental regulations, we must maintain our commitment to safeguard the well-being of Californians,” they wrote.
