Dan Walters: Storm blows again over diesel-soot rule

Sacramento Bee ^ | 8/17/10 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger staged a set-piece media event in a Southern California railyard Monday and, among other things, echoed the assertions of his air quality regulator, Mary Nichols, that diesel truck and locomotive soot is a major health hazard.

But is it?

There's actually an intense argument in scientific and regulatory circles about diesel "particulates" – so intense that the leading academic critic of proposed diesel soot regulations has been ousted from his professorship at UCLA for, he says, not going with the academic and political flow.

Last year, the professor, Dr. James Enstrom, blew the whistle on an Air Resources Board staffer, Hien Tran, whose report on diesel emissions was the basis for tough ARB regulations, telling board officials that Tran had falsified his academic credentials.

ARB chair Nichols and other officials kept the revelation a secret, even from other board members, until one member, John Telles of Fresno, did his own investigation and complained about the cover-up.

Nichols disowned Tran but left his research, concluding that diesel soot was a major cause of premature deaths, intact and began writing regulations. A few weeks later, UCLA's department of environmental health sciences began termination proceedings against Enstrom, despite his three-decade-long career at the university.

Enstrom says he's being canned for refusing to go along with the prevailing departmental view that diesel soot is a killer. "My research didn't show any relationship between premature deaths and the level of fine particulate air pollution in California," he said Monday. "These people (in the department hierarchy) have just decided to … hold a secret vote and voted me out."

[mountainlion]

Gasoline engines are forbidden underground because of the carbon monoxide hazard. Diesel is OK, it just makes your eyes water but no CO.

[Red Badger]

Okay, California. Ban all Diesel trucks and other diesel engines, like CONTAINER SHIPS..............Let’s see how long your state lasts before the barbarian hordes swamp your gates.............

[Milhous]

According to Guinness, the world's most heavily traveled rail tracks carry coal out of the eastern border of my state of Wyoming.

The boss of a client of mine operates out of Alliance Nebraska, which sits across the border and alongside those very tracks. My client insists that his boss is crazier than a bedbug and attributes said malady to the heavy diesel fumes that hang over Alliance like a pall.

[Carry_Okie]

Mary Nichols was a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a front organization for energy company racketeering through environmental regulations.

[SZonian]

This is about all you need to know about the depths to which these criminals will go to advance their agenda...

"Last year, the professor, Dr. James Enstrom, blew the whistle on an Air Resources Board staffer, Hien Tran, whose report on diesel emissions was the basis for tough ARB regulations, telling board officials that Tran had falsified his academic credentials.

ARB chair Nichols and other officials kept the revelation a secret, even from other board members, until one member, John Telles of Fresno, did his own investigation and complained about the cover-up.

Nichols disowned Tran but left his research, concluding that diesel soot was a major cause of premature deaths, intact and began writing regulations. A few weeks later, UCLA's department of environmental health sciences began termination proceedings against Enstrom, despite his three-decade-long career at the university."

What they aren't telling you is that Tran also FALSIFIED his data used to justify the new laws. Nor have they been able to provide even ONE documented death resulting from diesel particulates.

Scum, all of them, except Enstrom who fell on his sword.

[NormsRevenge]

black smoke used to come out of trains and fires, now it belches out of both ends of environuts.. obscuring the scenery..