The State Air Resources Board is scheduled to vote next month on proposals that will require heavy duty diesel truck engines to be retrofitted and eventually replaced.  The board says those big rigs are responsible for over 30-percent of smog forming emissions—the goal is to clean them up.  

But a truckers’ group says now is not the time to put those expensive rules in place.  Betty Plowman with the California Dump Truck Owners Association says even with grant funding help offered by the Air Resources Board, times right now are just too tough. 

 “We have a member here in Sacramento who received 80-percent funding on a new vehicle and he’s returned it to the dealership, because the lack of work means he can’t even pay the insurance or registration…”

The proposed rules are expected to affect well over a million vehicles—at a cost of over five billion dollars. A spokesman for the Air Resources Board says the requirements have been spread out over years to soften the impact.