           EPA Hearing on Heavy Duty Truck Fuel Efficiency Standards
                          Thursday, August 6, 9 a.m.
                         The Palmer House Hilton Hotel
                             17 East Monroe Street
                              Chicago, IL. 60603
                                 Jim Arneberg
      
      Anyone stuck in traffic has driven behind one of those rolling smudge pots we call diesel trucks. Everyone has seen the black, carcinogenic bile that these vehicles belch into our air. Each of us has smelled the noisome stench. A ride through any hazy urban core is testimony to how diesel fuel particulate matter pervades our atmosphere. Yet, because of oil company and engine manufacturing lobbyists, this sickening expulsion of malignant and killing toxins is lightly regulated.
      According to the North Texas Council of Governments' 2008 report, Health Concerns Associated with Excessive Idling, diesel exhaust accounts for one quarter of the pollution in the air. Kimberly K. Smith of the Alternative Energy Institute in her book, Powering Our Future: An Energy Sourcebook for Sustainable Living, states that studies from air quality monitors indicate that each year 125,000 cases of cancer and 50,000 premature deaths occur in the United States as a result of exposure to diesel exhaust. That's 50,000 deaths a year, a number that can be corroborated by a number of studies by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Cancer Society, and Harvard University. Fifty thousand are more deaths per year than the traffic fatalities in the United States. Fifty thousand are more deaths than battlefield mortalities during the 10-year Vietnam War. Fifty thousand annual deaths rivals the carnage of World War II. Why aren't we regulating diesel fuel exhaust fumes?
      And cancer is not the lone worry. It's no secret that benzene in diesel exhaust causes blood disorders. Lead, cadmium, and mercury cause birth defects and mental deficiency. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones, and also cause cancer.
      Other people here today will argue that allowing diesel exhaust to spew unabated will protect jobs, but who protects the lives of those 50,000 dead each year? Who protects those 125,000 cases of cancer from the horrors of chemotherapy? The savings of deregulating diesel fuel aren't passed on to the consumer or to the truck drivers and mechanics who breathe these deadly fumes. The savings of deregulation goes into the pockets of oil company board members. In 2014, Exon-Mobile distributed $23.6 billion to shareholders. How much of that $23.6 billion did the truck drivers and mechanics see?
      Please regulate diesel oil rigidly so that Americans can breath more easily.
