California Senate Passes Senator Cortese’s Bill Prohibiting the Resale of Decommissioned Diesel Trains
SACRAMENTO – The California Senate today passed Senator Cortese’s bill (SB 30) prohibiting the resale or transfer of the State’s decommissioned diesel trains. SB 30 now advances to the Assembly.
Right now, California’s aging diesel trains - those once used on routes from San Francisco to San Jose that are now electrified - are being exported abroad after retirement, shifting our pollution to countries with fewer environmental safeguards. SB 30 prohibits a public entity from selling, donating, or otherwise transferring certain diesel-powered on-track railroad equipment for continued use. But pollution doesn’t respect state or country borders.
“As Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, I believe California should be leading the world in clean energy—not shipping our pollution problems elsewhere. But that’s exactly what’s happening when outdated diesel trains are shipped off to other countries for continued use,” says California State Senator Dave Cortese, Senate Transportation chair. “As a world leader in decarbonization in our transportation sector, we need to lead on this. We need to be serious about decarbonization worldwide.”
The majority of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation are carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from the combustion of petroleum-based products, like gasoline and diesel fuel, in internal combustion engines.
To make our air cleaner, California has high targets for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and is attempting to meet those targets by investing in trains that emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Generally this is through the replacement of locomotives with those which are either zero-emission, or lower-emission.
Here is Senator Cortese’s opinion editorial on SB 30: Cortese: California should not be exporting dirty pollution
Here is a recent story about diesel trains sent from California to Peru: https://youtu.be/oBUibvM7EzA