Senate Transportation Committee Passes Senator Cortese’s Bill Prohibiting the Resale of Decommissioned Diesel Trains

SACRAMENTO – The California Senate Transportation Committee today passed Senate Transportation Chair Dave Cortese’s  Senate Bill 30 which would prohibit the resale or transfer of the State’s decommissioned diesel trains. SB 30 now advances to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

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.

“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 But that’s exactly what’s happening when outdated diesel trains are shipped off to other countries for continued use,” says California State Senator Dave Cortese, Senate Transportation chair.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.

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