Philadelphia Diesel Difference Working Group Minutes

October 18, 2004

The Philadelphia Diesel Difference - Working Group Meeting
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC)
Pennsylvania New Jersey Room
The Bourse Building
111 S. Independence Mall East, 8th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106

IN ATTENDANCE:

Barbara Wilson, Krapf Bus Co.
Jack LeBeau, Rentar Environmental Solutions
Bill Ross, Sprague Energy
Hallie Comer, Philadelphia AMS
Burt Blackburn, Radnor Township School District
Urszula Miezio, Johnson Matthey
John Hadalski, Philadelphia MDO
Chris Thomas, Philadelphia MDO
Jienki Synn, DVRPC
Ray Chalmers, US EPA - Region 3
Darlene Heep, Philadelphia Solicitor's Office
Arleen Shulman, PA DEP
Eric Cheung, Clean Air Council/PDD
Robert Neff, PA Turnpike Commission
Nathalie Shapiro, GPCCP/ECAP
Emily Bockian Landsburg, ECAP
Lisa Leighton, PennFuture
Rosemary Frain, Clean Air Council

MINUTES TAKEN BY:

Eric Cheung

INTRODUCTIONS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Due to personal circumstances PDD Chair Morris Fine could not attend the meeting and Executive Committee Member John Hadalski from the Managing Department for the City of Philadelphia agreed to fill in as Chair.

MEMBERSHIP DUES PLAN:

Eric noted that everyone has had an opportunity to comment on the proposed PDD membership contribution solicitation letters and that they were ready to be sent out. He raised a couple of outstanding concerns that members had emailed him. The first was whether the letter was worded correctly to properly allow for membership contributions to be tax deductible. Darlene Heep said she would have the Philadelphia law department go over the language and make suggestions. Also, John Hadalski recommended that language indicating membership money would not be going to anything other than administrative support be restated in a more positive fashion. He suggested some new language and Eric said he would run it by Morris before including it in the final version of the solicitation letter. Various members said they wanted everyone to have one last chance to review the letters before sending them out. Eric agreed to send out the latest draft of the letter for group review and would give people through the first week in November to respond. After that, Eric said he would send out the solicitation letters after incorporating the final changes that members proposed.

A minor issue came up about whether certain government agencies were okay with being invoiced for the membership dues. While Philadelphia, private companies and DVRPC were okay with being sent an invoice, U.S. EPA and DEP might require a different tactic. Eric agreed to work with those two agencies to come up with a different approach for trying to obtain membership contributions. John Hadalski wanted to clarify that once the solicitations went out, there was no specific time frame when they had to be replied to and that no one would be judged negatively for taking longer than others to pay the membership contribution. Eric confirmed that this would be the case, especially since no members are under any requirement to pay a contribution. Eric also noted that this membership drive is technically for the year 2005, which gives entities plenty of time to participate.

PHILADELPHIA DIESEL DIFFERENCE ACTIVITIES UPDATE:

Eric went over the three diesel retrofit projects currently going on in the Philadelphia region. The first is a retrofit of the Philadelphia Asthma Bus. Eric will get in touch with a representative of the Asthma Bus to find out the status of that project. Second, Eric noted that the $30,000 in funding paid for by the EPA Region 3 Air Toxics program to cover six school bus retrofits in the West Chester School District fleet has hit an administrative snag. Because the vendor that will be retrofitting the fleet, Johnson Matthey, was not selected competitively, EPA protocol prohibits West Chester School District from receiving more than $10,000. Johnson Matthey, however, was selected through a competitive process when the School District received $60,000 from the EPA (through the National School Transportation Association) last year to do an initial 10 retrofits. EPA staff is working out an arrangement by which this $30,000 is considered an extension of that first $60,000 in EPA funding. Finally, Amtrak has also run into some technical difficulties that have delayed start of its retrofit project in collaboration with Lubrizol.

In other news, Eric relayed a phone call he received from State Representative Mark Cohen about wanting to become more involved in any effort that improves the air quality for the Philadelphia area. Eric felt that PDD may be able to partner with Representative Cohen. Arleen Shulman announced that US EPA awarded PA DEP funding for a truck stop electrification demonstration in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, IdleAire has presently decided not to work with the Walt Whitman Truck Stop because it is too small. Instead, PA DEP will use its grant money for an electrified Truck Stop in Carlisle. The Walt Whitman Truck Stop has 70 truck spaces compared to Carlisle's 300. Still, Arleen was adamant about wanting to get a project going at Walt Whitman and will work on other possible initiatives. One alternative would be to go with Shure Power, which also offers electrification of truck stops but requires that trucks be outfitted with relatively expensive equipment to be able to access the electricity. The IdleAire system, by comparison, is only nominally expensive for trucks to use. Because of the burden on trucks that Shure Power electrification entails, in order to use its technology at the Walt Whitman Truck Stop, there would need to be regional coordination to ensure that enough area fleets have been outfitted with the necessary devices that enable Shure Power access. Arleen suggested that PA AFIG money may be able to pay for the Shure Power system along with vehicle retrofits for some of truck fleets to be able to use the system. Arleen added that the Energy Cooperative Association of PA and Greater Philadelphia Clean Cities may be able to work with the Walt Whitman Truck Stop operator David Silverman to install a biodiesel fueling pump, as he is enthusiastic about wanting to do something of an environmental nature.

SOUTHEASTERN PA CLEAN SCHOOL BUS COALITION:

Nathalie Shapiro provided more information about this newly formed coalition, founded by PDD, Greater Philadelphia Clean Cities and PennFuture. The driving force behind the coalition's formation is to pool together the resources of both PDD and Clean Cities to get school bus fleets to clean up their emissions. Also, working together ensures that there is a consistent message being delivered to school districts. Nathalie envisions the coalition becoming the regional clearinghouse for clean school bus information. The coalition will have ties to organizations leading similar efforts on a national level. Nathalie added that her organizations have a particular interest in promoting a B20/ULSD blend to fleets as perhaps the best possible alternative for school buses. PDD and Clean Cities are the only organizations with specific funding to pay for outreach to school districts. PennFuture has agreed to use its expertise to help with the clean school bus effort from the standpoint of legislative advocacy. The first meeting of the Coalition will be Tuesday, Oct. 19 at U.S. DOE's Mid-Atlantic Regional Office. The purpose of this initial meeting will be to develop the identity, goals and structure for the coalition and to determine how administrative aspects of the coalition will be handled.

MONTHLY PRESENTATION:

Because Eric was unable to have a representative of ICF Incorporated, which is administering the Toyota Settlement grant opportunity, explain the Clean School Buses for Kids grant program, He agreed to review the process. He received a "talking points" memo from ICF that highlights the most important aspects of the application process and spent time going over the document with Working Group members. One of the most controversial aspects of the grant proposal is that it disqualifies school bus fleets operated by private contractors from applying. Many PDD members took exception to this, because a large number of school districts in PA contract their bus services out. Arleen Shulman and Krapf Bus Company's Barbara Wilson requested that PDD send a letter to U.S. EPA expressing concern about permitting Toyota to set up a grant program that freezes out so many school districts. Ray Chalmers explained that the reason for the restriction was because settlement enforcement money cannot go to private fleets. Regardless of the reasons for the restrictions in the Toyota settlement grant, the goal of communicating with U.S. EPA is to make sure that the problems are not repeated in any future diesel retrofit funding opportunities. Both Arleen Shulman and Barbara Wilson offered to work on coming up with a letter for PDD to send to U.S. EPA.

Returning to the overview of the Clean School Buses for Kids funding, Eric explained that $350 was available to pay for the incremental cost of ULSD used in a single bus each year and that $7,500 was available to install DPFs on each bus. Arleen warned that those districts who take part in this grant ought to understand that they are essentially committing themselves to using ULSD in their entire fleet if they apply for this money, even if they only end up retrofitting a smaller portion of them, unless they have the capability of storing both regular diesel and ULSD. Eric mentioned the goal of the Southeastern PA Clean School Bus Coalition with regards to this proposal would be to get every eligible fleet to submit an "Expression of Interest" form by the November 12, 2004 due date, since the process was simple. Arleen cautioned that school districts should still know what they are getting themselves into; regardless of how simple the process is from the outset, because the actual work of managing the retrofits and dealing with fueling issues could end up souring the experiences of these school districts. Eric concluded his discussion by saying he would report at the next Working Group meeting which school districts applied.

NEXT MEETING AND LOCATION:

At the close of the meeting, Eric offered some final items for the group. First, he noted that monthly presentations are now available on the website for downloading. Specifically, he pointed to last month's presentation by Alvaro Alvarado of U.S. EPA, which summarized health impact data in Philadelphia from diesel emissions. Eric floated the idea of perhaps holding a press conference once U.S. EPA is prepared to issue a final report on its findings. This provoked reaction from PDD members that the quality of the report be assured before such an event were to take place. Chris Thomas advised that the report needs to be peer reviewed before being offered to the public. Similarly, another PDD member said that surrounding county and Philadelphia officials should be given a presentation on the report's findings before it is promoted to the public. Eric explained that PDD will not act in any way on this report without the group as a whole knowing ahead of time.

The next Diesel Difference Workgroup Meeting will be held from 10 AM until 12 PM November 22, 2004 at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission's Pennsylvania/ New Jersey Room, The Bourse Building, 111 S. Independence Mall East, 8th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106. The group also agreed that for the sake of administrative convenience, beginning in 2005, the meeting should be scheduled for the third Monday of every month.