NEWS ANALYSIS : Truckers Gaining Influence Over Air Board : Environment: Critics say Wilson has drastically curbed agency’s independence. Industry contends that it just wants to avoid unreasonable rules that could paralyze state’s economy.

Few sources of air pollution are as reviled by Californians as convoys of diesel trucks that belch dense, black clouds of smoke. But no one is exerting as much influence on the Wilson Administration’s clean air policy as California’s trucking industry.

Special interests--most notably the California Trucking Assn.--have wielded increasing influence over the state Air Resources Board’s key decisions because Gov. Pete Wilson and his top environmental aide have stripped the agency of much of its independence, according to past and present officials of the agency and other air-quality observers.

Although other industries have input into the Wilson Administration’s clean-air strategies, no group has won as many recent concessions as California’s 800,000 trucking industry employees. At stake are future regulations aimed at the 200 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides emitted daily from diesel trucks, one of the largest sources of air pollution in the state.

The turning point at the board--world-renowned for its bipartisan independence and innovative automotive standards--came a year ago, when Wilson ousted longtime Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless. Her removal came amid a conflict with truckers over a mandate for low-sulfur diesel fuel that brought price increases and some engine malfunctions.

“That turned the trucking association into a 500-pound gorilla overnight,” a former top-ranking air board administrator told The Times. “They were always difficult to deal with. But they didn’t have the clout to become a problem. Now I hear . . . that every major issue goes through a political filter first.”

Truck company owners were tired of the air board ignoring their concerns and suggestions about the regulations they face, so they now directly call the governor’s office, where they say they get results, said Dave Titus of the California Trucking Assn.

“We look at it as democracy in action,” Titus said. “Maybe we’re fed up and we’re empowered, but I think it is (all regulated industries), not just us. . . . The only thing independent about ARB was their independence from economic reality.”

The undercurrent of concern over the air board’s direction is emerging at a crucial juncture for California. Facing mandates set by Congress, the state must mold a far-reaching, 20-year clean-air strategy by Nov. 15 or face sanctions and economically disruptive anti-smog rules proposed by the Clinton Administration.

The air board convenes a two-day session to consider a controversial staff-drafted plan Wednesday--the day after voters choose their governor and less than a week before the final version is due in Washington.

Last week, the agency came under fire for its choice of a consultant to gauge the plan’s economic impact. The air board hired the same San Francisco-based firm paid by the trucking and oil industries for similar work used to oppose air-quality rules. The last-minute economic study comes at the behest of the governor.

The contract “gives, at the least, the appearance that ARB’s independence has been severely eroded,” warned Jane Hall, a Cal State Fullerton economist who serves on the state’s Research Screening Committee, in a letter to air board Chairwoman Jacqueline Schafer.

Also, at the urging of the trucking industry, the air board staff plans to temporarily suspend the beginning roadside inspections to test trucks for excessive smoke until engineers can agree on a reliable measuring device. The board in December will consider a 1 1/2-year delay.

The trucking industry is proud of its role in helping draft air pollution policy, saying unreasonable rules could paralyze the entire economy by disrupting transport of three-quarters of California’s manufactured freight.

Truck company owners, who Titus says have in California more than 800,000 employees and an annual payroll of $29 billion, have overwhelmingly supported Wilson’s reelection campaign, with one Los Angeles trucking executive ranking among Wilson’s top 20 contributors by giving $106,600.

The Air Resources Board is probably the state’s most powerful and far-reaching environmental entity, capable of transforming automobiles, trucks, fuels and other sources of pollution without legislative approval. From catalytic converters to electric cars to low-emissions gasoline, the air board’s futuristic rules over the last two decades have fostered technologies and standards copied around the world.

According to air board officials, the governor’s office rarely intervened in the past, leaving Executive Officer James Boyd and his staff insulated from partisan pressures while drafting rules considered by their board.

But today’s air board is not the same agency that served under Gov. George Deukmejian, or even under Wilson two years ago.

“Not since Ronald Reagan has this agency been this demoralized and this lost in its mission,” said John White, a longtime air-quality consultant in Sacramento for the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.

Air board officials responsible for California’s stringent standards “are either gone or on the run,” White said. “The pattern of interference in very important decisions is now well-established.”

James M. Strock, Wilson’s secretary for environmental protection, said the governor only intervenes to ensure that the air board can consider all alternatives and resolve environmental problems with the most economically viable solutions.

“The governor does get directly involved in some environmental matters because he has made it a strong priority. . . . But that is in no way inconsistent with getting the best technical work done,” Strock said.

“Many industries, including the truckers, have raised issues that are appropriate to examine,” he said, adding that no industry “has received any preferential treatment whatsoever. In fact, it’s clear any ultimate state plan is going to rely a great deal on continued (emissions reductions) from various mobile sources, including trucks.”

For instance, the air board’s proposed plan would force California-based truckers to slash emissions in half by 2002. And in May, the board, with Wilson’s endorsement, reaffirmed its mandate for auto makers to mass-produce electric cars for California by 1998.

So far, truckers face fewer mandates than the auto industry, but that is largely because no efficient and practical alternative fuels are available yet for heavy-duty vehicles.

“No one can question the tremendous technical competence within the ARB,” Strock said. “And no one can question that our air policy remains the world leader.”

Some air-quality officials say the governor’s top aides directed the air board’s choice of the truckers’ consultant to analyze its clean-air measures. But Strock denied that, and Schafer said economist Hall was originally asked to help but declined because she didn’t have the time.

The air board lost some independence when Wilson, upon taking office, formed the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) headed by Strock to oversee the air board and other agencies. Strock said that some air board employees were uncomfortable with that oversight change, but that it was needed to streamline and bring consistency to environmental policies.

Environmentalists who formerly had allies among air board management worry that there has been a subtle erosion of the state’s air program since then.

“Basically they seem to be muzzled,” said Cliff Gladstein, president of the Coalition for Clean Air in Santa Monica. “I do think the ARB has become . . . less responsive because of the way it has been managed from the governor’s office.”

Local air-quality officials also say they notice upsetting changes in their state counterparts.

“The truckers certainly have the governor’s ear,” said an official from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

When truckers complained to Wilson a year ago that new low-sulfur diesel was too expensive and causing fuel system leaks, the governor lambasted the air board for inadequately researching its rule and requested an emergency hearing. The fuel mandate remained intact after a task force concluded that oil industry refiners were largely at fault. But a month later, Wilson ousted Sharpless as chairwoman.

“The biggest source of a political movement is hearing angry people picking up the phone,” said Titus of the trucking association, which represents 2,600 companies. “Our guys picked up the phone, and it became a loud chorus from very angry people.”

Joel Anderson, the trucking group’s executive vice president, said truckers are trying to clean up exhaust and have teamed up with environmental groups to find mutually agreeable options, such as tax incentives for owners who scrap their old, more heavily polluting trucks.

The fiercest battles and biggest challenges are yet to come. Even with advanced technology, diesel trucks by 2010 are projected to eclipse automobiles as California’s largest source of nitrogen oxides.

“I think diesel in retrospect will prove to be the Waterloo for ARB,” said White, the Sierra Club consultant. “Yet diesel also remains the most important task yet to be done.”