Talking Freight
Freight Movements and the Environment
July 21, 2004
Transcript
Jennifer Seplow:
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Jennifer Seplow and I will moderate today’s seminar. Today’s topic is Freight Movements and the Environment. Please be advised that today’s seminar is being recorded.
Today we’ll have three speakers: Paul Bubbosh of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mike Savonis of the Federal Highway Administration, and Jeff Welch of the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization.
Paul Bubbosh manages EPA’s National Idle Reduction Program encompassing emissions testing, air quality emission reduction credits, demonstration projects, grants and contracts, and overall outreach and communications. Prior to his work in the idling program, Paul worked in EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator, and he has worked in EPA’s Offices of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance and the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air. He has 10 years of experience with EPA. He received his law degree from Vermont Law School in 1991.
Mike Savonis has been with FHWA since 1992. Since 1996 he and his team have been responsible for policy development and administration of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program, air quality research, public education and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) energy and global climate change efforts. Mike helped to found the U.S. Department of Transportation Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting in 1999. Previously, Mike worked for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority in capital program development and strategic planning. He holds a Master's degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University.
Jeff Welch serves as the Director of the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization (TPO). The TPO serves five municipalities and parts of four counties with a population of 420,000 in East Tennessee. The TPO provides transportation planning activities to meet Federal and regional transportation and air quality objectives.
Before coming to Knoxville, Jeff was the Senior Transportation Planner for Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His Master of Science in Civil Engineering is from the University of Tennessee; his Master of Urban and Regional Planning is from Virginia Tech. Jeff is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
I’d like to go over a few logistical details prior to starting the seminar. Today’s seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. The Operator will give you instructions on how to ask a question over the phone during the Q&A period. However, if during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the smaller text box underneath the chat area on the lower right side of your screen. Please make sure you are typing in the thin text box and not the large white area. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will use some of the questions typed into the chat box to start off the question and answer session in the last half hour of the seminar. Those questions that are not answered will be posted to the Freight Planning LISTSERV. The LISTSERV is an email list and is a great forum for the distribution of information and a place where you can post questions to find out what other subscribers have learned in the area of Freight Planning. If you have not already joined the LISTSERV, the web address at which you can register is provided on the slide on your screen.
If at anytime you would like to zoom in on the slide that is showing on your screen, you can click on the zoom icon at the top of your screen. It looks like a magnifying glass with a plus sign in it.
Finally, I would like to remind you that this session is being recorded. A file containing the audio and the visual portion of this seminar will be posted to the Talking Freight Web site within the next week. To access the recorded seminar, please visit Talkingfreight.webex.com and click on the “recorded events” link on the left side of the page and then choose the session you’d like to view. Due to the size of the file, recorded files are available for viewing/listening purposes only and cannot be saved to your own computer. We encourage you to direct others in your office who may have not been able to attend this seminar to access the recorded seminar.
The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar will also be available within the next week. I will notify all attendees of the availability of the PowerPoints, the recording, and a transcript of this seminar.
It's now just about 1:00. So I think we'll actually get started with the seminar. Today's topic, for those of you who just joined us, is freight movements and the environment. And our first presentation of the day will be that of Paul Bubbosh of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. He will discuss the idling reduction program. Paul, if you'll give me justice a second, I'll turn over the presenter role to you and you can begin.
Okay. Thanks.
You can begin when you're ready.
Paul Bubbosh
Thanks, Jennifer. And I want to thank DOT for putting on this great seminar series. I think it's an excellent opportunity to convey information. This is the first time that I've done this. It's just fascinating to be able to do this. We're excited about being able to talk to you about this project. It's one of these unique situations where both the environmental and business case come together in a unique situation. Let me go ahead and get started. I want to give you a little background and then talk about the emissions impact associated with long duration idling, go through a quick overview of the commercially available idle reduction technologies and tell you a little about what EPA is doing in this area.
A good place to start is basically why do trucks idle. For many people out there today there are essentially two types of idling. One we consider unavoidable. That's the kind of idling that takes place when you're at a traffic light or in a long line or some kind of congestion. And there's this other area that's the avoidable idling. And that's what we're going to focusing on today. This normally takes place during a truck driver's rest period. Trucks can idle for a variety of reasons, but usually it's for cab comfort. Another reason is engine protection. Especially in cold weather, there's going to be a need to keep the engine and the fuel warm. A couple of other reasons are on-board appliances, like a television or refrigerator - they may need to keep that operating. And finally one reason we shouldn't ignore is just habit. A lot of truck drivers have been taught never to turn off their diesel engines, so they they'll just keep it running all the time. Where do trucks idle? They idle everywhere. But here are some common areas they'll idle. They'll go as close as possible to their pickup or drop-off location. Another area is a private truck stop. And this offers the conveniences of a restaurant, shower and fuel. Other areas are public rest areas. They like going to these areas because of the proximity to the interstate. But there are many other areas where they idle, like borders, ports and essentially anywhere along the side of a road. Who idles? Long-haul truck drivers, school and transit buses, agricultural and construction equipment, locomotives idle, aircraft engines idle, marine vessels idle, essentially any diesel engine out there idles.
When we talk about the impacts, we boil them down into four main areas: air pollution, fuel consumption, the engine maintenance and wear and tear on the engine, thereby shortening its life, and of course driver health and safety. Trying to extrapolate the impact's of idling. We take a step back and try to determine the extent of idling. This has always been somewhat difficult to ascertain. But we looked at previous reports and we've come up with these estimates. And I'm only going to focus on long-haul trucks. We're talking anywhere between a half million to a million trucks out there with sleeper berths that we've identified as potential idlers. And as far as how often they idle, anywhere between 1800 to 2400 hours a year. This is based on both surveys of drivers saying they idle about eight hours a day over 300 days per year, and the data taken from the engine. Every modern electronic engine has that capability of storing data on its performance. And one of those indicators would be how much time the engine is in idle mode. Fuel consumption ranges between .80 to over a gallon an hour. And we conducted a comprehensive test on a variety of engines. And put those engines in an environmental chamber and heated it and cooled it. And ran it with no accessories on. And we came up with this range. But it's probably fair to say that when they're idling, they're consuming a gallon or more an hour. When we look at typical idling, it's usually for air conditioning or heat. And that has a load on the engine. And .80 gallons an hour was more likely at curb idle, where the engine is stopped for a couple of minutes. The maintenance cost comes from the American Trucking Association's report on idling’s impact on engine maintenance and the shortened engine life. When we talk about locomotives, we're talking about freight locomotives. And when we're talking about freight, we break them down into line haul and switcher locomotives. Switchers remain in a rail yard and push and pull other engines and cars apart. Switchers, according to EPA's research, idle about 60% of the time. Now, there are 20,000 class 1 engines, but there are only about 5,000 switcher engines out there.
When we talk about air impacts, we're talking about oxides on nitrogen, which is a precursor to ozone, which contributes to ground-level smog. We're also talking about particulate matter, carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and of course, air toxics. Now, I'm going to get into a little specific about our own research and what we found to be the impact across the country. For long haul trucks, we've estimated that the idling impact is about 180,000 tons per year, 5,000 tons per year of p.m. and about a billion gallons of diesel fuel consumed. For locomotives, it's a little less than trucks. You can see the numbers there. And that's primarily because we're only talking about 5,000 engines for switchers. If we were to throw in the line hall, and the line halls idle about 39% of their engine life, the numbers would increase. But we haven't really looked at specifically what the emissions are from the line hauls and added them to this analysis. And the reason is that when EPA is going about working with states and talking about nonattainment counties, we're looking at solutions or alternatives or control measures that could be maintained within a nonattainment area. So it's somewhat of a captive type of fleet. And we look at the switchers who remain in rail yards, and for trucks we really focus in on solutions at truck stops or large company terminals or borders.
Now, just kind of taking a step back and looking at the idling problem and emissions associated with that, in April, EPA redesignated the ozone nonattainment areas. And through that, we've determined that there are 31 states in nonattainment for the eight-hour ozone standard. And that includes 474 counties and 159 million people. Now, generally speaking, the mobile contribution to all NOx emissions is about a one-third. And if we were to look at just idling, we were talking anywhere between 5 to 10% of all NOx emissions within that one third coming from the mobile sector. Cost-effectiveness. I'll get into the idle reduction technologies in a second. But I wanted to throw this slide up to give you an indication of what we're talking about for ton of NOx reduced. For trucks, we're talking $2500 per NOx reduced. And that's based on several assumptions. Here are some basic assumptions. We're assuming a 10-year life of the technology, whether it's mobile technology or a stationary type of technology on the ground. And we're averaging the use of both of these technologies in the cost and benefits. One thing we do not include in that $2500 is the fuel savings which accrue to the truck owner. Once this is factored in we are talking about a positive savings; not costing anyone anything. But we wrote this per ton of NOx reduced factor basically for states, mpos and state DOTs. We were thinking about control strategies. And for locomotives, we're talking about $1500 per ton of Nox reduced.
On board technologies, off board and behavior. For on board, we have identified five technologies. There may be more. The first one is an engine control module. It comes automatic when you buy a truck. It's the ability of the truck owner to set certain parameters on the electronic engine. And one of those parameters is a shutoff timer. Any truck owner can manipulate this and shut off an engine at, for example, five minutes. It's not an additional cost that comes with the engine. It's available at the engine manufacturer level, which is important because you don't have to take the truck offline and take it to a shop and have it installed. But a real drawback with this is it doesn't really address the cab comfort needs, the air conditioning or the heat. Another device is the automatic shutoff turnoff system. They're relatively cost effective and they are available from a manufacturer. But there's been a low driver acceptance with these devices. Think of this device as a thermostat on your truck; it's turning the truck on or off and activating the heat or air conditioning. And what we've heard is that as a driver sleeps in the back in the sleeper berth, what's happening is as the engine turns on or off, it's disrupting their sleep. Another device is a fuel heater. They're very light. You can hold them in the palm of your hand. They are available from the major engine manufacturers. But as the name implies, it only provides heat. It's a partial solution. So if you're dealing with a trucking fleet that is more regional based and it travels in cold-weather states, this might be a very adequate alternative for you. Moving to the devices that provide everything. The first one is an auxiliary power unit or generator. They range from $5,000 to $7,000 installed. They provide all the needs. Air conditioning, heat and the electrical ability to run all your appliances. The problem is they are rather expensive and are very heavy. They weigh anywhere from 300 to 500 pounds. They're somewhat noisy. And I'll have a picture of one after this slide. There's also maintenance required, oil changes, filter changes. And then, of course, it's only available as an after-market device. So you'll have to take the truck to a shop and then have it installed, and this could take 1-2 days. The last device is a battery-powered heating and air conditioning system. These are growing in popularity. They provide all the needs. They're zero air emissions. You are charging the battery as you're driving down the road. And the battery operates the electric heating and air conditioning system. The problem with these to date has been that the batteries required to actually run the electric heating and air conditioning system weigh too much, for example, up to 500 pounds. There is a company that has developed a more advanced product. And their battery weight is about 250 pounds. So that part of the marketplace is looking better.
Here's a picture of an auxiliary unit. EPA certifies the engine itself but not the APU. We certify it to meet an emission level under 40 CFR Part 89. There are about a dozen manufacturers that sell these. And at the end of the presentation, there will be a website for you to visit. And you'll be able to see all the manufacturers of all the alternatives that we're talking about here today. For electrification technologies there are two different models. The first one is essentially the RV model. They cost about $6,000 per space. The drawback to this is that the truck has to come equipped with some on-board components, primarily an electric air conditioning heating system and then an inverter charger to be able to operate. They run some wiring and they plug in. The other model, for this presentation, we'll call it an all-inclusive model. The picture probably does it more service. It's very expensive. It's $10,000-18,000 per space. But you don't need to do anything to the truck. If you look at the picture to the right, you'll see a row of trucks. What you're looking at is a truck with an air conditioning and heating systems suspended above the trucks. And you see this hose as it comes down. It transfers the heat and air conditioning right to the window near the truck. The truck driver has to buy an adaptor so the opening of the hose can fit into the window. The adaptor is a one-time $10.00 purchase. You pull this into your window and run a credit card through it. And you can get all of your heat and air conditioning, and go on to the internet. The product to the left is the RV model. You're essentially running your hardware from the truck and plugging in. Just a word about that RV model for the electrification on board needs. Here's a diagram of what you're going to need. You'll need the battery packs, the inverter charger, and the electric air conditioning system there, too. One often-overlooked alternative is just a change of behavior. And often, we look to technology fixes, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that truck owners and drivers can do things to reduce idling, too. One of the things pioneered by the largest trucking company in the United States, Schneider, is providing driver incentives and bonuses for every hour that they can reduce idling. Differs for trucking companies. But according to Schneider they have seen a lot of success in reducing idling times in the wintertime. You know, truck drivers in the winter can pack an electric blanket or comforter or some kind of portable heater. Now, another kind of -- forcing behavior, are state/local, anti-idling law. There are about 20 states that currently have anti-idling laws. And there are eight that are considering adopting them. One of them is California which will vote, I think, tomorrow, on their five-minute rule. And, you know, just anecdotally, we've heard that there is a general lack of enforcement for these laws. So, you'll have some states like Massachusetts and New York enforcing these laws and a lot of the other states are not doing so. And of course the last behavior is personal choice. We see this a lot with the owner operators. Since they know their bottom line, they'll be the ones who try to cut back on idling. Drivers -- when we talk about driver health and safety, this is something that we always hear about: they're sitting there, idling, and they're being exposed to these harmful pollutants. But no one has really done any in-depth research into the exposure levels. We can take a step back and just apply some common sense thinking and say, look, they're sleeping in this cab at a truck stop and there's idling emissions all around them. So we went ahead and awarded the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee to examine the exposure levels of pollutants getting into the truck cab. Location of that study is on the I-40 corridor in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll probably come out with a press release in a couple of weeks. It's about a six-month project. We'll hopefully see some feedback by the end of the year. If not, then by early '05.
EPA's objective derives from the presidential directive and national energy policy which came out in may of 2001. And it's essentially to help the trucking industry find ways to reduce idling. And we're going to get to work with -- I should mention that that presidential direct directive directs the Department of Transportation to do the same thing. So we're working together on this. But it's implementing alternatives to idling and then developing partnership agreements with trucking fleets, truck stops, and manufacturers. And I'm going to go into some of the specifics of how we're implementing this directive. You see a long list of things that encompasses our national idling program. And I'm going to try to touch upon these here.
Emissions testing. I did mention that we did comprehensively look at the idling emissions of trucks. This is really important with trucks because in our modeling we only looked at it coming out of a truck during the federal test procedure which only required idling for a few minutes that which takes place at a traffic light for example. The model didn't explicitly say what the emissions were from long duration idling. We took the time out and we went and several trucks to the Aberdeen Army Test Center, in Aberdeen, Maryland. We ran a series of tests. And what we found out was that the emission levels from the idling trucks were a lot higher than what or mobile model was explicitly saying was the factor. So we issued a guidance document. We'll get to that in a second. That amended the emissions factor for both NOx. And PM.
We hosted a lot of conferences and workshops. We’re working with industry and states to help us determine what we need to do on these idling issues. We'll do some more smaller workshops in the Fall by targeting more innovative funding opportunities. And there's a website there that will have a lot of the past information of the workshops and conferences that we've already held.
For states, we have a guidance document for trucks and one for locomotives. But they're essentially educating states and MPOS so they can take the emissions and quantify them and use them in SIPs and in both transportation and general conformity. Of course, locomotives aren't a part of transportation conformity. But they could be part of a federal action and that could be part of general conformity. And of course new source review offers credits of part of an offset program. You can find those guidance documents at that website right there.
As far as the future, one of the things we heard loud and clear from the national idling conference was that truck drivers have a problem with this patchwork of anti-idling laws. As I said, there are only 20 states that currently have anti-idling laws. And they're all different. Cut off time may be five minutes, 10, 15. One station may have exemptions for weather, beginning at 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Another may be at 35 degrees Fahrenheit. So what we're attempting to do is arrive at some kind of model where the states who are considering adopting these laws can look to the model and have some kind of consistency among the states. And within the states that currently have these laws, we're trying to work with those states through the National Council of State Legislators and through STAPPA/ALAPCO to see what we can do to get those states to either re-legislate or provide some kind of discretion on areas that reduce idling.
For industry, the main component of our program is the SmartWay Transport Partnership. In fact, -- the idling component is part of the SmartWay Transport Partnership. The goal is energy security and emissions reductions. We ask shippers and carriers to submit an action plan to us telling us how they can reduce their own emissions and conserve their own fuel. And we review that action plan. And we monitor it. We launched this program in January of this year. We have been able to bring in some large company partners, people like FedEx, UPS, Swift, Schneider, et cetera. In fact, today, we're -- part of our staff is visiting Wal Mart in Arkansas. And they should be signing an agreement today. And that will be a huge partner to have on board.
And hopefully we'll expand this program, which is -- it's a recognition program to include truck stops and rest areas. Because they help facilitate some of the things that these partners can do to meet the goals, primarily deploying off board idle reduction technology or idle free zones at their own locations.
Grant programs, you know, we issue grants under the authority of section 103 of the Clean Air Act. We have awarded over a million dollars in demonstration project awards for both on board and off board, and also for locomotive projects. And we just wrapped up an $800,000 grant program that will award eight states funds to deploy off-board technologies. And we will hopefully be able to announce the winners of that grant program next month.
And as I mentioned before, and I think that Mike Savonis will touch upon this, but there is going to be a movement into this area of loans as opposed to grants. And this is based primarily on the fact that there's a payback associated with products. After a certain amount of time, they'll be making money off these products. So the theory right now is let's give them loans as opposed to grants. In the area of partnership and relationship management, you know, we work very closely with all the technology manufacturers. We try hard to be as neutral as possible. And of course we work with states and we have been working very closely with our other federal partners.
That’s about it. I want to thank you again, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions at the end.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Paul. And thank you to those of who you posted questions to the chat area. We'll now move on to Mike Savonis of the Federal Highway Administration who will discuss DOT projects.
Mike Savonis:
Thanks, Jennifer. It's really a pleasure to be here. A pleasure because I think that this is a really unique opportunity for us in the transportation community to do a number of things. One, to reduce emissions. First and foremost. And that of course, is my interest in this. But every time we reduce emissions, we help with conformity. And that helps all of us fund the kind of projects that we think need to be implemented. But, third, it also enhances our role and our profile in environmental stewardship.
One of the things that gets me very excited about this is that we really have an alignment of forces that makes it in everyone's interest to reduce idling. In the business community, there's really no need, or there is no big desire, for folks to continue to idle trucks, if they can avoid it. That is, if there is some means to reducing that idling. And most importantly, we have the means to do it, as Paul just outlined. We have the dollars to do it. And we have the political will to do it, I believe. So we are pretty excited about that. Because of that, Diane Turchetta on my staff has been working very closely with Paul and the Department of Energy to implement these kinds of reductions.
Why is it in our interest? Why does DOT care? Well, we've got a number of big reasons and I just mentioned a couple of them. Certainly air quality which is my interest. Energy use is also a big concern, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions goes right along with that. Driver safety is another reason to care. And we should never forget that it is required under the National Energy Policy for both DOT and EPA to implement an idle-reduction program.
I’ve already touched on the new nonattainment areas and I'll just briefly touch on it again. Here's a map of the new eight-hour ozone areas. You can see that this is overall a big expansion in the number of areas--and in the land area--that is now designated as nonattainment. More areas that have to meet conformity but also more areas that hopefully can get the use of CMAQ funding.
Taking a closer look at the air quality issue, here is a picture of the change in NOx emissions by vehicles between 1970 and 1999. Over to the left, you can see that for the light-duty vehicles, the bar that goes negative. And we've seen a 33% reduction in NOx emissions over this time period in light duty vehicles. But going all the way over to the right-hand side, we see that heavy-duty vehicles have seen an increase of over 100%. Now, that's because they have been largely unregulated. And they will continue to be largely unregulated until about 2007.
This gives us a unique opportunity to start bringing those emissions down. If we take a look at the energy sector trends on the next graph, you can see that transportation, that's the red bar on the screen, the second one down, is rapidly approaching to become the primary caused of energy use of the four sectors. It is already the primary consumer of petroleum. And it's the fastest growing. Expected to grow by some 61% by 2020. Now, Paul mentioned that we can save a billion gallons in fuel, due to unnecessary idling, if we were to eliminate all of this. That's a big number. A billion gallons wasted is a very enticing target for the business community as well as for the rest of us.
I didn't mention safety, but there are two important impacts on safety. As Paul mentioned the first one is rest. It's important that these drivers get enough rest. This isn't our direct responsibility in the offices of Natural and Human Environment; but our friends in FMCSA are very heavily focused on making sure drivers get enough rest. Part of the industry is also focused on reducing emissions that come out of the trucks to make sure that they're as alert as can be even after the rest period.
This next slide, is probably something familiar for all of you who are frequent participators in this talking freight seminar, something you've seen many times. It highlights for me, the large increases that we anticipated in freight movements in the country over the next, 20 or 30 years or so. And that has caused us to target more research dollars on these emissions. We were surprised to find that there's been very little research that's been done on freight emissions. And we've undertaken a fairly large and somewhat ambitious study to try and categorize each freight emissions, both by the kind of emission they are, running, idling, those that are due to congestion, as well as where they are being emitted. And not surprisingly, we are finding that each the state air quality implementations plans have not focused very heavily on freight. I think we can expect to see more focus on them as time goes on.
Well, I normally ask how many in the room are familiar with the CMAQ program but given this is a video conference, I don't think I'll do that. But I am going to anticipate that many of you are generally familiar with CMAQ and we can move on to some of the more important elements of this. But just to recap, CMAQ is a funding source. We have some restrictions on it and we can talk more about those. But it is a large pot of money and it is expected to continue, that is primarily focused on air quality improvement in nonattainment and maintenance areas. And all states have at least some funding to direct towards these activities. You're probably familiar with the SAFETEA legislation. But as I mentioned, we expect CMAQ to continue. It's open as to how large the authorization will be.
This slide shows basic provisions on the CMAQ program. There's been a lot of talk about CMAQ and how it provides for new requirements ask kind of new strings on the funding. But when you really look at it, it really just comes down to a handful of principles. One, CMAQ must be used in nonattainment maintenance areas, if there are any. And if there aren't, they can be used anywhere in the state. You're got to demonstrate emissions reductions. And frankly, it's a pretty easy demonstration to make. On the one hand you have a truck running, producing emissions. Or you have a truck not running. Apparently simple and straightforward. It's also got to be a transportation project. One of the things that we've already seen are requests for power generation on TSE projects. And power generation, we ruled, is not an eligible activity. That is where you get the electricity or power for the outer reduction activities.
A new issue that we’ve just come across in the past, oh, 18 months or so is this conformity credit issue. And I'll speak more directly on that. But suffice it to say, a project under CMAQ must be creditable under the conformity process. And as always, a 20% match is required. And given that a lot of these will be public-private partnerships, a higher match is encouraged.
This is a slide that I usually include for the potential project sponsors out there. I like to be up front about how the funding process works. I think most of you are familiar with that process, so I'm not going to go through this. But it is important to know that the states and the mpos are the key players in this. If you can't convince them to fund your project, then you're really without a paddle.
Let's talk a little more about CMAQ and idle reduction in specific. We released guidance in August 2003. You can see the website that's listed there that can provide you with that guidance. Like all CMAQ funded projects, truck stop electrification, or TSE, projects must be close to the areas. It should not pose a big problem. For some of the other technologies, it can be a problem, like for truck auxiliary power units. If you have a truck with auxiliary power, you're trying to get CMAQ funding, it really depends where that truck operates. That project would not be eligible for CMAQ funding under certain elements.
There's a certain reluctance to engage in these private-public partnerships. I can talk a little more about that in some of the help that might be available there.
I mentioned the conformity credit issue. And the essence of the issue is where can you fund a freight project? Or what kind of a freight project can you fund? And what kind of a freight project can't you fund under the CMAQ program? The issue that came up is whether or not idling emissions in general are part of the on-road sector or part of the off-road sector. Now, we've worked with EPA closely. And we've found that for truck idling emissions, they are, in fact, part of the on road sector. And that's important because of the whole transportation conformity process is focused on road emission. It's part of the road inventory, it's in the on-road budget.
Right now, we have a bit of a glitch. If you want to do a locomotive idle reduction process, that's part of the off-road inventory. It’s not accounted for in the conformity process and as such, it is not eligible for -- CMAQ funding. We're working with the EPA to address this issue. We are hopeful to reach resolution. But as of right now, we do have this glitch in the process.
One other thing I wanted to mention before I get on to reauthorization is that as you engage in these public-private partnerships, it is critical that the process be open. We have seen numerous concerns about making sure that this -- that all the CMAQ funding is not provided to a single provider of these truck stop electrification processes or even APUs for that matter. It's important that everyone be apprised of this situation ask that there are no restrictions on that open process. Okay?
Reauthorization, again, you're probably all aware of the situation. We have been living on continuing resolutions and continuing authorizations since October 1st of 2003. I understand that the Senate has proposed a lower authorization number yesterday in the Washington post, they reported something like a $301 billion total program and asked the House to respond to that. To my knowledge, the house has not yet responded. We're running out of time. And it's a real question in my mind as to whether or not we will have a reauthorization package. But we will continue living hand to mouth until the legislation is reauthorized. I guess one of the important factors is that both the House and Senate proposal as well as the Administration SAFETEA proposal offer increases in funding.
Another element of reauthorization that not many people are aware of is something that has to do with section 111 of the United States code. Section 111 essentially prohibits commercial activities within the right of way of the interstates. And these idle reduction facilities would be commercial activities most likely. Unless the state were willing to subsidize and perhaps heavily subsidize these activities, we're thinking of these as commercial activities. When we learned of this, we decided to seek a very limited exemption to section 111. The senate has picked up that exemption to allow idle reduction activities to be within the right of the way of the interstate. We'll have to see how the conference comes out.
As I mentioned, there's been a reluctance to engage in public-private partnerships. And one of the unique opportunities that we have that's not limited to the CMAQ funding goes by the rather sexy name of section 129 loans. For all of you that are familiar with this, it's section 129 of title 123 of the United States Code. And this provision says that we can use federal aid funding to make loans to private entities, public and private entities. There are real advantages to this. The loans have to be repaid. They have to be repaid within a 30-year period. Some of these smaller activities, like the truck stop electrification process, that time could be much shorter than 30 years. It would depend on the agreement you strike with the provider. It extends transportation development. The state will be quickly reimbursed for any funds provided for these 129 loans and will be repaid and repaid with interest, which also funds more projects.
Similar to the 129 loans are the state infrastructure banks. These have been around for a long time, and I think you've probably heard about them. But this allows a state to set up a state infrastructure fund., commingle state and federal funds, and redirect any of the interests or earnings back into that fund to provide for direct loans to private entities. Again, the advantages here provide for expanded transportation investments, and relatively quick repayment into the state DOT coffers. It also allows us to reach the private sector agencies with, relatively-speaking, more comfort.
And then the last funding opportunity I want to talk about, is a big-scale sort of thing. By statute, loans made under TIFIA must be at least $100 million. But one of the more important purposes of TIFIA is to offer funding for new technologies that need a helping hand to enter into the marketplace. We have at least one rather large application for a TIFIA loan. It's a $300 million request. And that's still pending.
We have been working very closely with Mark Sullivan's group in the Federal Highway TIFIA office. I understand that one of the provisions under reauthorization would lower that upper limit to just a $50 million, which would make it somewhat more reachable by a lot of these smaller kinds of projects.
The next slide addresses contact informationNow, for CMAQ related questions, Diane and myself and Mike Koontz who handles this on a day-to-day basis are available for assistance. But when we start talking about loans, and I really think loan opportunities are very interesting, to help us introduce these technologies,the Federal Highway innovative finance specialists are more knowledgeable and have all agreed to have their names listed. I would really like to thank Jim Hatter, Fred Werner and Jennifer Mayer for being willing to take your calls and e-mails on this.
With that, I'll end. I do believe that this is aux unique opportunity. And I think 20 years hence we'll be being looking backwards and looking back at the perhaps barbaric practices of idling in order to keep these drivers comfortable. Currently, this is a reasonable process. But in 20 years, with the application of new technology, I don't think it will be for very much longer. Thanks.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Mike. In the interest of time, we're going to move on. But I'll put this slide back up when we get to the question and answer period so you can get down those names and e-mail addresses in case you haven't already. I'll now move to Jeff Welch of the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization. He will give the final presentation of the day for the heavy duty sector. Jeff, you can begin when you're ready.
Jeff Welch:
Thanks, Jennifer . And thanks to Mike and Paul for giving a great overview of the CMAQ program and benefits to the nonattainment areas and actually nationwide. I'm going to be more specific about a proposal here in Knoxville that we funded under our congestion management air quality program. My first few slides offer a summary of what is going on and how we proceeded through the CMAQ program. I'll move pretty quickly. So the CMAQ program is to help fund programs that reduce transport-related congestion and emissions. And you know, we have been a nonattainment area since the early '90s. And now the eight-hour area -- nonattainment areas is six counties. We're looking at a variety of programs to help us get to attainment in 2009. So we're looking at these programs and eligibility and for NOx and our criteria is, is it included in a plan, long-range plan or in particular congestion management plan. Does it address air quality improvements as well as congestion? And is the project eligible under the Federal Highway Administration guidelines? Just to sort of give you a summary or flavor of what types of projects we fund with our CMAQ program over the past several years, we have a trip reduction program. We're trying to promote biodiesel fuel for our transit system. Trying to respond to ozone alert days, monthly passes, clean fuels coalition. And items number 6 is our second round of funding of truck electrification project for $1 million. And that's primarily what I'll be speaking for the remainder of this presentation. But so there's a variety of programs out there that are funded under CMAQ and are eligible. The hardest part of this process is trying to measure the air quality of benefits so that you can provide proper documentation to your funding partners. I.e., Federal Highway transportation administration, we must prepare an annual report showing what we approved, what are the benefits and what are the documented reductions that we have been able to see from emissions. And that can be very difficult at times with some of the creative programs that people and individuals and local governments want to have funded with this CMAQ program. With our designation of eight-hour nonattainment, we're going to be having much more difficult time. Funding a lot of these projects and still trying to get the benefits. We'll be having to scrutinize our program to much higher degree over the next several years as we reach towards 2009 and for our attainment outyear. But with truck stop electrification since 2002, we have funded a -- $2 million for truck stop electricification. And approximately 100 units are installed out in the Knoxville urban area to date. And another hundred units will be installed in the next year to 18 months. But one of the major reasons why we looked at in funding a major portion of our CMAQ funds, which are urban area only receives about $1.5 million a year, is -- that's 45% of our emissions in the year 2007 is estimated to come from on-road vehicles. And 60% of that is coming from heavy-duty diesel vehicles. When we saw that number it became a no-brainer for us to try to look at ways to look at NOx emissions, reduction programs, to tackle the biggest percentage coming from heavy-duty diesel vehicles. And not to say it's all going to come from truck stop electricification because there's movements through eastern Tennessee, I-81, I-40 and I-75. Takes you to west, southeast. We need to hit at the biggest area, where we can see most of our emissions coming from and where we can get the biggest bang for our buck. So we've funded in 2002 $1 million the first days ever truck stop electricification. Ask this shows the actual units out at I-40 and Watt road in west Knox County. Again, I think with Paul's presentation, showed a closeup view of these. And I have several other slides showing the units and trucks. Some trucks using it and some trucks are not. This is a public-private partnership with a private company that works with the truck stop owners and installs the units and the truck stop owner receives a financial benefit from the program as well as the private company that is installing the units. This is a close up of their unit that hooks to the cab of the truck. When a trucker gets that, it stalls into their cab of the unit, this basic services, central heat and air conditioning, shore power, telephone line, built-in computer, with high-speed computer, limited e-mail, satellite TV. And this cost from $1.25 to $1.50 per hour. I think if your truck company in getting it down to about $1.25 a unit. It is about equal to what the cost of fuel that you'd be spending for idling. So this should be a win-win situation for the trucker to use this and the truck company to save on fuel, sharing the cost in the use of the idle technology.
Again, some of the utilization of the facilities, in Knox County, we do not have a mandatory anti-idling legislation. But at the state level, we have not been able to convince the state legislators that they have to move in that direction at this time. We hope we can get there at some point in the future. The units are installed and maintained and operated by on-site personnel 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And again, there's no requirement at this time that they have to hook up to them when they're in there. Again, this is the startup time. A lot of them not being used. But the utilization rate for the first three months of this year has been about 30 to 40% of the time. These pictures are probably taken during the middle of the day. And we expect and hope to have greater utilization with the summer months, much hotter out there, now that they're hooking up to these units.
Talk about fuels consumed and idling, as mentioned by Paul or Mike. And this was sort of what's EPA estimates on fuel consumed and potentially savings from it or if we can get more and more vehicles to hook on to the idling units, excuse me the trucks and electricification units. The cost of these units, I should mention is about $18,000 per unit at this time. And what our funding paid for was $1 million for 100 units. Ask the private sector matched that with $8,000 per unit. So equivalent about $800,000 for those units. So it was about a 50-50 match for public and private match, plus they were maintaining and operating it, their investment in that regards.
Idling emissions that occurs, again from mobile 6 modeling. The type of reductions that anticipated through -- excuse me. The idling trade season emissions noise categories. What we'd hope to see over time in reduction over these. From NOx and particulate matter and OC. It can utilize per day. Again, this is going to take a change in habits of drivers and companies in order to upgrade or excuse me to increase the utilization of these units. And so it's only been in place for about a year. 100 units, here a year in Knox County. And it will hopefully improve as partnerships grow throughout the country with fleets. Again, some of the fuel reductions, we had hoped to anticipate with the 100 units of fuel saved per year and cost of value saved per year $800,000. Cost effectiveness showing with the anti-idling; it's very effective from our analysis. We've also studied at the university of Tennessee we get the biggest bang for our buck for anti-idling legislation or truck stop electricification for reduction by, when you look at cost per ton. And then there obviously is an economic impact. Let's face it. Our -- there is a job creation through this activity. And there's employment. And there's for truck companies themselves, you can get better health care for your truck driver. T sul all is helpful for the company in retaining and keeping healthy employees on their payroll and moving the goods throughout the country. Travel centers gain new revenue source. There's about 18 employees per 100 spaces when you're having to manage those 24/7, 365 days a year. So there is an economic impact of this program, too. And as we've anticipated, the usage has been reduction for the first three months of 2004. And these calculations were from mobile 6 calculations. Reductions that we anticipated. And we would hope that would occur, and have greater reductions in 2000 -- excuse me. During the summer. This sort of gives you an aerial view of that. And this particular truck stop and where they eventually will have all the electricification of most of the units there. And they are investing -- we invested, I'd say 100 units in this site. And they have invested even more units at this site. There was discussion by Paul about the testing that is going on by the university of Tennessee in oak ridge national laboratory. And there are two sites that are being tested, monitored for emissions. And one is right in the interstate interchange area. And then secondly, there's an on-site testing going on for emissions reductions. When we prove this program from our transportation planning organization, we had serious questions about it from, how it will be utilized, what will be the actual benefit, what is our cost benefit analysis? So we have funded a study with the oak ridge national -- excuse me. With the national transportation research center and the university of Tennessee to evaluate the emissions reductions from this strategy. And they have an actual trailer, small trailer on site where they are monitoring the usage of the vehicles. And they are monitoring the emissions reductions at the truck stop itself. And this evaluation is going on. It's sort of in partnership with the one that Paul was talking about. That's their -- commencing right now as far as measuring the emissions act inside the vehicle cab of the -- within each of the trucks in that area, as well as the other emissions analysis that's going on along the -- interstate. So they are testing and evaluating these -- this facility thou. We expect the study to be completed by and report done by September, October of this year. Given this independent analysis, independent evaluation of this program obviously Federal Highway Administration, EPA will be interested in seeing the results of this study, analysis. And there's four phases of that. Research looking at the emissions rates of p.m., NOx, CO, and CO2 from the heavy duty trucks. Measuring these emissions reductions at the truck stop. And then some of the ambient combinations of formaldehyde and other fine particulates. And then with or without the idle air technology that can be used for further research. And then that's the end. That's what we've went through. Thus far, again, summer, we've spent $2 million towards installing or plan to install over 200 units of truck stop electricification here in the Knox County area. 100 of those that have been funded by us have been installed. Others have been installed by the private sector. And next hundred should be installed in the next 18 months. And I believe that is -- oh. One other point to make. So far, there's been about 400,000 hours utilization that those be -- have been used by the trucks. It's a lot of units when you look at the hours. And we hope again to get the utilization rate up at a higher level, with cooperation from fleet owners and once more and more truckers get comfortable with the usage of these facilities. And with that, I guess I'll get back to beach while you guys stay in there. So I'll be glad to answer any questions. Thank you very much, Jennifer.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Jeff. And actually, since you just finished up your presentation, we'll start with the questions for you first while fresh in everybody's minds. Let's see here. The first question is, do you know what kinds of security measures are in place of the truck stop facilities? And have you obtained any feedback from the users?
J. Welch:
There are staff there from the private company 24/7 that are utilizing the -- that are checking the units all the time and are catering to the drivers at all times. We have been out there talking to people. There have not been a security issue. And in fact, with the presence of these individuals from the private company out there, responding to glitches in the system and that, there's more -- again, I want to say more people presence. So we have not had any issues thus far.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. And I'm going to start by reading off the questions that have been typed in. And then we'll open up the phone lines for people to ask questions, taking us right up to 2:30. And then we'll stop, close up after that. Next question for you, Jeff, were trailer-mounted refrigeration units considered?
J. Welch
We looked at those units, but we, in our evaluation, and we got the biggest bang for buck in the emissions reductions from various proposals. We looked at literature review from the university of Tennessee and other universities. But here's where you can get the most emissions reductions through has types of facilities, these types of technologies. So when this program proposal came to us, we carefully considered it. And then supported it with financial approval by our board.
J. Seplow:
Okay. The next question is, what are the costs to drivers such as annual fees, costs above basic heat and AC.
J. Welch:
My understanding, and I don't work with it on a daily basis, but again, they see it as $1.25 or $1.50 an hour. What they have as an agreement with fleet owners, the cost is $1.25 per hour. And there are other things just beyond the basic services. They can get movies and wireless internet that they can sign up for and various TV options. And one thing they do offer through their program is a training module that truckers need to continue their certification. So there is a training software that they have that the drivers can start a lesson and then pick it up at other sites. So that's the only cost that I'm aware of at this time. We're not out there operating it or evaluating it -- or operating it on a daily basis.
M. Savonis:
Jennifer, thank you. I just want to add this. This is Mike Savonis. We did look at that. We got one question in for a request for CMAQ funding for refrigeration units. And we looked at it long and hard. One of the problems we had was defining this as a transportation project. We felt this was ultimately more a responsibility of the private sector. We turned that down. For the cab, we would be happy to fund the electricification process. But when it came to the refrigeration unit, we had to draw the line there.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Next question is per truck annual savings of $3200 the net savings after paying for the idle air service?
J. Welch:
I believe so. I believe that's the calculations that were provided to us. And this is -- again, this is sort of the literature that's coming from the idle air, you know, in their proposal. And again, with the research that is going in the documentation, we'll be able to provide that more specific information on actual savings. But that's the net savings estimated.
J. Seplow:
Okay. And this will be the last question for Jeff. And I'll read it off here and we'll move on. Who were some of your private partners in the Knox County TSE projects and what sort of local and environmental opposition was encountered in constructing a large truck stop, paid for with participating federal funds?
J. Welch:
Well, first the truck stop was in existence, and had been for years and years out at that location. There was no environmental opposition to installing these units that came forward through our process. Truthfully, the most of the opposition was from our elected officials who asked the questions of, again, this public-private partnership of what financial return if we're going to give this private partnership of CMAQ grant, is there a financial return that we can get back to the transportation planning process or back to the local or state government? And there is even some exploration of, you know, why can't we invest in this company to try to get a return on this? Because we were funding a private four-company project that was seeking this proposal. So there was that kind of opposition that occurred just from a political standpoint of venturing into this joint public-private partnership. And the private company worked through a county government who was -- the county sponsor for this project. And cooperated with this private company, working with county government, came to the TPO in our normal process of soliciting projects for CMAQ funding. And we evaluated them, you know, close to 30-some proposals at the same time. So we did not specifically go seek out idle air, this private company. They came to us in our selection through our selection and evaluation process. That's it.
J. Seplow:
Okay. Thank you, Jeff. We'll now move on to questions for Mike Savonis. And I'll put that slide back up with phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Mike, the first question is, are TSE activities in rural areas in states eligible for CMAQ programs?
M. Savonis:
Well, generally, you have to go back to the purpose of the CMAQ program, and that's to assist attainment of the air quality standards. If the state has nonattainment or maintenance areas, CMAQ funds must be used within those areas. I think that the only way that the situation that you described, John, could be eligible, would be if the state had no such areas, no nonattainment or maintenance areas. Then, of course, they're free to spend their CMAQ funds anywhere in the state on eligible projects.
J. Seplow:
Okay. Next question is, why loans instead of grants for idle reduction equipment? Management is much more interested in a project where there are grants available and less when there are low-interest loans.
M. Savonis:
Yeah, well, I didn't actually mean to indicate a federal preference for one or the other. From our perspective, we want to fund good, cost-effective projects that reduce emissions that help the transportation community meet their air quality goals and responsibilities and assist attainment. So from my perspective, either one is fine. But because of this reluctance that Jeff just talked about, of directing public monies to the hands of private entities and the potential for unfair practices or the appearance, even worse, of unfair practices, we thought that loans might be somewhat more of interest to our state and local partners. But either one is okay with us.
J. Seplow:
Okay. And the next question is, when you say creditable under the conformity process, are you considering off modal credits.
M. Savonis:
Off-model credits, yes, we are. According to EPA right now, if it is an off-road project, if it's a locomotive project for example, or if it's construction equipment project, emissions generated or reduced by these types of projects are not taken into account in the on-road budget or inventory. And therefore, emissions reductions are not accountable in the conformity process. Therefore, they cannot be creditedwhether through the modeling process or off-model calculations. This is a situation that we lament because of the great cost effectiveness of these projects that are two, even three, orders of magnitude more cost effective in many of the other projects that we fund under the CMAQ. We hope to be able to address these and develop a process by which we can account for these emissions in the inventory as well as the conformity process and thus take credit for it.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Mike. We'll now move on to question fist are Paul. Paul, the first question I have for you is does EPA's analysis break out emissions by urban, rural or other geographic characteristics? Such as nonattainment, attainment? Does the marginal vary by logistics?
P. Bubbosh:
Are you talking about the assessment of attainment, nonattainment for the eight-hour ozone standard?
Let's see here?
No. Just creditable emissions, US total emissions. And I was wondering if underlying that was a breakout side. Either nonconformity, conformity attainment or by urban/rural areas.
I mean, maybe Mike or someone at DOT knows. I'm not sure about that.
Why don't we move on, and we'll come back to it.
J. Seplow:
Okay. Sure. We'll move on. The next question is, are any class 1 railroads partners under the Smartway program? If so, who?
P. Bubbosh:
Actually, all of them joined en masse. We worked through the American Association of Railroads to get them all in. So it's Canadian National, CSXT, Norfolk Southern, Kansas, BNSF, UP, Canadian Pacific. And we also got Amtrak. We are still negotiating the partnership terms with them, but I would venture that their action plans will rely heavily on reducing idling as a means of meeting the program goals.
J. Seplow:
Thank you.
The next question is, is the idling hours you stated per truck or for the one-half to one million trucks that idle? If not, what is the approximate idling time per truck per year.
P. Bubbosh:
The numbers of 180,000 tons of NOx and 11 million of CO2 are extrapolated from the lower end of how many trucks we think are out there idling for long periods. So we’re using the 500,000 mark; we use the conservative end. But if you were to ask, what's the per-truck emission for NOx or the per-space it would range from .35 to .43 tons per year of NOx. Based on nationwide surveys, trucks are on the road maybe 300 days per year, but a truck parking space, theoretically, can be used every day of the year, so the emissions at a truck parking space are higher. I mention this for those interested in air quality emission reduction credits.
J. Seplow:
The next question is, what does it cost to retrofit the truck for use with a $6,000 electricified parking space?
P. Bubbosh:
There are at least 3 components of an on-board electrical product, or the “RV” model. They are: battery packs, inverter/charger, and electric HVAC system. Combined they range from 2500 to 3500 dollars. Our web site has a list of all commercially available idle reduction technologies.
J. Seplow:
Okay. Thank you. I think at this point we'll open up the phone lines and see if anybody has any questions over the phone that they'd like to ask.
Operator:
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you'd like to register a question, please press the 1, followed by the 4 on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge your request. If your question has been answered and you'd like to withdraw, please press the 1, followed by the 3. Your line will be briefly accessed by an operator to obtain information. One moment please for the first question.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to register for a question, please press the 1, followed by a 4.
J. Seplow
I'm actually getting a question from the room I'm sitting with now.
Question:
Mr. Savonis, you're sure title 23 permits giving of grants to privately-owned corporations?
M. Savonis:
Yes. For most federal aid funding, this would be prohibited, except under very unusual circumstances. However, in 1998, under TEA- 21, the CMAQ provisions were changed to explicitly allow the use of CMAQ funding for public-private partnerships and that was defined as funding for capital and equipment in private ownership.
J. Seplow:
Are we still showing no questions on the phone?
Operator:
I'm still showing no questions at this time.
J. Seplow
Well, then, at this point, I think we'll close out. And before we go, I'll just give Jeff, Paul, ask Mike, a few -- if there's anything else you'd like to add before closing, here's your opportunity.
M. Savonis:
I would like to just encourage everyone in the room and everyone on the phone to strongly consider projects of this nature. They seem to be real win-win-win situations that can improve our profile and improve emissions and improve the environment, generally speaking.
P. Bubbosh:
The only other thing, this is Paul. I think Mike is absolutely right. I think when we talk with industry, they're all in favor of this. And environmental groups and the state. But it really somehow comes down to the funding mechanism and the ability to deploy this technology and, you know, the lessons we've learned is that there is a payback involved here. So one of the questions had to do with why are we emphasizing loans. Ask that's primarily because with -- at least on behalf of EPA, we have unlimited resources. And there were lots of worthy projects, whether it's retrofits or school buses that will never have a financial payback. You'll have a pure emission reduction associated with putting on a retrofit device. But there's really no payback. But with idling there is a payback. So we want to somehow prioritize our own needs with those types of projects that are worthy. But for those type of projects that also have the ability to pay for themselves. So, you know, to the extent that we can work things like the state infrastructure bank or CMAQ of the loan under section 129. We would like to push that as much as possible. At least from EPA's perspective.
J. Welch:
This is Jeff Welch. If I could just state something. You know, the public-private partnership when we pursued this two years ago was not real easy or fun. There was political capital that had to be left on the table to accomplish it. I think there's been other end roads since that time that should maybe -- make it easier and endorsing it to a much higher degree as we witnessed today. And secondly, you know, we are evaluating the process of what the benefits are of this program going to have for us, with real-world data over a period of several months. And I think that report will be a telling story on utilization factors and the direct benefits that we'll have for, not only for the public but the parallel study that's going on for the individual truck driver. Again, this is emerging technology and emerging federal, local and private partnership that we need to embrace. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. And actually, we had a little bit of time here and we do have a few more questions that came in. So question is, and I'll give this to all presenters to answer. If a TSE project were to fail after a short period of operations, who owns the equipment? The private firm, the public cosponsor or the FHWA?
P. Bubbosh
I'll take a stab at it. Idle air leases the land from the truck owner-operator. So they own the equipment. If they were to go into bankruptcy, what they have said, is that those -- according to them, can easily be removed. I don't actually think it can be easily removed. It's bolted into the ground by these large bolts. And you know, it's going to take some cost to remove. As far as ownership, for EPA's grant, we indicated that the -- after the term is concluded, the demonstration project is concluded, the equipment is vast with either the technology owner in the case where they lease land or whoever is providing that technology and owning it and running it, if it's a truck stop owner.
M. Savonis:
I think it depends a little bit on what the source of the funding is that was used to generate the public-private partnership. If it were CMAQ funding, we are required to have an agreement between the public and private entities. If you look at the CMAQ guidance, an agreement has to be in position to cover ownership of any equipment in cases where there is a failure of the private company. If we're talking about a loan, and I'm not really the right person to answer this, but I have a feeling that the private sector company would continue to own the equipment. However, all of that would go into bankruptcy and then the federal agency or state agency in that case, we'd be in line with the other creditors against that company.
J. Seplow:
Do we have another question from back here?
I had a question. [ inaudible ]
Just to repeat the question, if there was any opportunities for a peer exchange on this type of project?
M. Savonis:
I think we have been handling peer exchange two different ways. One is more informally on a case-by-case basis where people call in and Diane, in particular, has been doing a great job in connecting them with the appropriate people. Becky Dennison in Texas was very instrumental in helping develop a public-private partnership in El Paso. We passed that around to provide a model, a template, if you will, as to how that's done. Also facilitate peer to peer exchanges in regional workshops. Diane, Paul, and others have been going around the country, meeting with folks, just as you were describing in places like Indiana. And if you're interested, please work with Diane and Paul and we'd be happy to consult on that. Exactly when, I don't know. But we would be happy to help.
J. Seplow
Just so everybody out there can hear the discussion going on. It would be great to do it as a regional effort, rather than state by state.
With that, I think we'll close today's seminar. The power point presentations use the in the seminar will be available within the next week, as well as a recording of this seminar. And I'll send out an e-mail to everybody who was in attendance to let them know when the power points will be available. They'll be available for download through the freight planning website. Thank you, everybody, for attending today's seminar. Thank you, Paul, Mike, and Jeff. The next seminar will be held on August 18th and it's titled "Freight Safety Issues." We'll have speakers from the American Chemistry Council and the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to visit the talking freight website and sign up for this seminar as well as future seminars. I also encourage you to join the freight planning LISTSERV if you have not done so already. Thank you, everybody. And enjoy your day.
