The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) is drafting a new strategy to formulate the nation's first comprehensive regulations for combating airborne toxic substances. The new regulations will force people who use diesel-run vehicles, especially trucks, to switch to alternative fuels. Diesel engines, and not factories, are responsible for the risk arising from toxic substances, says AQMD ( See p25: There is enough evidence for India to act ).

The AQMD estimates that around 1,500 out of every one million residents in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties could be contracting cancer over a lifetime from breathing toxic chemicals, and three-fourth of that risk is attributed to diesel exhaust. AQMD officials, while researching for toxic hot spots in the area, discovered that it is more dangerous to breathe the air next to a traffic intersection than next to an oil refinery.

The AQMD's plan has come under attack from the trucking industry since there has been little incentive for truckers to try out engines that run on natural gas because of the high cost of the engines and the limited availability of the fuel.