Ag is Target of Environmental Justice Community Again

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) held a meeting on the 2026 State Implementation Plan Revisions for California Extreme Ozone Nonattainment Areas. At the hearing, more than 90% of the speakers attacked agriculture urging CARB to adopt regulations to reduce emissions from pesticides, fertilizers and a mandatory replacement of agricultural tractors. One CARB Board Member Dr. John Balmes commented “Ag has gotten a free pass from air quality regulations for a long time, and I think it is ridiculous.”  Then, the ag member of the board, John Eisenhut, commented that while he has previously supported the use of incentives for tractor replacement, “the time has come to regulate ag tractors”. This was echoed by several of the board members, and a motion was made to include agriculture equipment into the SIP. Despite these comments, there was some lengthy discussion, and coming out of a meeting break, the board rescinded the motion and moved forward with the approval of the SIP as planned, and without a mandatory tractor replacement rule. Association President/CEO Roger A. Isom responded to the comments by stating “It is unfortunate that we could not respond at the meeting to these completely unfounded remarks.  It is equally unfortunate and quite surprising that the one agricultural person on the board would advocate for farmers to mandatorily replace their tractors without incentive funds. Agriculture has made huge strides reducing emissions from tractors, pump engines, trucks, ag burning, and dust from farms, and that should have been recognized!”  This was the closest it has ever come to happening, and we will have to fight even harder moving forward.