The California Air Resources Board is at it again, and for the first time, in a way that may affect Diane and I, and owners of perhaps as many as 1.5 million other trucks.
From Land Line Magazine article:
"The proposed rule would essentially require 1.5 million trucks to meet 2007 emission standards by the year 2012 – although several other regulatory possibilities are also proposed."
Our truck is a 2006 model, which we spec'ed and intended to run until 2016 or longer. California is one of our best states for pickups and deliveries. If this rule passes, we would have to purchase a new truck that we do not want or need (environmentally unwise), pay for engine upgrades that will be costly and will likely reduce fuel economy (also environmentally unwise), or eliminate California as a state we would serve (doable, but undesirable).
Just this last weekend, we spent a day on Boca Chica State Beach. Every fire ring on the beach was in use and the air there was so thick with poorly built camp fires that it was hard to breathe. Our truck and other vehicles in the parking lot were coated with particulates when the beach closed.
CARB has no trouble imposing its will on the trucking industry, and then changing the rules and imposing it again. Yet it shows no concern whatsoever with people who, every night, cart tons of wood and fireplace logs to the beach and torch it in the open air.
The difference? California residents vote and CARB members want to keep their jobs. Interstate truckers do not have a vote. If there is a boycott California movement taking shape among truckers, I would be interested to learn more about it.
Having been politically active once before, and more than a little effective, I know how to do so again. Lord, I hope it does not come to that. We got into trucking to simplify our lives.
Having bought a then-compliant truck in good faith, we don't need CARB reaching into our lives all the way from the West Coast to change the good faith bargain we made when we purchased our truck.
Or, we just suck it up and do what we can to pass the expenses on to our customers. That's the easy way out, but doing so leaves these myopic environmental extremists unrestrained.
Grumbling here.
From Land Line Magazine article:
"The proposed rule would essentially require 1.5 million trucks to meet 2007 emission standards by the year 2012 – although several other regulatory possibilities are also proposed."
Our truck is a 2006 model, which we spec'ed and intended to run until 2016 or longer. California is one of our best states for pickups and deliveries. If this rule passes, we would have to purchase a new truck that we do not want or need (environmentally unwise), pay for engine upgrades that will be costly and will likely reduce fuel economy (also environmentally unwise), or eliminate California as a state we would serve (doable, but undesirable).
Just this last weekend, we spent a day on Boca Chica State Beach. Every fire ring on the beach was in use and the air there was so thick with poorly built camp fires that it was hard to breathe. Our truck and other vehicles in the parking lot were coated with particulates when the beach closed.
CARB has no trouble imposing its will on the trucking industry, and then changing the rules and imposing it again. Yet it shows no concern whatsoever with people who, every night, cart tons of wood and fireplace logs to the beach and torch it in the open air.
The difference? California residents vote and CARB members want to keep their jobs. Interstate truckers do not have a vote. If there is a boycott California movement taking shape among truckers, I would be interested to learn more about it.
Having been politically active once before, and more than a little effective, I know how to do so again. Lord, I hope it does not come to that. We got into trucking to simplify our lives.
Having bought a then-compliant truck in good faith, we don't need CARB reaching into our lives all the way from the West Coast to change the good faith bargain we made when we purchased our truck.
Or, we just suck it up and do what we can to pass the expenses on to our customers. That's the easy way out, but doing so leaves these myopic environmental extremists unrestrained.
Grumbling here.
