Benevolent CA Air Resources Board Withdraws Federal Waiver Allowing Truck Drivers to Stay in Business
‘This burden on the trucking industry would only contribute to the affordability crisis the State of California is experiencing’
By Katy Grimes, January 15, 2025 7:44 am
“California has no choice but to abandon its groundbreaking rules for zero-emission trucks and cleaner locomotives,” CalMatters reports.
That’s one way of acknowledging that the benevolent California Air Resources Board has withdrawn the federal waiver to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards, and would require California truck drivers to transition from diesel to electric trucks.
Seriously. This was about to go into effect, but in anticipation of the upcoming Trump administration… need we say more?
CARB has enjoyed little to no legislative oversight by the California Legislature since AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, was passed in 2006, nearly 20 year ago. Since then, the CARB has run amok spreading devastating “climate change” regulations and cap and trade extortions on businesses in California, and infected Western states.
Notably, California’s weather events and “climate” hasn’t changed since 2006.
There was nothing “groundbreaking” about California’s or the EPA’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule. CARB aimed to achieve a total zero-emissions truck and bus fleet by 2045, as well as have at least 1.6 million zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks operating in the state by 2048.
“State officials have long considered the rules essential to cleaning up California’s severe air pollution and combating climate change,” CalMatters said, obviously upset about the federal waiver forcing big rigs to go all-electric being dropped.
Where is California’s severe air pollution? Who in California is experiencing climate change?
It’s probably more important to listen to those in the trucking industry than a reporter paid to write “about the impacts of climate change and air pollution and California’s policies to tackle them.”
The Commercial Carrier Journal reported:
“The state of California has withdrawn its remaining outstanding request for waivers that would have allowed the state to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards as the sun sets on President Joe Biden’s administration, which had been an ally in the state’s fight for some of the world’s most stringent air quality regulations.”
Freightwaves reported:
“It is a stunning turnaround for CARB, which when it first adopted ACF told industry representatives that it did not believe it needed a waiver to implement the rule. But with the filing of a lawsuit by the California Trucking Association arguing that CARB did need a waiver, the agency backed down and made its waiver request in November 2023.“
Western States Trucking Association issued a statement, referencing the LA fires:
“We are pleased at this development at a time California is facing a crisis that clearly illustrates the importance of heavy-duty vehicles – especially ultra clean diesel-powered trucks in helping protect our communities and ultimately to begin the massive recovery efforts. This was not the time to try and push through a rule designed to transform the industry to meet the desires of a small segment of the population especially considering many of the burn areas have been without electricity for a least a week, and do not have charging facilities to handle all the trucks.”
Liane Randolph, the CARB chairwoman, said the process ran out of time with the Trump administration set to take office next week, The New York Times reported. “Frankly, given that the Trump administration has not been publicly supportive of some of the strategies that we have deployed in these regulations, we thought it would be prudent to pull back and consider our options.”
California Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo (R-Tulare) also made an announcement:
“California truck drivers are a pivotal component of the state’s agricultural industry and our state’s supply chain. They transport food from California farms to our grocery stores nationwide. Due to the perishable nature of agriculture products, time is of the essence in the transport of food. Diesel trucks allow this to happen in a timely manner.
“This ill-conceived policy would have put truck drivers – many of whom are from working class communities – out of business. Additionally, this burden on the trucking industry would only contribute to the affordability crisis the State of California is experiencing. Policies such as these fail to take into consideration the financial impact on businesses and consumers.
“It is time the Governor, CARB and the rest of his Administration work with, instead of against, employers and their workers who are critical to the State’s economy.”
Macedo represents the largest agricultural region in the state – the Central Valley, and is the fourth generation in her family’s livestock market, Tulare Sales Yard, since 1939.
“The move will leave the state, which has become a global leader in the fight against climate change, without some tools to lower planet-warming emissions at a moment when Los Angeles is being devastated by historic wildfires,” the New York Times reported. “Scientific studies have concluded that pollution from fossil fuels is intensifying wildfires in the West.”
“The state, which has become a global leader in the fight against climate change…” The NYT makes bold pronouncements, but never explains what a global leader in the fight against climate change is, or what it entails.
“California submitted requests to the E.P.A. more than a year ago to tighten controls on additional sources of pollution, including a requirement that commercial truck fleets begin a transition to all-electric or other zero emission vehicles, starting in 2024. Under those requests, now withdrawn, operators would have been required to achieve 100 percent zero-emissions fleets in the state between 2035 and 2042, depending on factors such as the size and weight of the trucks. The state also wanted to require that new heavy-duty trucks sold in California must be all-electric or zero-emissions by 2036.”
In August, 21 Republican Lawmakers from the California Senate and Assembly increased pressure on Governor Gavin Newsom to change up his Advanced Clean Fleets mandate because of multiple electric vehicle fires caused by lithium-ion batteries that occurred in the past month, the Globe reported.
In April of 2023, the CARB announced the sale of all new diesel big rig trucks and buses would be banned in the state starting in 2036, similar to the state’s new gas-powered car sale ban currently set for 2035. In addition to the 2036 sales ban on new diesel trucks and buses, CARB, with the backing of Governor Newson, announced that all trucks in California must be zero-emissions by 2042, i.e. the Advanced Clean Fleets rule. Under these new regulations CARB claimed the state would achieve a total zero-emissions truck and bus fleet by 2045, as well as have at least 1.6 million zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks operating in the state by 2048.
It appears some of this madness will be halted.
- CA Lawmaker Claims Wildfires are ‘Being Driven by Climate Change’ - January 24, 2025
- California Legislature Approves $2.5BWildfire Relief Bills - January 23, 2025
- Senate Republicans Outline Decades of Democrats Killing Wildfire Prevention Bills - January 22, 2025
As a person worked in that industry for years, and attended “classes” when smog checks were required, we talked to the engineers who told us “these are unachievable goals” and just drive up the costs of owning vehicles.
In 07-08 I met one of the young acolytes of the Solano Air Resources unit, who promptly told me “we are here to put you out of business”. He had no training or experience as a professional, merely was being told to harass small businesses and dealerships, even if we complied with CARB mandates. It was instructive to meet what they had become, since the 1980s
The infrastructure to build and maintain just the numbers of machines will not exist for decades as no one wishes to throw down those investments. That and the materials costs far exceed any return value. It is Madness.
The real meaning of the acronym, CARB…
It stands for the following .
Careless
Authoritative
Reckless
Burdensome
CARB is CARELESS about people’s livelihoods and self reliance.
CARB is AUTHORITATIVE, an appointed board given great authority over citizens with little oversight by legislation. It is evident in this latest action that it is driven more by politics ideology than solid, beneficial ideology that produces positive impact.
CARB is RECKLESS as it is based on a false foundation that Climate, can be controlled by human action without true scientific proof.
Carbon is key for the growth of all life, without it we cease to exist, plants cease to exist.
CARB is BURDENSOME to people who drive for a living, grow food for a living and build for a living. CARB wants to take freedoms away, reduce are options to move about freely. CARB wants to control what you eat and how you cook it. No gas stoves for you! The meat you want to cook on your gas burners well those vows produce methane, no meat for you! Yes it is burdensome.
This commission hurts more than it helps the residents and business owners in California.
CARB should be defunded.
And the recent wildfires and volcanic eruptions have released WAY more “carbon” and gaseous by-products (ash, etc) into the atmosphere, but these whack-jobs think they can control the weather, when Earth itself cannot be controlled (although they are desperately trying to do so…)
“Ha Ha” ~ Nelson Muntz
The winds of Freedom are starting to blow across this great land.
Good title but you need a font that is dripping in sarcasm.
“The state of California has withdrawn its remaining outstanding request for waivers that would have allowed the state to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards as the sun sets on President Joe Biden’s administration, which had been an ally in the state’s fight for some of the world’s most stringent air quality regulations.”
Yeah, ol’ Joey Bribem has “been an ally… for the world’s most stringent air quality regulations” because he (via his crackhead son) and our own Gavin Newscum are on the take to the CCP and their BYD electric car/bus brand, so that they can collect their “market development fee” for opening up California and by extension the rest of the woke states that buy into this “climate change” crapola while the Chinese and other Indo-Asian countries continue to pollute with impunity…
Wake up people and follow the money trail… these pols are “in it to win it” for themselves via the contracts that they sign (Newsom’s BYD PPE no-bid contract for what, a billion???) and Hunter & ol’ Joe doing their deals with “10% for the big guy”
And we get screwed over with the higher cost of EVERYTHING, thanks to their fuel and energy policies, which are only making daily life MORE EXPENSIVE for rank & file citizens….
It was snake bit from the start.
Truckers were beginning to wonder if their trailers would have to be dropped off at the state line, with California ZE trucks completing the delivery. That created another issue, ZE today cannot carry the heavier loads, thus creating another headache.
California’s economy would have frozen to a stop.
Without the fear of Trump, California actually considered seizing up California’s economy as a viable plan!
In researching CARB’s past I see that it was created in 1967 by combining 2 agencies that were tasked to reduce air pollution in California. This action was done by Ronald Reagan. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 which expanded CARB’s roll to reduce greenhouse gas in California. CARB is a perfect example of the administrative state running amuck here in California. Just as Trump is going to clean up the administrative state in Washington California needs its administrative state cleaned up as well.
No doubt it was withdrawn because unelected Democrat globalist stooges at CARB knew they’d lose in court and would wind up losing their ability to go beyond the EPA’s rules? They’ll not give up and will probably try again at some point in the future?
How do we get rid of CARB?
The main reason CARB has backed off its mandate is because it’s illegal to deny huge swaths of the state population rights that are not restricted by federal law and that citizens of other states enjoy. Trump would have killed the EPA waver and the CARB board knows this. Hopefully the appropriate federal agencies will partner with manufacturers to sue California to overturn CARB’s electric car mandate and win a precedent-setting decision which will prevent any state from issuing blanket mandates that are unconstitutional.
I guess it takes a fire to make a change we need more water now and slow down the use of batteries that are burning clean energy we had what happened to nuclear
I oversaw the last thermal oxidized install that received a so cal gas rebate/incentive. Prior to moving forward with that install we had designed, fully tested, and proposed a alternative solution and design that didn’t require the burning of thousands of tons of natural gas each year. When proposed to SCAQMD (industrial version of CARB) they scoffed and said ‘…uh, no. you gotta install one of these…’ I asked about appeals, other steps, etc. Their rep just said basically appeals got to our board, you can try but no one EVER wins. Read the applicable rules to our project and came up with an alternate design that used a thermal oxidized half the size of our original spec….walked those plans in to SCAQMD. They reviewed them for 5 minutes, saw the brand name of the thermal oxidized and approved the plans without checking any details. I had the system up and running and tested 9 months later (City of Danta Ana was also a PITA). SCAQMD brought 8 peeps out for the final sign off….they thought we were going to be the first small manufacturing business in California to be forced into Cap and Trade. They signed the final permit and then pulled out a folder they worked up on Cap and Trade BS and said, “now we need to review your cap and trade requirements”….I said nope, you need to review the gas usage and cfm of the permit you just signed, we’re 30% under your threshold. After a few minutes pause the exec sounded the table yelled a couple explosives and stormed out. I looked at our inspector and said “we good?”….he muttered “I guess” and off they went.
Exactly zero percent of the whole interaction was about the environment or reducing emissions. it was about about control and fees!!!