Truck on highway in Bakersfield, CA. (Photo: Clari Massimiliano, Shutterstock)
California Threatens to Ban Diesel Trucks, Worsening Supply Chain Backlogs
California policies and politics are at odds with the rest of the country
By Katy Grimes, November 21, 2022 6:51 am
The disconnect between California policies and politics are at such odds with the rest of the country, it’s a wonder the other 49 states haven’t excommunicated the Golden State from the union.
Todays’ headlines are the perfect example:
- Rail strike potential grows, threatening to worsen supply chain backlogs, inflation
- California Looks to Ban Diesel Trucks at Ports by 2035
California’s Long Beach and Los Angeles ports process approximately 40 percent of container shipments coming through the U.S.
Does anyone in charge California care?
As the country’s supply chain backlogs still exist and continues to plague many industries, California’s nonsensical diesel regulatory rules threaten to worsen the supply chain – on top of a potential rail strike which could grind supplies throughout the country to a halt.
It’s as if the international bad guy Dr. Evil is trying to destroy America’s economy.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is obviously aware of the problem. In October, he announced he was committing $1.2 billion to support the state’s ports and freight corridors – although he claimed the backlog was “pandemic-induced.”
“Seventy percent of the program funding will go to projects that support goods movement through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,” Newsom’s announcement said.
Good. The Long Beach port was already a problem.
But Newsom is ignoring his own California Air Resources Board’s ongoing economy-restricting policies by doubling down in blatant policies opposed to business interests, particularly those of large-scale corporations. “The goal is to push more than 30,000 heavily-polluting trucks to clean energy by 2035,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
California’s diesel regulations were created during the last administration under then-Governor Jerry Brown. Immediately upon enactment by the CARB, and installation by truck owners, the mandatory, faulty diesel particulate filters were exploding all across the state. Ironically, the filters even fail(ed) at cleaning the air.
The Alliance for California Business, a voluntary group whose purpose is to protect and promote business interests throughout California, told me in 2016 that Diesel Particulate Filters started more than 31 fires in just two years, including several in areas of the state parched by the drought. The Diesel Particulate Filters are the result of environmental regulations created by the California Air Resources Board, and were based on a deeply flawed study led by a CARB researcher accused of faking his Ph.D. credential. The CARB was not only aware of employee Hien Tran and his phony Ph.D. credentials and flawed research, yet the agency instead rushed head-on to meet its self-imposed schedule in creating the diesel regulations on truckers using the faulty science.
California’s owners/operators of trucks, small business owners, and farmers and ranchers, whose livelihood is tied to having affordable, safe, and reliable trucks for transporting goods, were targeted by the California Air Resources Board, and required to install Diesel Particulate Filters in all commercial trucks.
And when CARB made this regulation, it kicked thousands of independent truckers out of this business. Many large and small truckers could not afford to retrofit their trucks and fleets and were forced out of business. The truckers still in business had to spend $20,000 to $50,000 per truck retrofit with the CARB’s expensive, mandated Diesel Particulate Filter, or they had to buy newer model trucks to meet the new regulations. New trucks are hugely expensive.
Many of those truckers and trucking companies who could afford the retrofit or new trucks reported exploding trucks thanks to the CARB’s ‘Truck and Bus Regulations’ to control emissions from diesel engines.
The Diesel Particulate Filter devices were hailed by CARB, in countless public statements and Executive Orders, as an inexpensive, easy to install, device that could be implemented on all diesel powered engines throughout the State of California within just a few years. The CARB claimed the use of the filters would thereby improve air quality in the Los Angeles and San Joaquin basins.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
It took some time, but CARB finally publicly acknowledged (barely) that the Diesel Particulate Filter is expensive to install and maintain, mechanically unreliable, and the warranties were inadequate both as to time, mileage and scope of coverage.
But even worse, the Diesel Particulate Filter clogged, causing engine fires. These engine fires erupt, and have caused numerous very serious and even deadly accidents, as well as devastating property damage.
The CARB’s solution was to double down on stupid and imposed a ban on diesel trucks, forcing more and more California truckers out of business.
As the state attempts to wean (force) drivers off gas and diesel-powered vehicles, pushing commercial fleets of vans, long-haul trucks and buses to transition to zero-emission vehicles, “the trucks tend to cost two or three times as much as diesel trucks, which retail for about $150,000. Most electric trucks today have a range of between 100 and 200 miles between charges, making longer trucking routes impractical,” WSJ reported.
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Had the same reaction this morning to this headline:
https://www.foxla.com/news/california-gov-newsom-set-to-release-1b-for-homelessness
Even though the undermining, contradictory message (as in Katy’s example) is not in a second single headline but in hundreds of them from recent years as we continue to be led by absurd and unaccountable Democrats in California.
Who are these people that are on the CARB board?
Are they elected? (joke here) Are they appointed? (no joke here)
Please Katy, name some names, put some faces on these elitists.
Here you go, Tomorrow. It’s the usual left-wing Democrat crowd. Read it and weep: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership
Name their names :
Board Position Current Member Appointed By Term Ends
————- —————————– ————- ————–
Chair, Law & Air Pollution Control Liane M. Randolph Governor December 31, 2026
Vice-Chair, Public Member Sandra Berg Governor December 31, 2022
Agricultural Member John Eisenhut Governor December 31, 2022
Automotive Member Daniel Sperling Governor December 31, 2022
Physician Member John R. Balmes, MD Governor December 31, 2020
Public Member Diane Takvorian Governor December 31, 2022
Senate Environmental Justice Member Dean Florez Senate President Pro Tem December 31, 2024
Assembly Environmental Justice Member Hector De La Torre Assembly Speaker December 31, 2025
Bay Area AQMD Member Davina Hurt Governor December 31, 2026
Mojave Desert AQMD Member Barbara Riordan Governor December 31, 2022
Sacramento Region Air Districts Phil Serna Governor December 31, 2022
San Diego APCD Member Nora Vargas Governor December 31, 2025
San Joaquin Valley APCD Member Tania Pacheco-Werner, Ph.D. Governor December 31, 2026
South Coast AQMD Member Gideon Kracov Governor December 31, 2026
Ex Officio Member, CA Senate Senator Connie M. Leyva Senate Speaker –
Ex Officio Member, CA Assembly Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia Assembly Speaker –
Every year I write article(s) naming the names of politically appointed board members of CARB, the State Water Control Resources Board, etc… and provide their resumes and other boards they’ve been on.
Every year I write article(s) naming the names of politically appointed board members of CARB, the State Water Control Resources Board, etc… and provide their resumes and other boards they’ve been on. It must be time again for one of these articles!
welcome to the stone age
Thank you Katy for refreshing us on the pertinent background and history of this completely absurd mess of a dictatorial train wreck known as CARB. The situation and the edicts were outrageous even at the time of the fake PhD who contrived fake studies and of course have become BEYOND absurd now. I suspect most people in the rest of the country (who will be directly and personally affected by this) don’t even have the beginnings of a hint of a whisper of a clue as to what has been done by such unelected bureaucrats in our state, never mind CA’s politicians.
And then add AB5 to the wreckage..
As an owner operator I cannot begin to express how hypocritical California is. They consistently make laws that attack the livelihood of truck drivers. Supposedly we were vital during covid and were able to work and put ourselves at risk to deliver toilet paper, medicine, and supplies but we cannot find safe parking in this beautiful state. The truck stops are over crowded and unsafe. We’re so vital but please don’t stay in California. So frustrating how much money the DEF SYSTEM costs to install and maintain. It’s so faulty and constantly breaks down at a cost of $2000 to $10000 to fix. Shame on you California
You’d think the so-called Ruling Class who make the laws and put the bureaucrats in place that destroy truck drivers’ livelihoods would realize that they themselves ALSO depend on goods delivered by truck. So, as much as they despise “rabble” like us, they would at least want to look out for themselves. Right? But maybe our govt elites are too brain-dead and arrogant to figure it out. Or maybe I’m missing something.
Quote – It’s as if the international bad guy Dr. Evil is trying to destroy America’s economy.
Do your readers a favor and write one of your excellent articles on Klaus Schwab the real life world destroying villain. While you are at it cover Noah Harari, Larry Fink etc, etc. People need to understand the real game behind all these seemingly random and stupid acts by so called “liberals”.
You forgot the self-appointed resident expert in ALL things (because he made a ton of money from Microsoft) :
Bill Gates (of Hell)
Yes, Raymond I am weeping.
The elitists listed certainly will have no problem affording electric car battery replacements.
Let us not worry, for they have allocated funds to assist us po’folk in affording our first solar powered bicycle!
We are being controlled by Appointed (not elected) bureaucrats.
Yep. This is why Florida is looking better and better to a LOT of people (who don’t mind taking a chance on hurricanes): https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/florida-continues-30-month-job-creation-streak-record-low-unemployment
You can almost bet 100% of the time, politicians and bureaucrats will turn away from any common sense to choose what supports their agenda. They don’t care how stupid it makes them look today. In the end, its the power and control that drives them.
@showandtell
The utter corruption of CARB and its total lack of accountability and independent oversight goes back to Tom Quinn in the 1970’s The rich kid buddy of Jerry Brown who ran Browns successful election campaign for governor in 1974. There is an article in the July 1977 issue of the California Journal which gives just a taste of how totally corrupt CARB had become back then. A one man fiefdom who made sure his replacements never deviated for his obsession with banning private autos in California. And has remained corrupt and criminally incompetent ever since.
So we have had a long list of scandals. Because since the mid 1980’s with not one single reg passe by CARB or state law to back it has any basis in science. Not just the diesel guy with the fake PhD (it was fake). There was the MTBE fiasco. Which was straight up corruption. The ludicrous NO2 regs with zero basis in science. The math used is a joke. The country air regs passed in the mid 1990’s that made prescribed burns almost impossible for the last 25 years. Thats why almost 10% of the state has burned the last few years. CARB regs.
Then there is the billions of dollars a year in the fraud called “carbon credits” which CARB and its spin off organizations give out to its cronies with zero oversight. None. Even at the height of The Octopus with the South Pacific / Union Pacific railroads control of state politics you would have been hard pressed to find outright corruption this blatant as CARB and the “carbon credits”. Which are straight up fraud.
The problem with CARB is the corruption has been so total and complete for so long and its incompetent so egregious that when you start telling people the story of the things CARB has done and the statements its board members have made over the decades the stories are so totally outlandish, so utterly bizarre and deranged, that people think you are making it up. Even when you tone down the most outrageous stories. Like with MTBE.
Eventually the people try to blow you off with the – well, why did the media not cover the story? When you point out they did but showed a remarkable lack of curiosity about connecting the dots people get defensive and change the subject. At least those who are the Gentry Democrats who want to keep the virtue signalling status quo. But as the last few years of wild fires have shown eventually the price of “virtue signalling” politcs has to be paid. And its a very high price.
CARB needs to be abolished and a whole bunch of its senior people need to go to jail for corruption. Reset CARB to its pre Tom Quinn role and the state might get its clean air back in a decade or so. With a huge reduction in the cost of regulation as an added bonus.
Thank you so much, Tfourier, for your fine and comprehensive post that is now here on record for all to read. Much of it I knew but not all of it. CARB; corrupt and rotten to the core. For DECADES.
I, too, have had many frustrating conversations with the deluded — whether with a stranger, an in-law, or a long-time, increasingly left-wing college friend — where the person finally, defensively, shut it down by saying, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” And you’re right, the more outrageous the situation the less likely ANYONE — whether “innocently” under-informed or under a general spell of hypnosis — is to believe it took place or exists. Isn’t it convenient that in this way massive corruption thus paves the way for the usual-suspect evil villains to bring us more of it?
Those you listed SHOULD be rotting in prison as well as a giant assembly hall’s worth of others I can think of. My husband, a former prosecutor, often says, “all you need is one good prosecutor” for certain of the state outrages we discuss, but in CA we have been deprived of that, and now further deprived of it due to CA’s last election, which I will go to my grave believing was a scam and a cheat. L.A. County voters — for all the disparaging words thrown at them —- simply did not vote for or against some of the people who won or lost in this last election. But I digress…. 🙂
Thank you again for your illuminating post.
I remember being forced to pay Jerry Brown’s dad for the “smog device” I needed to register cars back in the 70’s. It made cars run like crap and get worse fuel economy. I hope the Globe picks up on your post and does a major expose of CARB and the anti-civilization nuts that run it. There have been past stories on these crimes but people forget.
CW – I have been covering CARB extensively since the mid-2000’s, and exposing their corruption. I wrote this in 2012 exposing their Delaware corporation created to hide the cap and trade revenue: https://calwatchdog.com/2012/07/18/anti-democracy-bill-guts-california-open-government-laws/
Another article from 2014 exposing the real Mary Nichols (CARB Exec. Dir.): http://www.flashreport.org/blog/2014/12/30/carbs-mary-nichols-is-no-rock-star-among-ca-bureaucrats-part-ll/
And this also from 2012: “CARB: The Gremlin in California’s garage”. https://calwatchdog.com/2012/12/11/carb-the-gremlin-in-californias-garage/
You will enjoy this from 2015: “EPA, CARB To Blame For Cheating Car Emissions” http://www.flashreport.org/blog/2015/09/25/epa-carb-to-blame-for-cheating-car-emissions/
If you google my name and CARB, you will see years of articles. And I draw from many of them even today.
Katy
Yes, thank you very much. I got a lot of my information from you. Unfortunate for me I only started following your website a couple of years ago. Just my suggestion that a current article would serve to bring this extremely important topic to the front burner where it belongs.
I would add that Justice is coming to the green mobsters that have been the point of the globalist spear to destroy and enslave Californians. Their days of tyranny are coming to and end. The wheels of justice grind slowly but exceedingly finely!
Long before diesel fuel is banned, limiting the number of ships entering the Ports will go into effect, actually within the next couple years. Refiners will increasingly need to import gasoline, ethanol, renewable diesel and crude oil to meet demand. This not a good situation. Rising demand and lower supply is a great formula for higher prices and of course this will be blamed on the oil companies.
This is all part of the “Great Reset” advocated by Bond villain, Klaus Schwab…
Under the guise of “climate change”, crush the energy markets and the global economy, declare an economic emergency, offer 1.25x CBDC dollars to lure the greedy unsuspecting sheep to their demise, and then roll out the digital dollars, vaxx passports and social credit scoring system…
The Davos gang is going full on 1984 on us, and we’d better push back HARD, and SOON, against this global NWO tyrrany..
“It’s as if the international bad guy Dr. Evil is trying to destroy America’s economy.” Yep….
CriticalDefence9 Those of us of a certain age will remember Siegfried head of KAOS from the old Get Smart TV series. Who knew he would come to life in the form of George Soros. It’s truly amazing roughly half the population does not see, or are indifferent to what’s going on. I live with one. My wife asked me if I’d seen the national news today over dinner last night. I mentioned CBS had finally reported the hunter Biden laptop story was real, she said is that all you care about … politics?
She has worked for voter registration for close to 40 years, and is still counting votes
Noisome like many world “leaders” are under the control of Dr. Death. Check out all the graduates of his “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” school when you get a chance. Then check out their agenda which is right out in the open although apparently almost everyone chooses to not believe it.
If you want to have nightmares watch his advisor Noah Harari on YouTube.
Newsom IS one of Schwab’s “Young Global Leaders” , Class of 2005….
This explains a lot of his non-sensical policies, along with being “Jesuit Jerry” Brown’s Lt, Governor…
Wanton and intentional economic destruction, to bring about the “Great Reset”, along with the Central Bank Digital Currency” that is CURRENTLY BEING TESTED by the New York Fed…
We need to be aware of these nefarious actors and who they serve… it ain’t US/ “We The People”…
The unelected bureaucrats on the California Air Resources Board do not have authority to dictate policy for millions of California citizens? Fed up Californians should focus on eliminating the Board along with the bloated California Environmental Protection Agency?
CARB’s policies are nothing more than grandstanding by Democrats. Democrats push the use of marijuana, including legalizing it and later giving tax breaks to the drug pushers who sell it, which inevitably ended up increasting us and the consequential secondhand smoke in other people’s lungs. Yet Democrats turn a blind eye to that. That smoke has 25% brain damaging THC, and yet where is the outrage over this type of air pollution? Democrats and CARB are nothing but hypocrites, who have zero concern over people’s health.