Hector Leon – Riverside/San Bernardino Chapter Chair

In our last collections article, we discussed the filing of a Stop Notice form on a project that has not paid you for worked performed. Many times this could be your last action available to get paid.

By Mark Studevant, Los Angeles Freightliner

It is important that truckers understand the process needed in purchasing a diesel particulate filter (DPF) to meet the new CARB On-Road Truck and Bus Rule.  It is a very costly proposition, so do your homework.  Not every truck can be retrofitted. 

Engine maintenance, engine condition, and engine duty-cycle play big roles in retrofitting diagnosis and assessment.  These factors as well as exhaust temperatures, vehicle speed, load, idling, geography, ambient temperatures and driver tendencies play a role in whether the truck can be retrofitted and with a particular filter. 

According to a report by ACT Research Co., LLC, North America heavy duty GVW Class 8 commercial vehicle preliminary net orders for August, recovered from July, while Classes 5-7 net orders were at their lowest level since January. The final numbers, which will be released mid-September, will approach 16,200 units for heavy duty Class 8 trucks and 13,900 for medium duty Classes 5-7 vehicles. The preliminary net order numbers are typically accurate to within 5% of actual.

By Jon Coupal

Back in the days before he joined the dark side of “The Force,” Arnold Schwarzenegger was a compelling advocate for taxpayers. He noted that “from the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet, they’re taxed. Then they go and get the cup of coffee, they’re taxed....This goes on all day long. Tax, tax, tax . . . “

The Governator has come and gone but Californians are still among the most heavily burdened taxpayers in the nation. We rank first in state sales tax and gas tax, second in income tax and, even with Proposition 13, we rank 10th in taxes per owner occupied residence. You’d think this would be enough for the Sacramento politicians and powerful special interests but, as always, it is never enough.

A series of recent federal court rulings reined in the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s out-of-control regulatory rampage on air and water quality regulations.  One struck down an EPA practice of using guidelines, instead of actual regulations to set requirements for industry.  The other said EPA over-stepped it role in trying to regulate “cross state line” emissions without Congressional authority.

EPA has been regulating beyond its statutory limits according to the two court rulings.  First, a federal district court decision blocked the EPA from regulating Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 404 “dredge and fill” discharges (concerning surface mining activities) through “guidance,” calling instead for notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). 

By Kelvin Kemm

Editor’s note:  Copy this article and send it to your elected representatives.  It proves the lies we have been told about “renewable” energy, based on facts, not models or wishful thinking.  AB 32 means California electricity, already the most expensive in the nation, is going to go up by 42 percent between now and 2020 unless they put a stop to it.

In mid-August 2012, Germany opened a new 2200MW coal-fired power station near Cologne, and virtually not a word has been said about it. This dearth of reporting is even more surprising when one considers that Germany has said building new coal plants is necessary because electricity produced by wind and solar has turned out to be unaffordable and unreliable.

The California Air Resources Board declared August “Clean Truck Month” and launched a statewide enforcement push with some scary statistics leaking out of Sacramento

The preliminary results according to Paul Jacobs, chief of mobile source enforcement, were more than 6,000 inspections and 700 plus citations written.  Jacobs says that the tickets given to individual truckers will be followed up with fleet inspections, looking for more violations. The violations included all programs: smoke opacity, tampering, TRUs, drayage, idling, truck and bus, etc.

The equivalent of not seeing the trees for the fires – literally!

This month as we geared up to again take-on both CARB (a lawsuit to stop their on-road truck and bus rule) and a EPA related legal action (to stop the off-road diesel engine rule), I couldn’t help to laugh at all of this efforts we are involved in while I drove each morning to work up Highway 71 and Euclid Ave. (Chino) from my home in Anaheim to Upland and looked up at the mountains.