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.

After 60 years of providing redi-mix and aggregate to the southern California construction market, Standard Concrete Products is closing its operations, firing its employees and when it finds lessees for three of its plants, closing the business for good.

Three able and well respected scientists and statisticians spent a couple of hours this month in San Diego making the case that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are pursuing a political agenda rather than paying attention to their primary mission—public health.

The three, Dr. James Enstrom, Dr. Robert Phalen, and Dr. Stanley Young, presented papers to a group of nearly 100 attendees at the annual American Statistical Association meeting, held at the San Diego Convention Center, August 2.

Sacramento-The California Air Resource Board has created a new tool to be used by politicians, environmental extremists and snake oil salesmen to target companies who are “major sources of greenhouse gases.”

The new mapping system will paint a bulls-eye on 625 California companies who have been voluntarily reporting their GHG emissions to the agency, which will create a public relations nightmare for the companies on the list and an open invitation to meddle from the others, which will include opportunistic lawyers.

Carmageddon II Coming to the 405 Next Month

The second 10-mile closure of both directions of the San Diego Freeway (I-405) over the Sepulveda Pass is scheduled for Sept. 29-30.  Carmageddon II will impact the half a million motorists who typically drive this portion of the I-405 every weekend and who are being encouraged to avoid the area during the 53-hour closure.

A must read letter from CCTA (CDTOA) retired member Frank J Miranda, dated, July 23-2012

If I was starting my dump truck business or even if I was in dump trucking for the last 15 or 20 years I would like to read how it was in early dump trucking years ago. I can’t believe the stories I read about CARB and this environmental problem with diesel engines shoved on truckers trying to make a living.

Navistar (NAV) is experiencing an eventful August, with the stock displaying volatility in the first week of the month. The stock plummeted 14% after the company slashed its future outlook amidst a weak U.S. truck market forecast, disclosed its ongoing inquiry with the SEC, and announced its future partnership with Cummins (CMI) to obtain urea-based engines after the company’s CEO, Ustian, decided to give up his disastrous EGR engine strategy.

Small business trucking owner’s need not worry about not being paid thanks to the California Dump Truck Owner’s Bill of Lading and Transportation Agreement.  I can’t believe that there are still a few drivers out in the field that are using any other type of billing system.

There will be a Circle the Capitol rally against cap and trade on August 15th from 11am to 1pm on the West Steps of the State Capitol - the very day CARB will be doing its “practice” cap and trade auction and we need to send a strong message.

It couldn’t be more important for us to show up in huge numbers to oppose $143 billion in unnecessary energy cost increases.