Checking in with ‘Truckers against CARB’ — rally, public meeting Thursday

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Loren Hutnick and his 1988 Peterbilt. The rig, after undergoing a rebuild, has been off the road for some time as Hutnick has taken work hauling for another company. Read more about the operator’s options under the Truck and Bus Rule come yearend via this link. Photo by Kevin Jones.Loren Hutnick and his 1988 Peterbilt. The rig, after undergoing a rebuild, has been off the road for some time as Hutnick has taken work hauling for another company. Read more about the operator’s options under the Truck and Bus Rule come yearend via this link. Photo by Kevin Jones.

Overdrive/CCJ‘s Kevin Jones happened to be out in Petaluma, Calif., shortly after I wrote about owner-operator Loren Hutnick, based there, who’s also the proprietor of the California Trucks Against the California Air Resources Board Facebook page and Truckers Against CARB website. Jones paid a visit to talk with Hutnick about this coming Thursday’s rally and his and other Californians’ efforts to speak out against the board’s Truck and Bus Rule and other equipment / emissions requirements broadly.

Find more information about Hutnick’s effort via the California Truckers Against CARB’s Facebook page.Find more information about Hutnick’s effort via the California Truckers Against CARB’s Facebook page.

The rally is on schedule, he says, and he’s expecting a good turnout from sympathetic truckers from not only in California but around the country. “We’ve got people coming from the East Coast, Canada, from all over the U.S.,” he says. “This is not just going to be a California thing.” A brief excerpt from Jones’ talk with Hutnick follows at the bottom of this post.

Joe Rajkovacz of the California Construction Trucking Asssociation and its Western Trucking Alliance interstate conference will be there, Rajkovacz says. Rajkovacz wrote in last night as public comments closed on CARB’s website in advance of Thursday’s meeting. The CCTA provided commentary on the public docket associated with CARB’s request for comment on flexibility provisions developed since the last full board meeting in December 2013.

You can peruse the full docket here.

CCTA is behind one of a few still-in-process lawsuits challenging CARB’s Truck and Bus Rule. You can read the CCTA comments in full via this link, but here’s an excerpt that reflects the spirit of the organization’s continuing fight against the regs:

Contrary to many commenters who have taken the position that the Statewide Truck and Bus rule represents “settled law” in the State of California, the CCTA would remind everyone that three current legal challenges exist … aimed directly at this regulation and only because of legal delays in the court system there has not been any justice – justice delayed is justice denied. Only the uniformed or naive would conclude that the Statewide Truck and Bus rule can be considered “settled law.” For those upset at any extended flexibility in implementation of the rule, we strongly believe legal challenges ought to be settled before any further damage is done to California’s trucking industry – for both large and small fleets. You must ask yourself if one or all of these suits are successful, and stops these regulations in their tracks – how would one feel then about these regulations?

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Good question, wouldn’t you say? What are your thoughts at the CARB rules at this stage in the game, with the Truck and Bus Rule in place for several years now — and with small fleets coming under its compliance deadlines for the first time just this year?

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