California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

If you’re a construction truck broker with or without power, you better believe that CARB is licking its chops to dig in your pockets beginning in 2012 and beyond.

On August 29, CARB proudly announced that it had settled a fine against an in-state motor carrier in the Ontario area for $59,050, The company which was dispatching four contracted owner-operators trucks along with their own, between the state’s rail yards and ports, didn’t meet drayage emissions requirements spelled out in CARB’s port truck regulation.

CARB fined IVVE Transportation the “reduced” fine (it was originally set at $126,000), of only $44,287 that will go to the California Air Pollution Control fund, which is used to support air quality research. How much more research money does a $650-million public health care agency need each year? The fines are not even going to help poor truckers to get into compliance. Oh, and we can’t forget the schools, another $14,762 will go to the Peralta Community College district to fund diesel education classes.

CARB’s Port Drayage Rule has already banned trucks with engines that don’t meet 1994 model year emissions standards. By 2014, all trucks must meet 2007 model year engine emissions standards, CARB says.

According to the company, which owns and operates over a dozen complaint company trucks, the four contracted owner-operators they were held responsible for, had submitted grant paperwork for retrofits and had even been approved. But they did not receive the funding to actually retrofit the trucks yet. CARB enforcement did not care about this and instead, like the vile agency they have become, plowed ahead with threats and fines.

The owner-operators were themselves not fined.

As usual, the CARB press release about this fine was replete with propaganda and did not at all mention the efforts that this company had taken to be in compliance. This is an evil organization, make no mistake.

According to CARB’s own news release, the company agreed to cease dispatching the four non-compliant trucks. “We commend businesses that acknowledge their mistakes and then move in the right direction, such as IVVE Transportation,” Jim Ryden, CARB’s chief of enforcement said, in a news release. “We have to make clean air a priority, and that can only happen when businesses do whatever it takes to follow clean air regulations.” If you would like to read more of the propaganda from CARB, go here:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/newsrelease.php?id=239