California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

• PLF Lawsuit v. EPA Heavy Vehicle Mileage Standard: EPA rejected the arguments PLF made during the comment period on the HDVR (heavy duty vehicle rule governing greenhouse gas emissions). We argued that EPA must submit the HDVR to the Science Advisory Board (“SAB”) for review. The final HDVR regulations were published in the Federal Register, without submittal to SAB, on September 15, 2011. That means the deadline for filing an appeal is November 14. We need to file the appeal no later than November 8.
• PLF Lawsuit Auto Mileage Standard: There is also a LDVR petition for reconsideration of that regulation now pending. The LDVR rule was the first rule that EPA passed without proper review.
• PLF Lawsuit Intervenors on Behalf of EPA & CARB: CDTOA and Rob McClernon as well as other construction members and associations (Dalton, Delta, SCCA and EUCA etc.) and their presidents are PLF clients in a joint intervention as defendants on behalf of the believe it or not the state (CARB) and the federal government (EPA) in the existing cases Blades, et al v. Ca. CGC and Alec L. Gardian Ad Littum, Victoria Loorz v. Jackson. These are environmental related lawsuits where activists are suing the state to regulate CO2 on behalf of our children and global warming under the legal principle of the “Public Trust Doctrine” that requires the government to protect and maintain certain shared resources fundamental for human health and survival. 

If the last PLF lawsuit above does not make sense to you, than the article below should explain why we are involved. This was excerpted from a recent story in YubaNet.com, published on May 4 the day the lawsuits were filed. It shows just how wide-spread and corrupted the Global Warming agenda is and how they believe and are sure that the science behind it all is unquestionably – settled! Utilizing the Public Trust Doctrine is serious over-reaching by the radical political science environmental activist community and must be stopped, at least slowed down until we have more accurate climate information.

[A legal action was filed May 4, against California government as part of a national coordinated effort to force action on CO2 related climate change aimed at all 50 states and the federal government. “This is something new – no climate litigation in the past has ever gone back to the first principal that the government must protect the public trust,” said Sharon E. Duggan, attorney for the plaintiffs. “The large body of litigation brought under environmental statutes is too narrow for the crisis at hand. Science, not politics, defines the fiduciary obligation that trustees must fulfill – it’s the most common sense, fundamental legal footing for the protection of our planet.” In California, we are leading the effort to deal with the climate crisis, and yet California refuses to recognize that the atmosphere – our most precious and necessary of all resources – is not to be protected in the public interest. A nationwide team of top legal experts has been assembled by the nonprofit organization Our Children’s Trust to represent young people who, alongside their parents, are taking legal action out of fear of hitting a tipping point wherein global climate change cannot be stopped. In fact the nonprofit organization Our Children’s Trust (OCT), an Oregon-based environmental non-profit organization founded by Julia Olson in July 2010, joined forces with Kids vs. Global Warming to launch a first-time youth-led effort to force the US government to take action on climate change. Our Children’s Trust legal actions rely on the long established legal principle of the “Public Trust Doctrine” that requires the government to protect and maintain certain shared resources fundamental for human health and survival. “The public trust law in our country and around the world says that common resources like water and air are held in trust by the government for the people and for future generations,” said Julia Olson, Our Children’s Trust executive director. “Lawyers around the nation are providing legal assistance to young people to help them protect their future, since the government has abdicated that responsibility.” The goal of the legal and administrative actions is to force reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and implementation of reforestation programs that will counter the negative impacts of climate change. The youth plaintiffs and petitioners are receiving legal support from Our Children’s Trust, an organization dedicated to protecting the Earth for current and future generations.]

The article goes on to claim that in California, some of the expected or at least claimed benefits of limiting CO2 includes: stopping rising sea levels (which have fallen slightly due to increased moisture being dropped on land masses and an increase in the Antarctic reach), increased poor air quality (CO2 is not an air pollutant but warmists use this claim as a scare tactic, it has nothing to do with air quality it is the gas we all exhale), loss of water due to snowmelt in the Sierra’s (we are expected to see a third year of La Nina which brings record snows and moisture to the Sierra’s, unfortunately due to the mild summers the snow is not melting on many of the higher peaks in the Sierras and snow upon snow is called – a glacier), and finally loss of agricultural productivity (actually, scientist on both sides agree that increased atmospheric CO2 and warming improves plant growth including food crops). So in reality, none of these claims are valid, but much loved by the liberal press and media. Interestingly, there are no comments about global warming – why is that?

Read this article! www.eenews.net/assets/2011/05/05/document_gw_04.pdf