California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

By Lee DeCovnick

Self-righteousness and an unbridled lust for control over the lives of 307 million Americans are the hallmarks of environmental laws in America.

In a draft outline circulated privately to Senate offices, Senate leaders proposed cutting the House Jobs Bill to show fiscal restraint. But highway funding, the one infrastructure program that overwhelmingly benefits all States and every Congressional district, was cut disproportionately with funding sliced nearly in half.

By STEPHEN POWER and IAN TALLEY 1-12-09

A growing number of state regulators are urging the Obama administration to slow the rollout of proposed federal rules curbing industrial greenhouse-gas emissions, saying the administration's approach could overwhelm them with paperwork, delay construction projects and undercut their own efforts to fight climate change.

By: David Zook, Home and Leisure,

VICTORVILLE – The Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District’s Governing Board today agreed to send a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other top state officials requesting the repeal and/or suspension of the state law related to limits on greenhouse gas emissions, citing potentially devastating impacts to California’s struggling economy.

Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer, Thursday, January 14, 2010

Oakland -- A package of toll increases that won initial approval Wednesday would, for the first time, charge carpools to cross state-owned bridges and levy higher tolls for drivers who use the Bay Bridge during its busiest hours.

An Orange County Register editorial, January 15, 2010 6:38 AM

It's shaping up as a bad season in Sacramento. A legislative committee this week killed a badly needed bill to overturn the Draconian AB32 – the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act – with its onerous costs and regulations that will punish nearly every sector of California's economy, certainly aggravating already dire conditions. Another committee voted to impose yet another tax,

James Cameron might be laughing all the way to the bank, but his record-setting 3-D film, Avatar, is receiving criticism from a bizarre cast of characters, who accuse it of being everything from a racist throwback to the source of their overwhelming depression.

December 3, 2009 the IRS issued the 2010 standard mileage rates for business miles driven. The rate decreased this year from 55-cents which is a good thing for employers but a bad thing for employees.

The strike that air quality officials averted in early January when they gave Oakland truckers a two-week grace period and $11 million for compliance with new air regulations is already falling short of satisfying the truckers.

According to a report from SCCA, during the first week of January, at least three of their members on a job site in the Inland Empire got a visit from inspectors, looking for their engine identification numbers required under the off-road diesel regulation.

On January 11, we testified on behalf of CDTOA in support of AB 118 (Logue), the anti-Global Warming Solutions Act bill (AB 32). If passed, this bill would suspend the act until the state unemployment rate is 5.5% or lower for four consecutive calendar quarters.

According to ARTBA, despite the suggested job preserving and creating effects of the ARRA, unemployment in the construction industry continues at a disproportionate rate to the rest of the economy.