Congressman Challenges EPA on Unfair Fuel Standards

In a move backing semi truck drivers all over the nation, House Oversight Chair Darrell Issa challenged the EPA’s revised fuel standards for heavy trucks beginning in 2014.

His committee is claiming that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) was too influential in the drafting of federal truck fuel efficiency standards.

Committee Chairman Issa, R-Calif., said in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency that CARB appears to have been “heavily invested and highly involved” in development of the standards for heavy-duty trucks.

“Instead of a rule that reflects the varied nature of the trucking industry, the EPA and NHTSA developed a regulation that is a prime example of a one-size-fits-all rulemaking,” OOIDA representative Scott Grenerth said in a statement to the EPA last week.

“It is not clear to the committee, however, why CARB exercised such outsized influence in this process, with apparently more input into the development of the rule than other nonfederal entities,” Issa said in his June 21 letter to Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at EPA.

Issa gave McCarthy until July 5 to reply to a long list of questions aimed at spelling out CARB’s role in the rule, and clarifying if California is regulating heavy truck emissions under a waiver from EPA.

Find out more about this developing issue that has truck drivers in the crosshairs at Trucking Info Online.