Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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UPFRONT Going it alone in California Owner-operators – and the fleets that use them – face looming PM filter deadline BY JEFF CRISSEY C alifornia long has been a land of opportunity, going all the way back to the Gold Rush of the mid 1800s. More recently, the technology boom in Silicon Valley in the latter half of the 20th century resulted in millions of workers migrating to the state to develop the microprocessor and software programs, spurring the growth of Internetbased companies. California opened its arms and welcomed industries. Those were the days. Over the last 20 years, California has made it more difficult to do business in the West, led largely by increasingly strict environmental regulations by the California Air Resources Board. In the trucking industry, CARB quickly has become a dirty four-letter word thanks to a litany of anti-truck regulations and emissions standards in recent years. But the agency's 2008 Truck and Bus Regulation is likely the most far-reaching rule the industry has seen out of California, with a number of phasedin deadlines for fleets and truck owners to retrofit trucks with particulate matter filters or invest in newer lower-emissions engines. In January, CARB began enforcement of the regulation requiring owners of trucks weighing more than 26,000 pounds with 2000-04 model-year engines to install PM filters. As was discussed at last month's CCJ Innovators Summit by a group of fleet executives, January 1, 2014, represents a significant deadline for owner-operators and small fleets with three or fewer trucks. Assuming they already have met early reporting requirements under the rule's small fleet option, that is the date by which they too must install PM filters or purchase new equipment. Truck owners need to order PM filters by September 2013 in order to protect themselves from manufacturer delays that could extend past the January 2014 deadline. At $10,000 to $20,000 per truck (by CARB's own estimates), a PM filter installation represents a significant expense to owner-operators. And penalties for noncompliance aren't cheap, either, including fines starting at $1,000 per violation, vehicle registration blocks by the state's Department of Motor Vehicles and impounding of vehicles by the California Highway Patrol until the truck is brought into compliance. Since the compliance date of January 1, 2012, for 1996-99 model-year engines, California reported more than $2 million in fines for the first nine months of 2012. It's obvious to see the challenges that owner-operators and the smallest of fleets face with the regulation deadline. But what about fleets that contract with owner-operators for loads originating or terminating in California? In dealing with owner-operators unwilling or unable to shell out the money for a PM filter installation and also unable to afford to purchase a newer truck and engine, fleets certainly will have to manage load assignments better. Of course, the industry – especially companies doing business in California – isn't going to take the new regulation lying down. In late January, the California Construction Trucking Association filed a Notice of Appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after an unfavorable court ruling in December. "Small-business truckers are bearing the brunt of the multibilliondollar expense to unnecessarily replace trucks originally built and certified to EPA emissions standards," CCTA said in its statement. Information on compliance with CARB's Truck and Bus Regulation is available at www.arb.ca.gov/ truckstop or by calling 866-634-3735. JEFF CRISSEY is Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail jcrissey@ccjmagazine.com. 6 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL CCJ_0313_UpFront.indd 6 Commercial Carrier Journal and the CCJ Innovators program sponsors – Castrol Heavy Duty Lubricants, Freightliner Trucks, J.J. Keller & Associates and PeopleNet – would like to congratulate Boyd Bros. on being named the 2013 CCJ Innovator of the Year. You can read more on the company's innovation in the April 2013 issue of CCJ. | MARCH 2013 2/21/13 11:06 AM