Tag Archive for: truckers

The EPA’s Latest Regulation Could Devastate The Trucking Industry

  • The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter emissions standards on new heavy-duty vehicles, a regulation that will significantly raise operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  •  “The costs associated with this are also a concern because these are costs that not only the industry will bear … prices will go up for everybody,” Texas Trucking Association President John Esparza told the DCNF.
  • “It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,” Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter nitrogen dioxide emissions standards on new heavy-duty trucks, a move that will substantially hike operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The EPA’s rule, which is more than 80% stricter than the previous regulation, will require large trucks, delivery vans and buses manufactured after 2027 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by nearly 50% by 2045, according to an agency press release. The agency’s rule is intended to push truckers to phase out diesel-powered vehicles and use electric vehicles (EV) instead; however, the compliance costs associated with such rules could suffocate an industry that is not ready to transition to EVs, experts told the DCNF.

“It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,” Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF. “It’s going to squeeze out the mid-sized and smaller trucking companies because they’re not going to be able to afford to purchase the new, extremely expensive equipment required to continue to do what they do.”

The new rules are intended to phase out older trucks that emit more nitrogen dioxide and will push drivers to purchase electric trucks or newer models of diesel trucks that do not produce as much nitrogen dioxide when they burn fuel, according to the EPA.

“If small business truckers can’t afford the new, compliant trucks, they’re going to stay with older, less efficient trucks or leave the industry entirely,” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer told trade publication Freight Waves. “Once again, EPA has largely ignored the warnings and concerns raised by truckers in this latest rule.”

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said that the rule would protect “historically overburdened communities,” that are disproportionately affected by trucking emissions as truck freight routes are often located near “vulnerable populations,” according to the press release. Nitrogen dioxide gas can exacerbate respiratory diseases like asthma and form acid rain in the atmosphere which can damage lakes and forests, according to the EPA.

“The EPA is happy to go easy on big trucking since they support regulations that will harm their smaller competitors far more,” Steve Milloy, Energy and Environmental Legal Institute senior legal fellow and former Trump administration EPA transition team member, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Regan announced the new rule in front of an electric garbage truck produced by Mack Trucks and following his remarks, Mack spokesman John Mies stated that his company supports the administration’s zero emissions targets for trucks and is working to cut “dangerous” emissions produced by diesel trucks, according to CNN.

“Companies have taken the initiative to electrify a certain percentage of their fleet by a certain year and have made plans to build the necessary infrastructure, but they are then told that there isn’t enough power to achieve what they’re seeking,” Texas Trucking Association President John Esparza told the DCNF. “The costs associated with this are also a concern because these are costs that not only the industry will bear … prices will go up for everybody.”

The EPA’s final rule is the first step in its “Clean Trucks Plan” which seeks to heavily regulate trucks’ emissions to push drivers to adopt electric trucks.

Gunesakara echoed Esparza’s comments and said that such targets were a “technological fantasy” that could cost truckers their jobs due to the high price of electric trucks. Gunesakara added that the EPA’s rules would force truck drivers to drive older, more polluting and less efficient vehicles for longer as diesel trucks will be rapidly phased out long before EVs can become a more viable alternative.

The EPA touted its new rule and said that it will result in up to 2,900 fewer premature deaths, 18,000 fewer cases of childhood asthma and 6,700 fewer hospital admissions as well as an overall annual net economic benefit of $29 billion due to fewer missed work days. The agency’s trucking rules are less strict than California’s regulations as heavy vehicles in the state must cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 75% starting in 2024, and 90% starting in 2027, according to a California Air Resource Board rule.

The EPA did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JACK MCEVOY

Energy & environment reporter.

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WATCH FREEDOM ON THE MARCH: Thousands of Vehicles in Truck-Led Peoples Convoy on Washington, D.C. beltway

The Democrats will criminalize and prosecute these freedom lovers like they did with the January 6th protesters? Watch tyranny in action.

Needless to say, the enemedia is ignoring this historic movement – at least until they can smear, defame and marginalize them. They are using Ukraine to drown out the massive resistance movement.

Thousands of Vehicles in Truck-Led Convoy Gather in Maryland, Last Stop Before DC Region

HAGERSTOWN, Maryland—Thousands of vehicles in a truck-led convoy gathered in western Maryland on March 4, marking their last stop before heading to the Washington, D.C., region.

By Enrico Trigoso and Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times, March 5, 2022:

The People’s Convoy is calling for an end to the federal government’s COVID-19 emergency powers, which have enabled various COVID-19 restrictions and mandates to be imposed over the past two years.

Organizers of the convoy told The Epoch Times that the group has adjusted its plans and are no longer aiming to arrive in Washington on Saturday as previously reported. Rather, they will be staying in Hagerstown, Maryland—about 70 miles northwest of Washington—for Saturday, and will be headed to an unspecified location two miles from the D.C. Beltway area either on Sunday or Monday……

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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VIDEO: ‘The People’s Convoy’ Heading to Washington, D.C.

Canadian-Inspired Truck Convoy to Save USA to D.C.!


Democrats are readying their dungeons and gulags.

G-d protect us.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘The People’s Convoy’ Heading to Washington, Organizers Unveil Their Plans

By Enrico Trigoso, The Epoch Times, February 17, 2022:

A trucker-led convoy will kick off on Feb. 23 from the Barstow area in California, and head eastbound toward the capital of the constitutional republic—Washington D.C.—to peacefully protest to end the federal government’s emergency powers (pdf) declared since March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and restore freedoms protected by the Constitution.

Barstow is a city about 100 miles from Los Angeles where truckers often converge since it’s a major crossroads.

The large convoy goes by the name “The People’s Convoy” and will be non-partisan and cross-cultural in nature.

At the start of the convoy, an estimated 500 to 1,000 trucks will gather and depart eastward for Kingman, Arizona. The next morning, they will depart from that location and head east on Interstate 40 toward Lupton, Arizona. On Feb. 25, they plan to arrive at Glenrio, Texas.

The exact locations have not yet been specified due to the need to maintain operational security and to leave time to coordinate with local municipalities.

More details on the routes will be released two or three days in advance “as safety dictates, but you can expect us to travel along I-40 and work our way up towards D.C.,” Brian Brase, one of the core truckers that are organizing The People’s Convoy, told The Epoch Times.

Brase has been involved with various protests against over-regulation in the trucking industry for five years already.

Multiple groups will be joining the convoy as they drive toward the capital.

“It might be truckers that started it—standing up. But this is ‘The People’s Convoy’ for a reason. This is for every American, no matter where you come from or your personal background,” Brase said. “This is for every person to be a part of. This is not a left issue or a right issue. This is an American issue. And this convoy is for everyone. Moms in soccer vans, to motorcycles, to buses full of hippies, it [doesn’t] matter. This is for everyone that believes in their personal freedoms as a human being, and as an American, their personal freedoms that are protected by the Constitution of the United States.”

“It [doesn’t] matter what you drive, bring the golf carts, bring the mopeds, bring everybody, this is for everyone,” he added. “It’s the people’s convoy! It’s for the people.”

Brase said that official updates will be posted on thepeoplesconvoy.org, as well as their Facebook page and their Gettr page.

After seeing the problems the Canadian convoy had with their GoFundMe page, they set up three different means to receive donations via credit card, PayPal, or cryptocurrency. The donations are being handled through the nonprofit American Foundation for Civil Liberties & Freedom which is being supported through private banking as well as accountants and lawyers that will track the donations and place them accordingly.

Some of their plans are still being held “pretty close to the chest,” but the organizers will be issuing updates as the event takes shape.

Another goal of the movement is to hold officials accountable for the actions they took in the name of public health during the pandemic. Brase explained they would like to see “congressional hearings, as to several things: why the actions were taken that were taken, what science did they use to [back up] their actions.”

Brase said they are calling for “Senate hearings and things like judicial hearings through the Senate and the House, to get to the bottom of the source of the COVID-19 pandemic, how it started, where it started exactly, and who’s responsible for the steps of [the] mandates and shutting down people that have scientific facts that contradict what the CDC or the World Health Organization has said.”

Dr. Ryan Cole, founder of Cole Diagnostics, has voiced his support publicly for the convoy to Washington.

“A team of 17,000 doctors is standing in support of us. We’re excited to see that,” Brase said, “the white coat standing with the blue-collar,” referring to a petition to review the COVID-19 narrative signed by over 17,000 doctors, led by Dr. Robert Malone.

The truckers have security protocols still under development, as well as a code of conduct for participants, which will be uploaded to their website in the upcoming days. They also have contingency plans in the event that they are blocked along the way.

Brase believes that there are already troublemakers trying to infiltrate the convoy.

“The bottom line here is we’re not doing anything illegal. We’re standing up for our rights. We are Americans and we have the right to assemble. And we’re doing a march. It’s no different than any of the peaceful marches that have happened over the generations of the United States’s history,” Brase said.

“We’ve been doing everything that we can to promote a peaceful environment. We’re not out to overthrow the government or change election results … We’re not that. We’re here simply to be respected as Americans that want our Constitution of the United States respected, that’s what we want.”

They want the emergency powers act activated in response to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus to be nullified, because otherwise, even if mandates are lifted, they can easily be reinstated.

“If we can stop [the emergency powers], they have to fight to get that act back in place, and at that point, everybody will be prepared to stand up and fight that act coming back into place.”

Human rights attorney Leigh Dundas is working as a clearinghouse for information in order to effectuate the goals of the convoy in a “100 percent peaceful, law-abiding,” and “successful” way.

Dundas told The Epoch Times that the goal of the protest is to handle the situation at “the root level.”

“The message is really that the abuse of emergency powers that we’ve seen multiple states and the feds engaged in over the last almost two years has to stop. The state of emergency needs to end, there is no emergency anymore,” Dundas said.

“Because to just end a mandate here and a mandate there, we’re just playing whack a mole and we’re not getting to the root cause of the problem, which is the emergency powers that were triggered back in March of 2020. So those need to come to an end and we need to return to a state of normalcy. We need to restore freedom and accountability for any actors that were not behaving well at the governmental level.”

She said they’re not expecting police blockades along the way.

“We’re going through mainly red states,” Dundas said.

“We’re not expecting these states to blockade us because it would create a bit of a traffic jam for the state and we’re expecting to work with local and state jurisdictions to ensure the seamless flow of traffic as we proceed through the U.S.”

The convoy was inspired by the Freedom Convoy 2022 that began in Canada after the country’s Public Health Agency announced that only fully vaccinated truck drivers can only cross the U.S.–Canada border starting Jan. 15, and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced similar requirements starting Jan. 22 for non-U.S. national truckers crossing into the United States.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

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HART: Trudeau — ‘Crush’ Those Freedom Loving Mother Truckers!

The all-knowing, Teen Beat Magazine cover-looking son of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, made a boo-boo. He inherited his prime ministering business from his dad, so he thought things would be easy. The media gives lefties a pass, even if they enjoy dressing in blackface — a lot.

What the junior Trudeau did was to “mis-underestimate” (as “Dubya” Bush, our junior president, used to say), the power of the working people. Until now, the article of faith of those who inherit liberal-elite political positions is that if they just say that they are for the “little people,” the fools will buy it. No one holds them to account for what they actually do. “Words Matter; Actions Do Not” seems to be their creed.

Taking his cue from other hypocritical leftie leaders, Trudeau hid behind his political interpretation of “science” to impose draconian COVID measures on his subjects. He said that by making vaccines mandatory, he was the true hero. He decreed that those truckers, who drive alone in their truck cabs for a living, must get vaccinated so they do not get COVID.

Trudeau and Biden felt they needed to reassert their control over their voters to stop the disconcerting spike in personal freedoms.

Mad at this and other arrogant decisions made by the Prime Minister Junior on High, truckers in Canada formed the largest trucker convoy in history to protest. But the article of faith among woke libs is that the only protests allowed are the BLM kind, where many buildings burn and people die.

James Hoffa and other labor leaders showed their colors, or in this case colours, when they sided with their puppet masters in government rather than truckers. My dad was a truck driver for Campbell 66 back in the day. Their motto, when you could have interesting mottoes, was a camel on the side of his truck that said, “humping to please!” which was also the 1990 Arkansas gubernatorial campaign slogan for Bill Clinton. I learned from my dad to be nice to truckers; they drive the flyover country and know places where no one will find your body.

The old Mafia-like trucker unions cared about their trucker buddies. One of my dad’s trucker friends crossed the other truckers one time and they Tonya Harding’ed his leg, cutting half of it off. Just to make sure everyone remembered the incident, they made the guy go work at IHOP.

The way the corporate left-wing media covers protests is stark. If right-of-center Tea Party folks or truckers protest, they are “insurrectionists.” No one dies and they make their point, but somehow they are “terrorists,” “white supremacists” and “threats to democracy.” If you think about it, peaceful protest is the definition of democracy. Petulant politicians who cry and fake injury like a soccer player are the reasons the common man has to unite and make his reasoned point.

I get that truckers slowing down deliveries hurts the economy. But it makes the broader point, that they grease the wheels of the economy. Trudeau has declared martial law, so he has unchecked power.

Trudeau is getting his first real economics lesson. Without truckers, he could not get his steady supply of Al Jolson-brand blackface. Fittingly, he is down to just a little black shoe polish, just enough to put on two fingers so he can do a small mustache for himself.

Last year we honored health care workers. This year we should honor truckers. And next year under Biden we should honor Taco Bell, the only place you can still get gas for under $5.

The left somehow thinks they are so smart, powerful and concerned about you that they, and only they, can make health care decisions for you and for private enterprise. And they do have a monopoly on this since Democrats Bill Clinton, Andrew Cuomo and Harvey Weinstein perfected the construct of “No Jab, No Job” for female employees. Like many American corporations and now the Canadian government say to the truckers about the vaccine, “put this in your body, or you will never work in this industry again.” Again, this sounds like something Clinton, Cuomo and Weinstein may have said.

COLUMN BY

RON HART

Ron Hart is a syndicated op-ed humorist, award-winning author, and TV/radio commentator; you can reach him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or Twitter @RonaldHart.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Freedom Is A Slippery Concept’: George Washington University Prof Says ‘Freedom’ Is A Tool Of The ‘Far-Right’

George Washington University associate professor Elisabeth Anker criticized the concept of freedom Sunday in comments to CBC Radio regarding the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” protest.

She said freedom was a “slippery concept,” claiming that “on the far right, [individual freedom] is often translated into somebody who refuses to be bound by norms of equality, treating all people equally or norms to remedy inequality, whether that’s trying to remedy racial discrimination or gender discrimination,” according to CBC.

She called the “far right” version of freedom “violent freedom,” and said it could result in danger and discrimination and potentially be anti-democratic, CBC reported. Anker said it was surprising that Canadians were pushing back against “social interdependence” with the language of individual freedom during the trucker convoy protest.

The CBC article, titled “Why the word ‘freedom’ is such a useful rallying cry for protesters,” cited another “expert,” Barbara Perry, director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, who complained that freedom is too flexible of a term, linking the concept to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

An opinion article published by The Globe And Mail Feb. 8 also complained that conservatives “appropriated” freedom to oppose vaccine mandates and other COVID-related restrictions.

“For many, it’s a word that has become code for white-identity politics and the far-right’s weapon of choice in the culture wars,” columnist Gary Mason wrote, adding that freedom “has not always been a concept usurped for selfish, malicious purposes.”

Anker and Perry did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

COLUMN BY

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

WATCH: Cowboys Join Truckers Freedom Convoy

How perfect! The cavalry has arrived.

RELATED TWEET: Canada has now officially become a totalitarian police state.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow me on Gettr. I am there, click here. It’s open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.