Thread: Feds pay to upgrade Mexican trucks–US trucks not so lucky

RadioVice Online
Steve M

Feds pay to upgrade Mexican trucks – US trucks not so lucky

A story broke yesterday concerning the retrofit of more than 100 trucks from Mexico that do not meet United States environmental standards. Our federal government is paying to upgrade these trucks, yet when the state of California and the EPA set new rules for US-owned trucks, they fine companies who do not comply.

This post is not about the environment, it concerns how US trucking companies are treated by the federal and state government as compared to Mexican-owned rigs. From AzCentral.com.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ation.html

For air-quality regulators, the border creates a legal barrier. State and federal agencies can’t force vehicles manufactured and bought in Mexico to comply with U.S. emissions rules, even though the trucks cross into this country.

So the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality tried a different approach, offering to pay Mexican truck owners to replace old mufflers with new catalytic converters that will reduce harmful diesel emissions by up to 30 percent. The project in effect circumvents the more lax Mexican rules about exhaust systems.

Using federal grant money, the state agency installed the new converters on 55 trucks last year and will refit about the same number by the middle of this year.

The cost per truck is about [b] $1,600[/] and US taxpayers are footing the bill. The logical move would be to require trucks that cross the border be up to US standards to meet safety and environmental rules, but that might just be considered racist, so it’s off the table. I just made that up, but you know racism would be one of the charges thrown out there if we required Mexico’s trucks to meet our standards.

So do American truck owners and companies get to drive into a convenient truck stop and get their free upgrades to meet state and federal guidelines? Of course not.

The State of California implemented strict regulations on refrigerated trucks back in 2004. Last April, a federal court agreed California could enforce these rules even though the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had less-stringent standards. The upgrades to the transportation refrigerated units (TRUs) mandated by California and approved by the EPA will cost businesses $2,000 to $5,000 per unit.
http://www.overdriveonline.com/court-ca ... r-regs-ok/

At issue in the case was EPA’s grant of a waiver to the California Air Resources Board on Jan. 16, 2009, allowing the agency to enforce the [transportation refrigerated units] TRU regulations, which were adopted in February 2004. The regulations mandate reductions in engine emissions by requiring that TRUs equipped with diesel engines that are seven years or older be replaced or retrofit with new engines or verified diesel emissions control strategies, or VDECS. Or operators can use alternative technologies such as electric-standby/hybrid-electric or hybrid-cryogenic systems.

Once California got their waiver to implement the stricter regulations in December 2009, they started enforcement efforts. In January and February of 2010 the California Air Resources Board…

[quote]issued citations totaling more than $180,000 in penalties for failing to register equipment and failing to meet emissions requirements…

What’s wrong with this picture?

Source: http://radioviceonline.com/feds-pay-to- ... -so-lucky/

related

U.S. Pays To Upgrade Mexican Trucks
http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-234353-0-da ... rasc-.html

related

U.S. funds, Arizona effort help Mexico trucks pollute less

NOGALES - Hundreds of big trucks cross the U.S.-Mexican border here every day, many more than once. On a busy day, the rigs idle for long stretches of time, waiting in line at the border, spewing exhaust through often-outdated mufflers that contribute to unhealthy levels of pollution.

For air-quality regulators, the border creates a legal barrier. State and federal agencies can't force vehicles manufactured and bought in Mexico to comply with U.S. emissions rules, even though the trucks cross into this country.

So the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality tried a different approach, offering to pay Mexican truck owners to replace old mufflers with new catalytic converters that will reduce harmful diesel emissions by up to 30 percent. The project in effect circumvents the more lax Mexican rules about exhaust systems.

Using federal grant money, the state agency installed the new converters on 55 trucks last year and will refit about the same number by the middle of this year. The project is part of a broader initiative to improve air quality on both sides of the border, where towns and cities often lack resources or expertise to do it themselves.

"It's about establishing this relationship on environmental issues," said ADEQ Director Henry Darwin. "It's especially important on air quality because you can't stop the air from moving across the border."

On a hazy day in Ambos Nogales - Spanish for "Both Nogaleses," the name used to describe Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora - most of the pollution hanging in the air originates on the Mexican side of the border. Fewer than 21,000 people live in Nogales, Ariz.; an estimated 300,000 live in the Sonoran city.

The pollution is a toxic mix of dust particles, vehicle exhaust and volatile compounds that produce ground-level ozone, all elements linked to respiratory ailments and other health problems.

The air is bad enough that the region fails to meet limits for coarse-dust pollution set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The dust is generated by industrial activity, trash fires and hundreds of miles of unpaved roads.

Yet while Arizona communities suffer the ill effects of the bad air, U.S. regulators can only encourage Mexico to address the issue. The diesel-fueled trucks that crossed the border on short hauls, moving goods back and forth between warehouses and factories, offered a rare opportunity for a state or federal agency to intervene.

"There's not a lot of low-hanging fruit in these areas," Darwin said. "There really aren't a lot of industrial sources that we can require to install equipment. We have to be creative."

Using EPA grant money, the state offered to refit the trucks with the new exhaust systems, replacing factory-installed mufflers with converters similar to what is required for U.S. trucks. The process takes two or three hours to complete at a cost per truck of about $1,600.

"It's a definite upgrade," said Larry Boch, an account manager for Auto Safety House, the Phoenix-based company doing the work. The old mufflers were all that was required down there, still are."

The company worked with a Nogales businessman who had extensive contacts with truck operators on the Sonoran side of the border. He sold the idea among some of the larger trucking companies and provided space for the work on a gravel lot just a few hundred yards from the Mariposa border crossing, where most truck traffic is funneled.

The truck, without its trailer, pulls onto the lot, which sits across a narrow street from a busy Shell gas station. The mechanics remove the old muffler and install the catalytic converter. If the system is mounted on the side of the cab, as many are, the work is easy.

The entire cost - parts and labor - is paid by the EPA grant through ADEQ.

Ari-Son Trucking, based in Nogales, Sonora, has had 17 of its trucks fit with the new systems, said Lourdes Puebla Maldonado, administrative manager for the company.

"It was an excellent opportunity for us," she said. "We feel it is for the community and for the benefit of both cities."

Mexican authorities have begun addressing air quality on their side of the border. The government has started paving dirt roads, which produce nearly 9,000 tons of dust pollution each year in the Nogales region.

Other sources present more complicated issues. Trash fires, vehicles and industrial operations spew enormous amounts of dust. On back-to-back March afternoons, the skies filled with smoke from a fire at a recycling plant on the Mexican side and from a wildfire that burned 7,500 acres on the Arizona side.

The scope of the problem is still difficult to quantify, in part because Mexican officials have done little to monitor air quality until recently. With loans and grant money from international funding agencies, Sonoran authorities have installed air monitors that will help regulators on both sides of the border identify and measure pollution sources.

"That's really the first step," Darwin said. "Unless you know where you're starting from, you can't get anywhere."

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... z1JLw370b6

Why is it that the Canadian trucking companies and owner/operators can and have met all our safety standards, air quality restrictions and transportation equipment requirements, but their Mexican counterparts can't, won't, or refuse to and get away with it?

I hope for the day our truckers organize another drive to D.C. and refuse to move any products until that flap-eared, empty-suited ****** puppet and his handlers get the message.

How dare those running this country use our tax dollars to help the foreign truckers when they make it so difficult and expensive on our own truckers to follow stringent regulations and meet increasing fuel costs.

What would happen if someone with lots of money sent a spoof letter to every truck driver demanding they pay their fair share of the bill to repair the Mexican trucks and pay the money now before the Mexicans take their jobs?

I sent this to both of my Senators and my Congressman asked why this was happening. I will interested to hear the response.

I'M GETTING READY TO FIRE OFF MY LETTER CONCERNING THIS MATTER TO HEATH SHULER. OBAMA SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO KEEP DOING S**t LIKE THIS AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT.

Are ya Broke America; that's right I thought so

Do you have Massive Unemployment to include Truck Drivers America; that's right I thought so

are they using American Tax Dollars to improve Mexican Trucks to take away MORE American Truck Drivers Jobs; That's what it looks like

Are you in Debt to the tune of 14 TRILLION and GROWING; because of FRAUD, WASTE and ABUSE of TAX Payer Dollars from Fraudulent SHIT Like This

THIS IS MONEY LAUNDERING TO GLOBALIST COMPANY'S AND WHOM EVER APPROVED THIS NEEDS TO BE LOCKED BEHIND BARS

as a foot note / side Bar ~ The Crack Head~n~Chief says he needs to raise Taxes to Bring Down the 14 Trillion National Debt ~ He can Kiss my Ass

I'm not paying for this Shit; no how no way