Heavy Duty Trucking, February 2018

WASHINGTON REPORT Environmental advocates state attorneys general and others are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to maintain the Obama administrations regulation restricting the use of glider kits under the Greenhouse Gas Phase 2 rules saying efforts to reverse the rule are at odds with the Clean Air Act CAA In November EPA moved ahead with its promise to repeal the glider provision within the 2016 GHG rules EPAs proposed repeal contended that glider kits should not be included in GHG regulations because glider vehicles are not technically new motor vehicles and glider engines are not new motor vehicle engines and thus are not subject to the EPAs authority on environmental regulations In a Jan 8 phone conference the Environmental Defense Fund challenged that reading as intentionally misrepresentative of With the electronic logging device rule in effect the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is considering revising a much older but related regulation Per an announcement published in the Federal Register the agency is proposing to revise its regulatory guidance on commercial vehicle drivers legally using trucks as personal conveyance while off duty At this point the agency said it is considering only a narrow change in its guidance on personal conveyance FMCSA stated it now wants to focus on the reason the driver is operating a CMV while off duty without regard to whether the CMV is or is not laden FMSCA said the original personal conveyance guidance unchanged since 1997 required the truck to be unladen and was written with combination vehicles in mind where the driver could readily detach the trailer and use the unladen tractor for personal conveyance The agency now contends that that 20 year old interpretation had the inadvertent effect of not allowing drivers of single unit work trucks that carry loads as well as tools of the trade and related materials on the power unit to document this off duty time on the records of duty status For such drivers it notes that these loads tools and other equipment cannot reasonably be offloaded left unattended and reloaded after the power unit has been used for personal conveyance FMCSA stated that its proposed revision would simply eliminate the requirement that the CMV be unladen and thus the disparate impact created by the previous guidance The issue of personal conveyance has been the source of quite a few questions under the new electronic logging device mandate since those miles will now be recorded Carriers are advised to have a policy in place regarding personal conveyance train drivers on it and document it The agency also noted that as part of the ELD rule in effect since Dec 18 ELD manufacturers are required to include a special driving category for personal conveyance This may be used at the motor carriers discretion based on their operations stated FMCSA In addition motor carriers may grant drivers authority to operate a CMV under personal conveyance without preconfiguring the ELD with the personal conveyance special driving category David Cullenthe CAA saying it went against the principles upon which the legislation was founded For EPA to propose an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that would exclude these extremely high polluting trucks from emissions standards is not only an unreasonable reading of the plain text of the CAA its also at odds with and severely undermines the core purpose of the Clean Air Act said Alice Henderson EDF attorney EDF representatives also pointed out that industry stakeholders didnt challenge the EPAs authority over glider kits at the time the Phase 2 standards were being written In fact late last year some of those stakeholders signed a letter supporting the original mandate The letter signed by executives from Volvo Group North America Cummins and Navistar stated that glider kits should not be used to bypass currently certified powertrains In addition a coalition of 12 attorneys general from California Connecticut Illinois Maryland Massachusetts New Mexico New York North Carolina Oregon Pennsylvania Vermont and Washington filed a comment strongly opposing the glider rule repeal stating that the group was prepared to take any action to protect the emissions regulation including legal challenges Under the Clean Air Act the EPA is required to set and enforce motor vehicle emissions standards said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra If EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decides to neglect this legal responsibility by doing away with the glider rule we are prepared to take any and all action to protect the air our children breathe and the vitality and level playing field of the trucking industry an important sector of our economy Steven Martinez EPA urged to keep GHG rules on glider kits FMCSA looking at definition of personal conveyance FMCSA cuts UCR fees The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a final rule that reduces annual fees collected for the Unified Carrier Registration UCR Plan and Agreement for the 2018 2019 and subsequent registration years FMCSA said that to ensure that fee revenues do not exceed the statutory maximum and to account for the excess funds held in the depository for the 2018 registration year the fees will be cut below the current level by approximately 910 State enforcement of the UCR registration requirements commonly begins on Jan 1 each year Since the 2018 registration had to be delayed several months the UCR Board requested states to not enforce until 90 days after the fees go into effect that is not until April 5 However there were anecdotal reports at press time that some jurisdictions were not honoring that request HDT FEBRUARY 2018 16 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM