Those responsible for the transportation of fresh fruits and vegetables across the U.S. are worried — to say the least — about emissions standards in California set to go into effect later this year.
Under the new regulations, created by the California Air Resources Board, most over-the-road trucks will need to be retrofitted with diesel particulate filters.
Critics of the plan say it could cost the trucking industry $5 billion or more over the next 10 years. Per-truck costs could reach $15,000.
Because their business relies so heavily on interstate commerce, carriers and truckers are particularly vulnerable when individual states start passing their own emissions mandates, said Kenny Lund, vice president of operations for Allen Lund Co. Inc., La Canada, Calif.
“The produce world needs to look at California, at what’s going on. It’s a scary thing,” he said. “To have a whole different set-up, just to come into the state, I don’t know how they’re going to do it.”
Many simply won’t, Lund predicted. He said there could be a “wholesale departure” of capacity from the Golden State because of the onerous regulations.
Chuck Nelson, president of Chuck’s Transport Inc., New Braunfels, Texas, agreed.
“If the rest follow California on the new regulations, it’s not going to be economically feasible for a tremendous amount of carriers to stay in business,” he said. “If Obama follows the lead, and thinks green is the way to go, the only thing it will do is create a lot of red in the trucking industry.”
Replacing $100,000 trucks with $150,000 trucks that are more environmentally friendly is simply not a viable option for most truckers, Nelson said.
People in the transportation industry, Lund said, are tired of being regulated by legislators and bureaucrats who don’t know anything about their industry.
“I had a driver say, ‘I’ve been driving for 35 years, and I keep getting regulated by people who have not only never driven a truck, they’ve never seen the inside of one.’”
New emissions regulations aren’t the only regulations originating in California that could have an adverse effect on transportation providers in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry, said Doug Stoiber, vice president of produce transportation operations for L&M Transportation Services Inc., a division of Raleigh, N.C.-based L&M Cos. Inc.
“I think the biggest issue right now in the transportation industry is proposed legislation in Cali-fornia on equipment idling restrictions,” Stoiber said. “It could have a tremendous impact. It could cause rates to go sky high.”
The proposed legislation would limit how long truckers could leave their trucks on while they waited to load or unload.
“Because of the sheer volume coming out of California, the impact could be tremendous,” Stoiber said. “It could cause a lot of carriers who are invested in reefers to say, ‘I’m not investing in reefers anymore.’”
It’s not like carriers can just delegate one or two trucks their “California” trucks, and thus get just those trucks up to snuff, said Mark Petersen, general manager of transportation for C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., Eden Prairie, Minn. Instead, they’ll have to retrofit their entire fleets, he said, due to the centrality of the Golden State to most carriers. And the ramifications of taking on that massive task are beyond comprehension, Petersen said.
“I don’t know if anyone understands what that will mean on July 1,” the day the California emissions standards go into effect, he said.