Thursday, August 9, 2012

CARB Turns Up The Heat

Looks like CARB is getting around to enforcing diesel emissions mandates. Per my earlier post, the political pressure on CARB, coupled with California’s financial woes can be a powerful driver to accelerate revenue-generating activities for the State of California.

Recent coverage in Land Line Magazine and the truckinginfo.com website are documenting that CARB is “turning up the heat” on enforcing emissions mandates this summer. So you can expect to start encountering enforcement officials at weigh stations, truck stops, state entry points and other high-traffic locales.

As I’ve noted before, truck and fleet owners aren’t the only ones who will be responsible for equipment compliance. Customers and even shipping brokers can also be held responsible for shipping materials on non-compliant equipment. CARB was already enforcing stringent penalties on some brokers as early as last year.

CARB emissions penalties on fleet and equipment owners are no laughing matter either, with fines of up to $10,000 per vehicle per day, holds on registration renewals and transfers and even liens on property in some cases. Fleets and owners that are not compliant not only risk fines, but risk there businesses and livelihoods as well.

All of this boils down to the fact that CARB is now starting to take their enforcement efforts (and its revenue potential) very seriously – trying to dodge this enforcement can prove costly (if not fatal) to your business. Your sense of urgency should be high at this point if your equipment is non-compliant…

If you are not sure what your compliance requirements are or how to get started, I would recommend visiting our CARB Action Webpage or contacting our CARB Compliance Team at 1-800-331-9247 (press “9”) or via email at ecs@enginecontrolsystems.com. They can help you get started…