EPA Rejects CARB Out-of-State Testing
The United States is founded on the balance between state and federal powers, and oftentimes when the two governmental entities disagree, there is work to be done to find the balance between the two of them. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) had stepped beyond its boundaries in applying one of its standards to trucks outside of state borders, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Details
It is said that what goes for California eventually goes for the rest of the nation, but does the California state government have the power to enact that immediately? The EPA says no, as CARB was attempting to measure vehicular emissions on trucks that were registered from out of state.
“Americans didn’t vote for California’s policies to be imposed nationwide” EPA director Lee Zeldin said in a statement.
The EPA said that while California had the ability to apply these standards to trucks registered within its borders, it did not have the power to ask trucks in, for example, Oklahoma to adopt the same standards, violating the Clean Air Act which says that each state has the power to manage its own air quality. Additionally, the program was attempting to apply itself to other countries, which the EPA says is an overstep of state boundaries into the federal level.
Conclusion
As it currently stands, CARB is more than welcome to test the emissions for trucks registered within the most populous state in the nation to determine if it fits within its standards, but just as how New Jersey cannot discriminate against a Californian truck, California cannot impose strict regulations against a truck registered in New Jersey that is making a delivery within its borders.
The implications of this decision by the EPA is immediately obvious: trucking companies that have the power to register trucks outside of California will opt to do so, purchasing trucks with lower emissions standards in order to save money on purchasing a newer vehicle. Ultimately, though, as time presses on the average pollution of a truck decreases, as emissions often decrease each decade as technological breakthroughs are found.
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