As I wrote last week, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to rescind the Obama EPA’s endangerment finding is fantastic. But now that the actual proposal has been published, there is one thing that makes it fall short of being 100 percent MAGA: Part of the proposal doubles down on an anti-independent trucker rule first issued by the Obama EPA.
“Glider trucks” are used trucks whose engines and chassis have been rebuilt and outfitted with new cabs. They look new on the outside, but they are old and rebuilt on the inside. Gliders cost about 25 percent less than totally new trucks and are a favorite of small, independent trucking firms. Gliders were the 1990s brainchild of Tennessee mechanic and eventual Trump supporter Tommy Fitzgerald, who built a $700 million glider business from the ground up.
In 2016, the Obama EPA reclassified glider trucks as new trucks so that gliders would have to meet stringent new truck emissions standards. In the first place, new trucks only meet new truck emissions standards in the ideal-but-unreal conditions of an emissions lab testing facility. Emissions from rebuilt glider engines, however, are not materially different from new truck engines in head-to-head real-world emissions testing.
The Obama EPA rule against gliders was illegally issued. When proposed, the emissions rule only applied to totally new trucks. But when the rule was finalized, it surprisingly included glider trucks, classifying them as new trucks. Not mentioned in the Obama EPA proposal, the glider truck industry had no advance notice of, or timely opportunity to participate in the rulemaking. The Obama EPA also did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis for its rule, contrary to an Obama Executive order.
In 2017, the Trump EPA proposed to rescind the Obama rule as it applied to gliders. But the Washington, DC swamp sabotaged the effort. I obtained emails through the Freedom of Information Act revealing the skullduggery.
Without the approval or even knowledge of Trump 1.0 EPA chief Scott Pruitt, the new truck industry and EPA “resistance” cooked up a scheme for rigging emissions lab tests for a couple glider trucks so they could be labeled as “super-polluting.”
The glider trucks involved in the rogue EPA lab testing were conveniently and suspiciously purchased and supplied by the new truck industry, not the glider truck industry. The operating condition of the gliders tested was less than optimal.
One of the trucks was tested while its “Check Engine” light was on, and the other was tested while its engine harness was soaked in motor oil. Both gliders were tested using suboptimal biodiesel that further increased emissions. Then-Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) explained the rigging at a 2018 House hearing. Based on this rigged testing, the media and politicians were enlisted by the new truck industry to stop the Trump EPA from rescinding the Obama rule about the falsely accused “super-polluting” gliders.
The emissions results were then released by surprise by the new trucking industry at the EPA public meeting for the proposal. Once again, this was without the knowledge or approval of Trump EPA leadership.
The scheme worked. Ironically, the EPA proposal was subsequently killed by the Office of Management and Budget, ostensibly because no cost-benefit analysis had been conducted by the Trump EPA. And that killed the homegrown US glider truck industry as the new cab manufacturers would no longer sell glider kits to glider manufacturers like Fitzgerald. Although the chief of the EPA division that conducted the rigged testing was eventually reassigned, the timid and resistance-plagued Trump 1.0 EPA could not subsequently correct the harm caused to the glider industry.
I was more than a little surprised to discover last week that the Trump 2.0 EPA proposal to reverse the endangerment finding also included language reaffirming that gliders should remain classified as new trucks:
“Starting in model year 2024, auxiliary power units installed on new tractors, including tractors that are glider vehicles or tractors with no installed propulsion engine, must be certified to the PM emission standard specified in 40 CFR 1039.699.”
This is absurd given that putting a new cab on an old engine and chassis is clearly not a new truck.
Moreover, glider trucks with rebuilt engines are actually better for the environment than used trucks being driven until absolute engine failure. The economics of gliders are better for small trucking businesses and better for consumers to the extent that small, independent truckers can compete with large, new truck-outfitted trucking operations.
Instead of rubberstamping the anti-MAGA Obama EPA glider rule, the Trump EPA should do the MAGA thing and repeal the Obama rule the same way it was promulgated in the first place – that is, in the upcoming final rule. The glider industry should be allowed to keep on trucking.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Photo: mccready/Flickr)
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