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The Trucking Alliance, which consists of motor carrier members, contends that granting a 5-year exemption to smaller carriers would 'gut' the ELD rule. Photo: Knight Transportation
">Is there such a thing as granting too big an exemption to the electronic logging rule? That's the gist of joint comments submitted to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration by a safety advocacy group composed of motor carriers and a highway-safety lobby.
The joint comments pertain to a request filed with the agency back in November by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association for a five-year exemption to the electronic-logging device rule for motor carriers “considered to be a small transportation trucking business.”
OOIDA's request “would gut the long-settled electronic logging device rule by allowing nearly all trucking companies to delay compliance,” said the Alliance for Driver Safety and Security (aka the Trucking Alliance) and the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (“Advocates”) in a Feb. 1 press release.
Their statement goes on to characterize OOIDA's request as “a transparent attempt to bypass Congress and the courts by regurgitating discredited arguments which seek to advance special interests at the expense of road safety for all motorists.”
While the five-year exemption request was filed over two months ago, it is but one of several exemptions either issued by FMCSA or requested of the agency since the ELD mandate kicked in on Dec. 18. For example, just two days before word of these joint comments was released, the agency said it is considering a request by one motor carrier for a one-year exemption from electronic logging rules as having been made “on behalf of all motor carriers in similar situations…”
According to the OOIDA request, filed with FMCSA on Nov. 21, the self-certification of ELD vendors ...Read the rest of this story
Photo via NGVAmerica.
">Argonne National Laboratory launched the Heavy-Duty Vehicle Emissions Calculator (HDVEC) at a presentation at FedFleet 2018 in Washington, D.C. This online resource was created to provide state officials and fleet managers with an accurate tool to gauge emissions reductions across various medium- and heavy-duty vehicle project options affiliated with the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Settlement. NGVAmerica welcomes the HDVEC tool as reflecting current vehicle availability and emissions performance data and congratulates Argonne on its success.
“As public officials begin to evaluate how best to clean their state's air with their allotted VW Trust funding, this resource will prove vital in evaluating cost-effectiveness of real-world vehicle options,” said Andrew Burnham of Argonne's Center for Transportation Research. “The Vehicle Emissions Calculator is a valuable tool for policymakers, fleet managers and procurement administrators alike as they look to compare vehicle technologies for emissions reductions associated with fleet operations.”
Available at the Argonne website and linked at the NGVAmerica's website, the HDVEC estimates the vehicle operation nitrogen oxide (NOx) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) as well as the well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) of current commercially-available alternative fuel medium- and heavy-duty vehicles eligible for funding under the VW settlement. Volkswagen's $2.9 billion Environmental Mitigation Trust fund provides each state an incredible opportunity to make an immediate and tangible impact on air quality by targeting medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, the leading source of these toxic air contaminants in almost every metropolitan area.
“Heavy-duty vehicles are the fastest growing segment of U.S. transportation in terms of energy use and emissions, and HDVs are major emitters of NOx, diesel particulate matter, and greenhouse gases,” said NGVAmerica President Daniel Gage. “Mobile sources account for 50 percent of America's smog-precursor emissions like NOx. This calculator demonstrates that allocating funds to deploy low-NOx ...Read the rest of this story
