Emissions requirements, CARB, CAFE… Details not rumors.

nice work Guntoter,,but california law makers just dont care how the laws & reqs affect business's out here..you comply or move your business else where...they are brutal here,Even the regs for simple homesteading here are wack....

 

All of that is great but the problem is this ...

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:

[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;

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This has been backed up by a bunch of SC cases and a basis of all the laws where federal government has a regulating force, as in civil rights, discrimination, rail transportation, Air travel and even the stock market.

We all work under this clause if we cross state lines and California can not tell a truck driver from Michigan what he can or can't have on his truck. The EPA can't demand retrofitting of trucks either. So now the OOIDA has finally gotten off their butts and brining this to court. They will win because if you understand that the laws that are all based on Federal preemption and Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the constitution with the supporting SC cases to allow Federal Preemption, then you will understand that the feds have 90% of their power from this. Losing would strip them of the power, the laws will no longer be enforcible and we will have a big mess.

Remember this has nothing to do with emission, it is a constitutional issue.

 

The premise of this post is assuming the feds are against CARB. They are not. The feds have been abusing the commerce clause for tens of decades. Why do they care if CARB does if they aren't opposed?

 

It doesn't matter if they are or not.

The problem is if it goes through court and the feds are told too bad, what then?

They care, they care a lot when it comes to issues like this because this is something that congress can only fix with an amendment and they won't ever get that past the states.

Don't care, this isn't about environmental policy or regulations, those are laws that are underneath the entire constitution, not parts of it. The way this works is that the tenth is preemptive through the duty of the feds to regulate interstate commerce which was ratified by the states.

The ninth is only applicable to the ninth district, doesn't have authority to make decisions based on the constitution for the country. Axle weights (bridge laws), length laws are a completely different issue, it doesn't stop someone from plying their work in another state, to be exact congress solve a lot of these problems through the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA) in '82.

Sorry guy, the intent of the ICC was exactly that - to allow you freedom to travel into another state for the purpose of commerce in that state. This was a very important point, made by the fact that some states were protecting themselves from outside sources of products. The means of transportation is as important as the actual commerce and this has been dealt with in the 40's under the multiple state agreement that harmonized our vehicle codes which prevented the feds from stepping in and doing it for them. This by the way was a preemptive thing for the federal highway system (Eisenhower wasn't even elected then). The feds are the only one who can regulate commerce between states, no one else can. So this means that if you are there to drive your truck and your truck meets your state's requirements, like lights and horns and so on, California can not stop you from entering the state period.

The speed limit laws, the off the STAA route road regulation and so on are the state's right to deal with, these don't prevent one from entering the state.

The problem is that the SC has an obligation to point out the foundation of a united states, which this is one of the few actual duties of the feds. Congress isn't the one who has the concern, nor is the administration but the courts because it is a direct question for only the courts to decide - can a state put restriction or prevent a person from another state access to their markets for the sole purpose of conducting a commercial transaction or be a part of that transaction?

Congress can't pass it onto the states, the administration can not (by penalty of impeachment) ignore the duty, so the courts have to tell California too bad - CARB is out for foreign (out of state) trucks.

The only exception is that if the state that the truck is registered in, in my case Michigan, agrees with California and adopts CARB regulations by passing the laws in our legislature, which is unlikely. The EPA can't mandate the retrofitting either unless congress gets involved, but that's another story.

I fully agree with you, but here is the problem with your premise, it isn't that the feds are telling any one state how to govern "its" people but telling a state how not to govern another state's people. This is very very important to get in that libertrian head because if we are going to allow one state to dictate what another does with withholding access of their markets as a threat, all the rights you and I have, given by God are jeopardized. In this case, we are solely regulated by the feds for interstate commerce, and it was done that way so we have no states dictating to other state's people how to make a living. It seems to be the only thing that worked right since the constitution was ratified.

 

The commerce clause didn't stop Kansas from imposing property tax on out of state trucks, Oregon from refusing to participate in IFTA, New Mexico from participating in IRP. The list goes ................

 

I understand the point, so I put the info I learned in the post as I have been doing when ever the subject is brought up. What is missed is that sometimes we think that just because a state does something, all is lost.

I am going to add a couple more things if you don't mind.

The problem in thinking that the 10th applies to this is that reading it is clear as day "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" This clearly means that we, the people through the states gave them the power to regulate commerce between states - no if ands or buts. It is in the constitution, it is a duty of the federal government and a power delegated to them in order to allow the states to have a neutral arbiter on interstate commerce issues. The problem I feel with the idea that the states can just do what ever they want seems to ignore the other states and agreements (treaties) between the states. In this case, the ICC is one part of the issue with California's CARB, the other issue is California signed onto harmonizing those vehicle laws to allow any vehicle from another state to enter that state and the states have the right to take them to court or nullify that agreement which can close off California from the rest of the country by preventing California registered trucks to cross into other states.

Because of that last issue, let's put this in another point of view. Say the courts said "Yes California can do that", so Michigan now can tell anyone taking California fruits and veggies into the state they now need a special permit per load and that permit costs $1m. Who in their right mind would get a permit for $18k worth of fruits or veggies?

See now there is a serious problem for California, they have no markets in Michigan to sell their fruits and veggies, something that Michigan can do to protect their growers in the state. AND if say Arizona does the same thing, with Texas right behind them, we have bigger problems with all of it, culminating to the problem with federal jurisdictional matters, because ignoring the ICC via a court decision then guts the fda and other regulatory agencies. One reason for the clause, to prevent a snowball effect like this to take place.

On the other hand, there is the issue of Obama care, that becomes a moot point if the ICC is not upheld.

I didn't know about that but IRP and IFTA are both based on agreements for fuel/permit taxes between states, the feds have nothing to do with it and get their flat tax no matter where the fuel is bought and that tax is uniformed in both the rate and collection methods.